MAGIC ITEMS: Armour

[Langmann]

Alright here is where the druchii get screwed.

My revisions I have found are as follows:

Armour of Living Death. Did anyone read what Baron said about it, that was funny. For 100 points you get the toughness of a goblin warboss. That was a priceless sentence. Anyhow my cost for this precious item would be 80 points.

Armour of Eternal Servitude. Well regeneration is like a 4+ ward save but not nearly as good. For one, if you lose all your wounds but manage to regenerate one wound, you can't strike back that combat round. Secondly any flame attack negates it completely into uselessness. Sooo, IMHO this item is worth to me at the most 40 points.
Or set it up as Thanee suggests and allow chance of regeneration of one wound at the start of each turn, 60 points.

Shield of Ghrond. Only useful against S5 or lower. However leave as is.

Armour of Darkness. My god, who playtested this item? It took my wife, who doesn't even play this game about 5 minutes to say, "Hey with the sdc, heavy armour, and enchanted shield you can get a two plus save in HtH and a 1+ from missiles all for the same price on your highborn." Bloody accountant. So there is a bunch of crap for you. I have never found a use for this item yet.
I suggest we get a 1+ AS no shield, not improved in any way armour here instead. Then it would be useful. The 2+ save with no shield not improved in any way, is still IMHO, useless because the enchanted shield strategy is still better.

Blood Armour: needs clarification. IMHO I like Thanee's reasoning that this armour should be pushable beyond +1 into the negative range with other combos. It will take a while to get there since you have to get into combat with it. Its also a neat item that way and sets it apart from other items. Since us druchii really get shizbaggged by having T3 we really need a way around it. Other races get ways around their deficiencies. We should too.

? Armour: Some type of armour that raises strength +1/+2 would be a nice addition to our list. We really need that kind of thing to make our other weapons useful. Its damn near impossible to wound anything with S4 when most heroes wear all kinds of armour and have T4+ also.

[Thanee]

Problem there is, that High Elves got that armour.

Something other than armour would be better, an enchanted item maybe, to have it look a little more unique.

I have that Strength Potion (similar to Shadowblade but less powerful) in my list, which nicely gets around the Strength problem in a way, and seems not too overpowered, as it only works once.

Bye
Thanee

[Langmann]

Yeah, talisman maybe, or something, since the elves get it with the chronicles list. We do need something like that though.

Potion is not as good since only one turn... thus I'd never use it.

[Thanee]

That's a very narrow viewpoint.

Of course, a permanent S+1 item (25 points, Talisman or Enchanted Item) would be cool to have.

Bye
Thanee

[Metallurgist]

I don't think DE were meant to be one-on-one combat monsters. They're supposed to be smarter, and don't fight one-on-one. I vote against strength increasing item, arguing that it is against the spirit of the army, it endangers the balance of the magic weapons and it is basically not necessary.

Besides, if you want strength, take a great weapon, the gauntlet or the executioner's axe. That's options aplenty.

On the armour: the blood armour is perfectly fine in my opinion, the shield of ghrond is fine as well (it's always useful, even against S6+ - don't forget armour save modifiers!). The armour of darkness, just drop the shield thing. The Eternal Servitude armour should be heavy armour, not light, and is overpriced. The Living Death armour is overpriced too. By how much the latter two are overpriced should be discussed, I think about 20pts.

Cheers,
-Metallurgist

[Langmann]

Yeah well the point of the strength increasing item is to make our other magic weapons useable. Right now at S4 you have literally no real chance at wounding another character. That's why I use the guantlet, because it gives me the best chances of winning and many others feel that way. The only other weapon I'd consider is the blade of ruin (only against T4 or less) and the crimson death, which has its own problems.

The shield of ghrond is more expensive at S6 and beyond, and at that point does nothing for you compared to the enchanted shield.

Bear with me here:
You take a highborn with sdc, ha, cold one and either enchanted shield or shield of ghrond.

enemy hits highborn with S3
enchanted shield: wound 4+ AS 0+ %wnd:0.08
ghrond: wound 5+ AS 1+ %wnd:0.0528

enemy hits S4
enchanted shield: wound 3+ AS 1+ %wnd:0.1072
ghrond: wound 4+ AS 1+ %wnd:0.08

enemy hits S5
enchanted shield: wound 2+ AS 2+ %wnd:0.1328
ghrond: wound 3+ AS 2+ %wnd:0.1072

enemy hits S6
enchanted shield: wound 2+ AS 3+ %wnd:0.2739
ghrond: wound 2+ AS 3+ %wnd:0.2739

enemy hits S7
enchanted shield: wound 2+ AS 4+ %wnd:0.415
ghrond: wound 2+ AS 4+ %wnd:0.415

So S6 and after, it makes no difference between the enchanted shield or the shield of ghrond. Only helps you against S5 and below.

As to the armour of darkness, having a AS2+ is hardly as good as the AS+1 that everyone else gets.

[Langmann]

I don't think DE were meant to be one-on-one combat monsters. They're supposed to be smarter, and don't fight one-on-one.

I take extreme issue with that. If I am not supposed to be a combat monster then why did I spend all my time getting my WS to 7 and 4 attacks? Why did my cousins learn these honors things like swordsmaster? DE will never be combat monsters with T3 and S5. We have magic weapons which are unusable with S4 against many enemies. High elves get S boosting armour, why can't we boost our basic strength as well? I'm paying for it, and it doesn't seem to unbalance a HE lord.
My highborn is there to fight and lead. Of course I'm not going to go toe to toe with a Blood Dragon if I can help it, and even with S5 I'll be lucky to pull it off.
C'mon DE need some abilities in combat...

[Metallurgist]

Whoa, someone feels strongly on the subject!

Now, I didn't mean that DE are supposed to be weak in combat. I just meant that the DE race are not super-powerful individuals - they are fast, skilled and disciplined, which makes them a match for other armies.

This isn't only true for DE, or even elves in general - humans are no combat monsters either. The true combat monsters in the warhammer world are chaos warriors, vampires and saurus heroes. Dwarven lords are super hard as well. Elves and humans are not, so don't try to make them that through items! That's all I meant.

No hard feelings?

The +1 S non-weapon item would unbalance all the magic weapons, so either don't do it or make it very, very expensive.

Cheers,
-Metallurgist

[Langmann]

I do feel strongly on that subject but I don't have any hard feelings .

Humans aren't combat monsters but they are at least T4. It may not seem like a huge difference but it happens to be when fighting anyone who is S5. And there are a lot of those out there.

My problem is that right now most of our magic weapons are unusable. The only way I can see them get better is by having a S boost. Even with S5 and T3 I think us DE are not combat monsters at all. We are just getting an option to fix something. Every other race seems to get items to aid their deficiencies. We do not, except for a few things such as the guantlet of course.

The fact that the HE also get this S booster encourages me to believe its a viable choice.

I do agree with you that we should not make them super hard through magic items. But there are reasons for magic items...

[Metallurgist]

Ah yes, the High Elven power armour...

Anyway, if you want an item to negate the deficiencies, why boost S? As you said yourself, the true problem is the T3 and not the strength. If anything DE get high strength easier than most races (executioner's axe, gauntlet of power, crimson death).

And to negate the true deficiency,the low Toughness, there already are 2 items: the +1T +1W armour (lord level item), and the shield of ghrond (hero level; -1 S for the enemy is almost the same as +1 T).

-Metallurgist

[Langmann]

Well there are two items to boost T which is why I am not trying to address toughness. What I am saying is that even with a high S (S8 with guantlet) my highborn is still no combat monster when compared to even a black orc. So what I am saying is that if we boost S with an item our weak T keeps our character in the middle to low range of lords in combat. We are still not even as good as a highelf lord in combat due to their abilities to obtain honors (immune to panic).

Beware the shield of Ghrond does nothing better for you at S6 and beyond than the enchanted shield. Many lords are S6 and above. Go back and read my previous post on that if I am unclear here, please.

So I'll ask you, be patient please, given two choices going into a tournament would you take:
gauntlet vs any other item
crimson death vs blade of ruin
crimson death vs heartseeker
crimson death vs chill blade
crimson death vs dark sword
crimson death vs hydra blade
crimson death vs venom sword

The chill blade for example is an interesting item which may aid a druchii nicely since he has a good initiative, but at S4 you'd be lucky to wound anything. With S5 you have a better chance, not great but much better. The reason most people take the guantlet is because you are statistically better guaranteed success. Even crimson death is a better choice because you get S6 on your initiative of 8.

I take magic weapons against lords that are much better than me in combat in order to keep them away from my character or give the character a fighting chance against them. They start better than me and always get better. I'd never bring the chill blade against weaker characters since if I could just kill them outright then I don't have to worry about them. It would be nice to use the chill blade against say a black orc warboss, stunning him in combat and winning through CR instead of killing him, which is a much harder choice.

[Thanee]

Isn't this the topic on magic armour!?

Bye
Thanee

[Thanee]

I don't want a copy of the Armour of the Gods.

If any item should add to Strength, then it needs to be a Talisman or Enchanted Item.

Bye
Thanee

[Thanee]

After looking at the new Khemri book...

Armour of Living Death: as in the book - 60 points!

Bye
Thanee

Interesting...

[Langmann]

Magic Armour to comment on, for final revisions.

Magic Armour

Armour of Living Death (errata) - Points: 100 -> 65 - The Armour of Living Death gives a 4+ armour save (instead of 5+), which can be combined with other armour as normal.

Armour of Eternal Servitude (errata) - Points: 60 -> 65 - In addition to the given abilities, the wearer heals one wound at the beginning of each of his turns, unless he's slain. The wearer can not heal more wounds than he originally had in his profile.

Armour of Darkness – 30 points - This armour does not include a shield and gives a 1+ save that cannot be improved in any way.

Blood Armour (errata/clarification) - Blood Armour is treated as a suit of normal heavy armour (5+ armour save) and can be combined with other armour as normal. For every unsaved wound the wearer inflicts in close combat, the armour save granted by Blood Armour is improved by 1 point (to 4+, then 3+, etc.) up to a maximum of 1+.

New Armour

Sheild of Shocking – 30 points – For every successful armour save with this sheild the attacker suffers an immediate S3 hit.