Recent Games, venting some DE thoughts

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Whobetta
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Recent Games, venting some DE thoughts

Post by Whobetta »

Just played some games this weekend against High Elves and Tomb Kings.

So far while again GW provided DE with a bunch of "everything" we really are imo very powerful. all of our powerful units are elite ground troops with 1 wound. I found very very little synergy between the units to make an even stronger army list instead of just the chock full of good stuff lists. The only thing we seem to do that has synergy is lower bravery and kill more models during battleshock phase. That is almost near pointless as the way GW has tried to make is that you will never see big blocks of units where battleshock even comes into play.

I feel like Dark Aelf's are quite boring and weak compared to other armies... unless i am mistaken, we have a bunch of command abilities that do similar things. 1) ignore battle shock tests, 2) reroll wounds. 3) preroll hits.

The problem is that you only get 1 of these things. pretty terrible, when the magic phase has been nerved to the bone. 18 inches or less of most spells is too short in that if you get turn 1, you can't move before casting any spells so you are automatically more than 18 inches. all you get to do is cast some mystic shield spells and sit on it. there are other spells like Chillwind but again range...

The game seems almost dependent on not missing out on the 2nd turn's initiative roll.... it's almost over if you don't.

in a 60 wound game there is nothing we can bring that combines to be something greater. I don't really like the models and sudden death as unless you just bring hydras and dragons you are going to outnumber every army. So my friends agreed on a wound limit.

I had Malekith and Morathi and Shadowblade, a Hydra, RBT shades and Blackguard couldn't win against a HE list that was comprised of Alith Anar, Cardrayan on Frost Phoenix HE prince on Dragon to give all other heroes ability to use their command abilities where he is rerolling wounds and hits from aura's and shooting twice from items and getting +1 to wound from totems. It just didn't seem quite "balanced"

I mean we have one of the greatest generals in Malekith and all he does is make your big units not take battleshock. OK.

a Cauldron is the only way to get a bonus save (wound absorbtion ability) but a 6+ is pretty meh when WE have no save. and the thing is 13 freaking wounds. if you up the wound count to 100 a HE army he adds 3x Bolt Throwers that are essentially rerolling hits and/or wounds and still not even close to 100 wounds yet.

I don't know, Dark AElfs just seem like a jack of all trades, master of none... it's a bit deflating honestly.

I had some tacitcal decisions that if I did differently might have helped, but I feel like losing the turn 2 initiative practically turned the game anyway.

I don't know what kind of list could do better especially in a lower wound game, but magic was worthless, and no really command ability. Malus Tzarkan'ing out would be great but his command ability is a mini Malekith (worthless) with BG and no other unit who benefits from no battleshock.

I feel like so many DE units are just so bland in that we don't have many great options available to us. the manticore and kharabdys seem so meh and almost everything else is binary. sadly I'm jealous of all the oddities that HE have as opposed to the straight forwardness that seem to want us to play like a blunt object in the DE.

sorry just venting and somewhat discussing army lists and tactics. doesn't seem like many people are playing AOS around here or much of anywhere.
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Daeron
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Re: Recent Games, venting some DE thoughts

Post by Daeron »

I played more AoS than anything else lately. But my buddies usually end up preferring the Stormcast vs Goretide for AoS and keep the square bases for other versions.

Never the less I've been thinking on AoS and the Exile army in particular. I found that my starter kit from the Goretide had more intricate synergies. That's not saying it was complex... it's easy to figure out. But there's still more to take into account than, say, Dark Elves.
This means there is either less synergy or it's more subtle. At least, those are the possibilities I'm seeing.
As far as synergies are concerned, I find that's there relatively few things buffing units unless through command options. We used to rely a lot on magic to achieve such things, and magic has taken a serious nosedive in options. As such, I think the translation of the Dark Elves to AoS has proven a bit ... limited?
Indeed, most buffs boil down to the same thing. But then we do have some innate abilities, which other factions have to attain through "synergy".

A few points though.
- The cauldron does more to WE's. A unit of 25-30 WE's with a Cauldron will get re-roll on hits, re-roll on wounds (all or just the 1's, I can't remember) and 5+ save. Combined with immunity to battleshock, this is a rather powerful combination. The biggest bonus here, is that these two do no need a command option to achieve these benefits. The way I see it, you could deploy this combination somewhere independently, on a flank. Unless they are outnumbered or outmaneuvred, they should work quite well on their own. This seems like an interesting trick to split the enemy's army or have him/her risk being surrounded (usually benefitting the one surrounding the other)

- One of our key strength is speed. With a high movement on all troops, and some flying troops, we should be able to exert some control over our enemies. I'm guessing (but haven't tried it sufficiently) that hitting and retreating are key tricks in our arsenal... Retreating in particular is a mechanic I'm still very new to, but I believe it may be an important one for us.

- Special characters really make it hard to balance a game, I think. They aren't designed with balance in mind, I think. So if you're going to throw that in, you're playing a "thematic" list. IMO that seriously shifts the balance ... I'm not sure in what direction.

- AoS has a high end range for monsters, like the Black Dragon, and a lower end range of monsters like the Khorgorath, Manticore etc. These monsters have bigger brothers in the game, and so they may seem like a soft choice. If you really want balance for these units, then a more sophisticated point system is needed than "wound" or "model" count.

As for Master of none:
- Aside from single-use arrow storm for HE archers, DE darkshards are better.
- Shadow warriors beat Shades "only" if Alith Anar is in the game. But then.. he was.
- DE RBTs are better than HE RBTs

I think a few RBTs are really helpful to control the enemy. HE get some bonuses depending on range and model count. Taking a few wounds of such units can really help.

But I haven't fought that many battles against HE and they usually seem to favour HE, at least in small games.
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