While the development of ninth continues, I find it hard to discuss the whole army at large yet. Overall , magic seems to be toned down, warmachines are toned down just a tad and monsters may be on the rise. But the army is still in flux. Some units still change on a regular basis.
That said, one unit seems to have stabilized a little: Tower Guards, formerly known as Black Guards. In order to make them more viable, or popular, they have changed a little:
- Initiative 6. Of course, the value of this depends heavily on the meta. From a cursory glance, it seems only characters and elven elites match that.
- No ASF but +1 to hit instead. So they probably hit on 2+ or 3+.
- Armour piercing, natively.
- 13 points a model.
- Stubborn only when a character joins them.
Other than that, they are pretty much the same as 8th. For me the biggest change is the need for a character to be stubborn. They are no longer the lone unit on the flank because of this.
But another big one for me is the armour piercing. Armour always was a problem for us, until Executioners became a cheap staple unit.
I then look back at 7th ed, and the time where a cheap upgrade to armour piercing was one of the most powerful combinations for black guards. It reminded me of a proud moment, where a unit of 20 BGs munched down a COK bus loaded with the Hydra banner (after taking the charge, no less).
It gives a unit that is proficient in dealing with 2+ AS, but still capable of fighting 1+ AS. Additionally, the unit is cheap enough to make the unit "big". It leaves us the AP banner to be handed to another unit, say COKs or Witch Elves.
And that's where the fun kicks in:
- It would give us a whole lot of AP in combat
- It would gives us 2 combat blocks that are ITP
The luxury of having ITP widespread over your combat blocks is a strength I used repeatedly while we had our 7th AB in WFB 8th with the frenzy Corsairs. Throwing in AP tackles the biggest weakness of that combo.
Our Harpies still can panic our troops, but when our troops become ITP this is partially mitigated.
Our Harpies can either sit with the big blocks, and serve as redirectors or speed bumps, or they can fly far away to the sides where they don't panic our other chaff.
That looks like a nice synergy ... Even though it makes no sense fluff wise
