Satyrical Sophist

I don't know what the asterisks are standing for there, but I'm taking it as you saying that people are massaging the data. That's not my intent, my primary initial goal is to work out what kind of expected damage outcome you get from each unit, since it can be pretty important for battle tactics, you don't want to accidentally kill the unit you are trying to suppress to score that battle tactic. Neil Arthur Hotep calculated the expected damage numbers for the other shooting options and applied all relevant buffs to them (including a spell for the lumineth, other buffing characters for other units). I can't think of any that he missed, and he was very open about all the buffs used. I've not directly checked them, but given his fusilier numbers are exactly the same as mine I figure he is right. If you want to have the unbuffed Fusilier numbers you are more than welcome, I think I might have included them in a previous post but not sure, I'll do a post with it when I'm at my desk. Tried to set up a pretty one from Google sheets from my phone and that was not happening. What kind of "Unmassaged" numbers are you looking for? Sounds like you want Idoneth Reavers added. I don't know deepkin very well, other than AoA what would buffed up Reavers include? I think blissbarbs were just getting the homunculus and all out attack buff, but would gladly include whatever you want. I don't know if you intended to, but your message feels quite aggressive, I think this has mostly been a pretty chill conversation about a faction it sounds like a lot of us are excited to try out. I know I'm looking forward to trying out some Dark Elves I always thought were neat and am trying to work out how to do my colour scheme to tie things in. I'm thinking of a White, Black and Burgundy scheme, maybe changing the primary colour depending on the subfaction. My first attempt at cities (Which was 75% high and wood elves, D'oh) had some issues where I was keeping too close to one scheme, and I ended up with some very dull looking dwarves. If I'm painting some lumineth allies as well I want it to match (considering Sererith for some shooting, mortal wounds and potential objective grabbing).

I've looked at the efficiency of units by taking the expected damage of the unit (Calculated by Neil Arthur Hotep in these, since I've only done the CoS directly myself, I believe his numbers) . and dividing it by the points cost of the unit and multiplying by 100 to get what 100 points of that unit's damage is, with a goal of getting easy to grokk how units compare to each other. I absolutely agree that efficiency really isn't everything when it comes to calculating this stuff. I actually quite like steam tanks, and they come out pretty dreadfully on efficiency but also fight pretty well, and are absurdly tough vs non mortal wounds. Units that do a bunch of things are often look terribly on efficiency metrics but then question you need to ask yourself is whether you will be using enough of the things the unit can do, or alternatively whether one of the situational good points is so good in those situations if its worth taking the efficiency hit. Jack, I've calculated the points per damage for each of the units. I haven't added in command point costs through, since while I agree it is a cost its a cost that is going to vary substantially army to army. If you are greywater fastness then its barely any cost to AoA. Same for the command point rich Hedonite build. Save Fusiliers with Alchemite (Pt Per D) Blissbarb Archers (Pt Per D) Lumineth Sentinels (Pt Per D) Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike (Pt Per D) Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla (Pt Per D) 2+ 29.50 42.16 37.91 43.11 54.31 3+ 23.88 28.09 33.68 35.69 47.09 4+ 20.06 21.07 30.30 30.44 41.51 5+ 17.29 16.86 27.56 26.54 37.16 6+ 15.19 14.05 25.26 26.54 33.63 - 15.19 14.05 25.26 26.54 33.63 Not the person you asked, but I'll have a go! I suspect there is a good chance that there is a spam build, but I wouldn't put it as a certainty by any measure. I think there is a very good chance that it does end up peaking at a single unit, since you are buff limited, and its not very mobile. Black Powder Bombardment I don't put as a particularly top tier battle tactic for any build honestly. I think its a really good one to have access to, but its situational. I would probably want more shooting units than a big block of fusiliers, but that can be incidental shooting. I suspect it gets taken when the situation is that you have a screen, a juicy target, and a buffing hero with the juicy target. Sorry for the long post, two people responded while I was typing. Assuming a screen unit has a 5+, an Overloaded but not AoA Steam tank does an expected 5.9 wounds (7.2 to a 6+), jumping to 8 and 9.3 if you have flaming weapons on the tank. You are looking at 3ish from an unbuffed scourge runner, and 3.3/4 from unbuffed handbow corsairs.

I normalised to 100 points for each of those, to give which is the most efficient. Blissbarbs are more efficient than Fusiliers vs 5+ saves or better. That said its fairly close, and blissbarbs are a very good unit. Note that the buffing pieces are being factored into the cost here, which isn't quite fair to Fusiliers, since Flaming wounds also buffs all other humans around as well. Save Fusiliers with Alchemite Blissbarb Archers Lumineth Sentinels Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike Man-skewer Boltboyz with Swampcalla 2+ 3.39 2.37 2.64 2.32 1.84 3+ 4.19 3.56 2.97 2.80 2.12 4+ 4.98 4.75 3.30 3.28 2.41 5+ 5.78 5.93 3.63 3.77 2.69 6+ 6.58 7.12 3.96 3.77 2.97 - 6.58 7.12 3.96 3.77 2.97

My numbers agree with yours if it's any help, though for reasons best known to me I worked it out for save stacking units as well, ever since being traumatised by a best day ever, all out defensed, mystic shield stonehorn. I mainly want to know when it's even worth shooting at a 0+ armour save unit. In that example it's still 10 expected wounds to a 0+ or 1+ save. I think fusiliers are definitely an interesting unit. As I said I think I'll be looking at 20 with a warforger. Otherwise I think the way I'll be trying out cities first is with a shooting base, and sending out buffed up units in waves, 5 cavaliers with engage the foe, 10-20 corsairs with tenebrael blades, drakespawn knight with chariots etc.

I'm not saying they are poop. I don't think they are poop. I think they are a useful unit, I just don't think they are positioned to be a unit that you have to spam to get use out of them. A unit of 20 with flaming weapons will do a lot of damage. Shooting just cannot be as powerful as melee, because melee lets the enemy fight back at you and inherently puts the unit at risk. I'll be looking at a unit of 20 as a powerful tool for triggering suppressing fire (including the battle tactic), and returning fire. Having access to those things is great. Is it worth it burning the Command trait on them? It depends, its maybe a 20% buff to the unit's expected damage. I guess it depends on what you would rather take in its place. I really strongly disagree on the Warforger. I honestly think they guy is a strong choice if he had EITHER of his two abilities. I mortal wounds on 6s to hit in addition is such a powerful ability. Remember he has a + to cast. With no other buffs he has a 70+ % cast rate. In Settler's Gain its basically on a 2+. Mystic shield to all humans around him is just insane. He is very good. What shooting units are people wanting comparisons to? I'm curious as to what people think the gold standard is.

People talked about the Alchemite, meaning I get to yammer about flaming weapons and Fusiliers! OK, so there are some slightly unusual things particularly with the third battle round reroll hits. If you have flaming weapons and reroll hits, but no AoA then you produce exactly the same expected damage by choosing to reroll all non flaming hits as you do just rerolling misses. If the target has a 5+ or worse save, you do better just rerolling misses. If the target has a 3+ or better save, reroll all non flaming weapon triggers. If you have flaming weapons and reroll hits with AoA but no +1 to wound command trait, then you are better off rerolling any non 6s. If the target has a 6+ or worse save its the same, but any better save and you are better fishing for mortal wounds. If you have flaming weapons, reroll hits and AoA with the +1 to wound command trait you are now better off only rerolling misses if the target has a 5+ or worse armour save, and otherwise fishing for mortal wounds. The improvements are mostly pretty fractional, and if the target has any kind of mortal wound shrug you are better off going for the reroll misses. Here is the thing that is kind of nutty, looking at the warforger at 90 points, working out the expected damage done per hundred points (I realise this is a fairly arbitrary one, but its how I normalised efficiency) then 30 fusiliers and a flaming weapons Alchemite, assuming that the Alchemite is doing nothing other than casting Flaming weapons to buff the 30 fusiliers. In the range of useful values, he improves how efficient the unit is dramatically. This is the increase in expected damage to each save. 2+ 77.08%, 3 + 45.83%, 4+ 30.21%, 5+ 20.83%, 6+ 14.58% If you literally doubled his points to 180 those 30 fusiliers are still more efficient per point against all armour saves other than 6+ armour saves (You would also do an expected 38 total damage to 6+ saves, which seems like probably enough at that point). 2+ 51.79%, 3+ 25.00%, 4+ 11.61%, 5+ 3.57%, 6+ -1.79% I think even conservative increases (like the 120 suggestion) end up being a pretty insane buff. 2+ 67.76%, 3+ 38.16%, 4+ 23.36%, 5+ 14.47%, 6+ 8.55% I'm not entirely sure what the fix is. Fusiliers really do seem to be all about that flaming weapon buff. They are beaten by a lot of the dark elf shooting without it, even factoring in the +1 to wound command trait. They are actually dramatically out performed by Handbow Corsairs (assuming the fleetmaster gives the AoA), who are not only more efficient on a per point basis, but also a 90 point corsair unit will do slightly better damage than the 150 Fusiliers. Scourgerunner chariots also come out well in this comparison. Am I missing any buffs here? The main relevant ones I've seen are AoA, the command trait that gives +1 to Castellite units that get AoA, fleet master buff for scourge privateers and the reroll hits buff (That one is one I've only used on the earlier MW calculation. Its very good when you get it, but it feels like a different conversation). I will double check the corsair comparison since I did it quickly, and the result honestly surprises me. I think if I was having to go for a fix for them there are a couple I'd look into Straight up double the points cost of the Warforger BUT make him be able to either activate both abilities or at the very least, only take away the +1 to cast when he does his shield buff. It makes him EXPENSIVE, but still very good. It also cuts down on the orders that you can give out, having a pair of Warforgers standing next to each other means that they can always have multiple orders ready. Increase his cost dramatically, but not fully doubled, but keep rules as written. Adjust his rules, make flaming weapons have to target a unit.

This makes me think of a quote. "If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail.” Mark Rosewater Lead Designer of Magic the Gathering. Its talking more about game design, but I think it applies to a lot of stuff.

That's what I've assumed it was, which lets you escape your opponents monstrous rampages with counter charge. What confused me was a lot of people seem to pay monstrous rampages like heroic actions, which DO both happen when the player whose turn it is chooses.

I really don't think its a nerf. The original gimmick with endless spells stopped being relevant (The spells being more powerful in their home realm one) and the thing about the plus 1 to cast on endless spells? They kind of moved it. Battlemages and Warforgers both have easy access to an inbuilt +1 to cast, and Sorceresses have access to +2 to cast. Battlemages can get +6 to the range of spells if you wanted instead and sorceresses can get a relic that also boosts their spell range. If you go settler's gain then everyone has plus 1 to cast and Hallowheart gets you an expected +3.5 to cast with some minor 'splodies. (Side note, I'm pretty sure non human based wants to go Settler's and Human based has a push to Hallowheart if you have a command corps.) My point is that you can do some pretty dang good endless spells stuff, and they are actively adjusting the "generic" endless spells. I'm really fine with this, and its honestly been pretty dang cool seeing people using a much wider variety of endless spells. I remember when they were rolling out the terrain, and I've gotta say there were as many misses as there were hits. A number of them are just "There". I can definitely see some cool concepts they could bring in for cities, honestly having cogforts show up would be amazing, but I'd rather they did nothing than do a poorly executed one that just hangs around forever. 5/7 Chaos. 2/4 Death, 2/4 Destro, 5/9 Order have terrain (might be wrong numbers, I had to look up what some of the faction terrain even did) . Some of those are built in to do cool stuff! Some are just there. Some used to do cool stuff and now would be better off just being a rule. Beasts of Chaos used to have stuff with summoning at the herdstone, but now you are incentivised to hide it in a corner to make it harder to destroy, since it's only function is to remove a buff if the enemy destroys it. As for the Coalition rules? Part of me is sad to see them go. Another part is me is kind of glad that you don't have "Oh a cities list did well, awesome...and that's just 1500 of dragons/fulminators/whatever else and 30 crossbows, 2 small heroes because the cities allegiance abilities worked better than the SCE ones. I suspect there is probably some middle ground that would work, but I'm fine for cities lists to be majority cities. I wouldn't be too surprised if they ended up releasing a second wave sooner than you would expect. I'm hopeful that if they did it might be a free PDF like the Ironjaws one is supposed to be, but I didn't mind too much the way they did the second 2nd Ed book, If I remember correctly if you had the first book and broken realms Teclis you didn't need to get the second book. The Third Ed book following quickly is a bit nutty I do agree, but it seems like that is going to happen if you want each army to get a book every edition. I think Orders has the potential to be such a powerful mechanic. I've mentioned before that I think Counter-Charge is a kind of insane ability. Soulblight has a much more limited version of it, where it is A) once per turn rather than up to 3 times. B) can only be done if an enemy unit nearby the unit charges. Its immediately after that charge rather than the end of the charging phase, which has positives and negatives (It's a positive if they were going to charge the unit you Soulblight Countercharged with, its a negative since the opponent can then do the rest of their charges knowing where you charged. All this is before you factor in that it improves the units rend. Playing around orders feels like its going to be really difficult your opponent needs to be very wary about where they move their units, what units they shoot (Incidental shooting is really risky near a CoS unit, you might just be about to take a full volley of fusiliers). A lot of the non human units have built in bonuses to charge, and there is nothing stopping you command point rerolling a counter charge (Rules as written this works just fine, I can't see any problems with it). You can order an aelf unit to strike first (activate at the start of the charge phase). It only works if they complete a charge, but counter charge works. One think you can do is use it on a dragon behind a screen, then order the dragon with a different hero and slam into the enemy unit with an always strikes first dreadlord on black dragon that you have protected with screens. This may well be too many individual steps and run the risk of just falling apart, but its definitely an interesting one to try. I'm going to be looking at little mini combos to see how they interact. It feels like at minimum I want to try to have potential counter charges set up. One thing I'm really interested in trying is doing this with Drakespawn knights and Drakespawn chariots. It might end up being too unwieldly, but the boosted chariot damage actually triggers on the ENEMY unit being near the knights. Nothing is stopping you charging the knights and looping them round BEHIND the target, and then charging the front with the chariots, leaving a hero within 3 of a chariot. Only one chariot needs to be within half an inch, the other 2 just need to be within 3 for their ability to trigger, the base of a chariot is 4.7 inches long, so that hero can be almost 11 inches away from the charged unit. If you wipe out the unit with the chariots charge (its an expected 14 mortal wounds) then you can use the drakespawn knights pile in to position themselves to screen the chariots. if you don't you might be limited by where the enemy unit is, but the knights can be expected to do fairly reasonable damage (9.44 to a 4+ unbuffed, with 11.8 with AoA). If the knights are free in the enemy movement phase you can use a redeploy to screen as well. This went past rambling some time ago, and I'm sorry for that, but the abilities just seem...neat.

The shaggoth is just SOO expensive, might be the most overcosted unit in the game? One of my favourite models is my converted Shaggoth, but he is cheering from the glass cabinet until he's at minimum 70 points cheaper, and maybe 100 points plus cheaper might be needed.

You are absolute right on the knights, my bad. I was missing that the drakespawn actually have 3 attacks each. I think I just turned it into the normal 2 attack horse. The knights with AoA and charge plus blades do 30 wounds. I get exactly 27 from 20 corsairs though. I think you might be missing the regular +1 to hit from AoA from the fleet master? That's 20.25 expected wounds, if they were 4+/4+. With AoA it's 3+/4+, getting 27.

Ten Drakespawn with AoA and Ten Blades do an expected 25.83 wounds. (EDIT Had a number wrong it's 30) I'd be tempted to run 5 and 2 drakespawn chariots. That gets 13.33 (EDIT 15.4) from the buffed knights, and between 11.1 (to 2+ save) and 14.66 (to a 6+). Mainly because that way you can score a battle tactic from 3 aelf charges. It is 40 more points though. Unfortunately Khari and Hydra damage doesn't work out amazingly. The Khari are slightly better than non charging drake chariots and slightly worse than non charging drakespawn knights. Hydra comes out slightly behind. I think the Khari wins for me with the ability. I'm not factoring in monstrous abilities, so that might be worth including. EDIT: to correct error.

Looking at some numbers for different units. Been mainly looking at hammers at the moment. My thoughts are a mess today, so this isn't going to be very organised. This is all math hammer, and spreadsheets. I know it doesn't translate over but spreadsheets help me work out what a reasonable expectation might be, for example 10 Cavaliers with Engage the Foe have a fairly good chance of killing a mega gargant in one activation, but nowhere near certain (On average you'd expect to do about 34 wounds to one). So you probably do want to soften it up first, or charge the mounted marshal with them. One thing to note is that counter charge seems very very good. I don't think I was thinking of how much difference the rend makes, but having access to a plus to rend is a big deal. .Another thing is that Cavaliers honestly slap. I've kind of underestimated what they can do with some pretty easily obtainable buffs. A unit of 5 will do serious damage to a most targets. One thing I hadn't quite factored in was how well Flaming weapons works for them, since a unit of 5 has 26 attacks, that works out as an expected 4.3 mortal wounds in addition, jumping up to a full 6 for a unit with Engage the Foe. Another key stand out is just what Corsairs will do to either low armour units or with Tenebrael Blades. A Fleetmaster boosted AoA unit of 10 expects to force through 14 wounds vs no saves. T Blades also lasts until your next hero phase, and I can't see anything stopping you from keeping a counter charge order ready for them if you get top of the turn and holding them ready for the enemy to risk getting counter charged by them. For a unit that you can use as a screen that seems kind of nuts. I've seen some people using big units of them, but I'm not sure its the best choice, I think mainly 10s with the odd 20. Looking at Executioners and Hammerers. Executioners do better damage to saves of 1+ and better. 2+ is equal. I was really surprised. That's also not points adjusted, points adjusted Executioners only out perform them on something with a 0+ save. I was quite down on the Dreadlord on Dragon, but he's kind of grown on me. He's not an efficient source of damage, but he will put out damage (Him buffed with AoA, command trait and counter charge is about equivalent to a counter charging unit of 5 Cavaliers) and he can lurk behind your screen with a counter charge order. This has been a mess I freely admit, but I was wondering what are the numbers that people would be interested in? Like, can it kill a megagargant (35 wounds, 4+ save), can it clear 20/40 zombies? Which are useful armour saves people would like to test against? I've set up everything, but it ends up being a bit brain bending to parse. Same for defensive profiles, what do people think is the gold standard for "Oh god, blank has just hit my line and its going to hurt".

Marshal with Relic friend can also give you a free use a turn.

I'm going through some of the rules and wondering how some effects work exactly. I realise that this is the kind of thing where I imagine the FAQ and Errata will probably answer but I have some unusual things. The way Advance in Formation is worded I don't think there is anything stopping you starting a Castelite unit next to one hero with this order, then moving next to a different hero with this order and fortifying there, leaving the first hero behind. Counter charge is an interesting one. I don't know how it interacts with Unleash Hell. Given Counter-Charge is End of the Charge Phase, I don't THINK you can unleash hell. The other one is monstrous rampages. I THINK you get around them. Both Monstrous Rampages and Counter charge are end of the charge phase. According to 1.6.2 if you have multiple simultaneous effects then the player whose turn it is would apply all their end of the charge effects before you apply yours, and you can then counter charge. I don't know how this works for your monstrous actions. I've seen a lot of people doing all monstrous actions together with the active player choosing first, but I can't find anything to say that you have to. If you don't have to then you could get a monster in with counter charge and still get a monstrous rampage. Return Fire. This one is probably more obvious, but this one is waaaay more flexible than it sounds. The unit that got shot does not need to be the unit that returns fire. You do not need to shoot at the triggering unit with your unit either. Also, this one doesn't actually say it triggers in the shooting phase, only when something of yours gets shot. I THINK you could respond to an unleash hell with this. It'd require some fairly specific stuff to happen, but I can't see anything stopping it. It would just need a hero sandwich, where a unit charges past a hero, but stays within 3, triggers unleash hell, then the hero gives an order back to a shooting unit. Also, I think in the mirror you can volley back and forth shooting if there are multiple Return fires. Other notes are that the SHOT unit doesn't need to be a Human, but the order giving hero and shooting unit DO. I have more but need to check wording.

Demigryffs are 75 by 45. All the Stormcast options are 90 by 52 apart from palladors, which are 75 by 42.

That's one I'm still wondering about that. I know it feels bad to sacrifice Black Guard to the sorceress but its only 40 or 50 points more to upgrade that Dreadspear unit to Black Guard, Suppressing fire is a human order I'm afraid. Aelf only lists can only really score 2 of the 6 book tactics. I don't think the GHB ones are too bad to score for Aelves though. Intimidate the Invaders is pretty auto, Reprisal and Endless Expropration are pretty situational but theoretically doable, Magical Dom can be pretty auto complete as well, Magical Mayhem is not a particularly good choice but possible if you wanted to try and force a blizzard through. Bait and trap is a pretty good choice for aelves honestly. Lead into the Maelstrom seems scorable with some builds, either a Sorcerer General with Black Guard battleline (sure you have to charge with sorc but she will still have the 4++ ward) or the scourge build, it's not a favourite tactic though. Surround and Destroy seems pretty achievable as well. So Aelves only lists don't end up too bad I think. Both book ones seem very good if you are running Drakespawn. I'd also put Intimidate, Magical Dom, Bait the Trap and Search and Destroy in that category as well, so that is 6. The rest are more situational but its weirdly ok seeming for Aelves on battle tactics. This might be too rosy a view though, I can tend to be an optimist.

I'm mixed on adding leaders to AoS. I really like it in 40k but not as sure how it would go in sigmar. Here is one thing that I think might be an interesting one, the priority roll. I'd be interested in seeing what switching to a warcry style roll off would be like. To explain warcry has a roll off at the start of each turn where each player rolls 6 dice. Separate into singles, doubles, triples, quads. The player with the most singles gets to choose who goes first. The doubles, triples and quads can be used for abilities. They also have a wild die system for modifiying, but thats less important. Have something simple like a command point for each double and some other rewards for triples and quads. The other change I'd be interested in would be moving the hero phase to start of the battle round, and shared.

I absolutely understand the disappointment of units leaving. Some of them I don't quite understand, others I kind of do, but regardless it sucks. I ended up with at least 2k in elves that rotated out. For some of the units there is a good substitute, but others are harder. If you want to vent I understand completely and feel free to ignore the next section. The easier unit proxies I see are. Empire Free Guild General on Foot -> Freeguild Marshal Freeguild Crossbows/Handgunners -> Fusiliers (Needs rebasing, and perhaps parvises if you wanted) Free Guild Guard -> Steel helms. Free Guild Pistoliers/Outriders -> Caviliers (More of a stretch, but freeguild on horse is still freeguild on horse. Doesn't have range but is charge dependent. More of a fix for pistoliers) High Elf. Phoenix Guard -> Black Guard (Elf with halberd to Elf with halberd, this is what I'm planning on doing). Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Avalorn -> Crossbow and Sword Corsairs. (I'm looking at doing this as well with my shadow warriors, and it lets you easily tell the difference between the double blade variant as well) Phoenixs -> Black dragon riders, either dread lord or sorceress, just be clear. Wood Elf. Wildwood Rangers/Eternal Guard. -> Wildwood Rangers fit neatly as Executioners, I built my eternal guard without shields so I'm tempted to run eternal guard as executioners as well, though dread spears are also an option. Sisters of the Thorn/Wild Riders -> Drake spawn Knights are still elves riding unusual mounts. Nomad Prince -> I'd probably run as one of the other elf heroes, either a sorceress or a fleet master. There are some harder things to work out what to substitute I have to admit, where you run the risk of making it too confusing. The difficult ones are. Hellblaster/Helstorm. Freeguild Greatswords. Demigryph Knights. I do wonder whether there was originally a heavy cav option and a heavy infantry option that didn't make it in, there is some speculation that there might be a wave 2 faster than you'd expect, though I'm unsure as to how much people are hoping on that one. My advice for these is more of a stretch. The hellblaster and hellstorm, I think the closest is to mount it on a larger base including the crew and run as the new cannon. I'm still not sure how big the cannon base is, you could do some earth works around it to bulk up the original artillery. Greatswords I think you run as executioners and just stress to the opponent that they are aelves and therefore cannot get human buffs. Its not the best, but it is the closest option that preserves their role. If you want to keep them as human, steel helms. Demigryph knights are the one I'm struggling with the most. The best I can come up with is mount three on a single large base and run as a monster, probably the steam tank. Its a bit of a weird push, but best I can do. Longer term, if you wanted your models to have a home in say, 4th or 5th edition? There are definitely options in lumineth. All the spear using aelves can be Lumineth Wardens. Shadow Warriors and sisters can be sentinels, riders can be Dawn Riders, heavy sword users can be blade lords, and I quite like the idea of using the halberd elves as stoneguard. If they ever remove aelves from cities they have a home in lumineth. As for dwarfs, the only way I see that happening is if there is a new dwarf faction that ends up taking the iron drake/breakers and long beards,. I'm not trying to say what happened wasn't heart breaking, but I'm trying to look on the bright side.

I commented this on the video, but he rated drakespawn chariots in the bad tier without actually reading what it did. I'm curious to see where he'd put it if he did. 90 points for an average 3 mortal wounds unbuffed and 4.67 buffed(with drake knights that he put in A tier) seems like a worthwhile thing to grab.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around orders, but heroes have a use just for existing near a unit. Any additional heroes can hold niche orders incase they are needed, since each unit can have a whole bunch of orders over a round, just not two in the same turn. So your additional characters can do that as well. I quite like the look of the Van Densts, both have good fighting profiles that get pretty brutal against daemons or wizards, and at 80 points each they are the cheapest heroes while also being among the toughest. Plus I'm kind of just obsessed with Lethis giving you a load of priests. I think I'm understanding it right that Lethis even makes uniques priests, and everyone gets a universal spell lore.

I was giving Ironbreakers (a very high save unit that can easily get a ward of 4+) as one of the reasons a lot of the human stuff only works on human stuff, same as corsairs having a silly high number of individual attacks (it would be two command abilities but between shooting and combat it would be 5 attack each in a turn) not being eligible for the blazing attacks from the gold mage forge guy. EDIT: Original sounded annoyed, which wasn't my intent.

I think people are seeing all the cool buffs that you can layer on top of humans and thinking "Dang, wish I could put all those sweet buffs on my elves/dwarfs, they can't get them so they'll be worse" and missing that it seems like the book is designed with that in mind. Ironbreakers being able to either get an unrendable save (with Pha's protection) would end up with a 3+/4++. Or arguably better could end up with forge mage, mystic shield and all out defense have a 0+/4++ which is pretty dang tough. Or just flaming weapons corsairs (on melee or melee and shooting). The non humans have their own buffs, but seem a lot more self contained, more pairs of units. Its a different feel, and completely separate from power level I like that there is another way to build the army outside of buff layering. It does feel a little bit like Duardin are lagging behind Aelves though. I want to look at some of the numbers, but it feels a bit more like making a thematic choice rather than the optimal. I might be missing something though, kind of feels like iron drakes are paying for the sins of last edition. It might also be a product of the edition, where the Ironbreakers high saves might be stripped off with a hoarfrost, and their ward is combat only, unlike the black guard. If I was high drop I'd be very tempted to try some gyrocopters. 12 inch flying move and small base size can be useful for scoring. Looking at all this stuff, the book feels dense. Working out when buffs apply, and how they work is a big one. The Aelf fights first is actually start of the charge phase so you can very much keep your heroes safe for it. I'm curious as to how damaging/tough various units are. Might have a go doing some math hammer and do some tiers for it. Going to be hard to work out which buffs to apply, since some can be city dependant. I'm not sure I'm reading this right but I think in Lethis all human heroes can pick from universal prayer lore as well as the Morrda prayer? That lets you get Curse very easily, as well as access to the anti ward prayer. Interestingly I can't see anything stopping unique units gaining the prayers, meaning the Van Denst's become the cheapest option.

I realise that this is a dumb point, but units hitting on 4s, wounding on 4s with no rend actually do as much damage to themselves attacking Corsairs as they do to the Corsairs (Each attack has one in six chance of getting through armour, and each one to hit is a mortal to the attacking unit). I don't know why that point amuses me so much, but corsairs themselves are 4+/4+/-/1 without buffs, so a unit of corsairs fighting another corsair unit does as much damage to themselves as the enemy. On that note, got to say I think dark elves have some fantastic options this book. I know a lot of stuff is human focused, but there are some benefits in that. If you want to layer all the buffs then humans are the thing to go for, but that needs the buffing pieces. You cannot have your pontifex everywhere for the 5++, and other buffs are limited as well. I'd be interest in trying a human front line with all the buffs and castilling and looking at non human strike forces for taking other locations. A unit of Drakespawn Knights and 3 Drakespawn Chariots is only 410 points. Those chariots do a minimum of 6 MW when charging with the knights, and an expected 14 Mortal wounds. That seems really strong to me. It also is only one Aelf unit short of the three making a charge needed for the battle tactic. Both units are also mounted for Misthaven giving an additional 2d6 movement and move 10. I've been meaning to run the numbers on some other stuff, but I'm interested in the new phoenix guard with the sorceress (who can have frankly absurd casting, hallowheart letting he have 3d6+2 to cast with a 4++ shrug next to her guard) and hordes of scourge privateers. Speaking of, I'm surprised how shooty the cross bow units can be, with the fleet masters AoA buff not specifying melee only. 20 Black guard and a sorceress are 370, 30 corsairs and a fleetmaster are 360.

60 point skinks would be so wildly out of whack with just...everything. In the seraphon thread I went into a lot of this in detail but the points you want for things do not match up with anything in the game. Very few units are anywhere near that cheap and skinks are fast moving and very useful units.