Dread Elves Army Book is out!

[Lord Drakon]

http://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php? ... 0-9-0-pdf/

Reading it now.. Some really cool stuff, Shades can take poison, Warlocks got ranged weapons (poison throwing darts), Assassin is upgraded, two cults we can choose (blood & lust), RBT for 60 points (upgrade 75), 65 points for lvl 1.

[DarkSky]

Access denied

I was not very involved in the design and balancing process for 9th age. Could somebody with more knowledge elaborate how they balanced various things they reworked and how the general discussion went on?
I am primarily thinking about things like ASF re-roll vs. +1 ToHit (where the latter replaced the former, but is significantly weaker).

[Lord Drakon]

Access denied

I was not very involved in the design and balancing process for 9th age. Could somebody with more knowledge elaborate how they balanced various things they reworked and how the general discussion went on?
I am primarily thinking about things like ASF re-roll vs. +1 ToHit (where the latter replaced the former, but is significantly weaker).

You can easily create an account to view content, discussion and updates.
I expect with the 9th army book there will be some activity also on druchii.net to answer your questions

[Daeron]

Access denied

I was not very involved in the design and balancing process for 9th age. Could somebody with more knowledge elaborate how they balanced various things they reworked and how the general discussion went on?
I am primarily thinking about things like ASF re-roll vs. +1 ToHit (where the latter replaced the former, but is significantly weaker).

We are now hosting the files as well. Here are the links:
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?f=177&t=77210

[toots]

Blood Armour for 10pts looks like an absolute steal!

[Red...]

Yes indeed - 8 points for standard heavy armour or just 2 more for blood armour, which is heavy armour plus its special ability. That said, it forecloses other magic armour options and forces the character wearing it to be on foot, so it has drawbacks too.

[Kold]

The book is just published now.
And I love it.
Of course a lot of things must be tested to balanced it, as well all the other armybooks. But is a nice start point.
I love how was focused our armybook. Corsair and beastmaster nobles and lords, and both cults, blood and lust... I LOVE IT. Good way to prepare themed armylists.

[Lord Drakon]

Yes I also love how they provides rules for themed lists!

There are four main themes you can choose =

- Cult of Blood lists (Cult Priestess, Blood vestals, Executioners, Assassins)
- Cult of Lust lists (Cult Priestess, Sorceresses, Hellpit Gladiators, Dark Art Apprentices)
- Black Ark lists (Fleetmaster general) -
- Cavarly / Monster lists (Beastmaster general)

The Altars have become stronger, but also more expensive. With the Blood cult you get the Khainite side of the Druchii while the Lust cult provides you our Slaanesh theme. Do you love big blocks of infantry, especially corsairs, upgrade your characters to fleetmaster for some cool rules. Do you prefer monsters and a big unit of Cold One Knights, upgrade him to beastmaster for cool rules.

I also loved what they did with unit sizes, making them 10 - 50 or 5 - 10 to prevent powerfull units being abused. The magic items are also incredible cool, maintaining some basics like cloak of twilight, black dragon egg, sacrificial dagger and ring of hotek while adding things like magic banner and druchii weapons.

Because of overall maximum 3 special units, it is now the maximum of bolt throwers we can take which is fair. I love the fact they are 60 points each with a 15 point upgrade for multi-shot. Scourgerunner chariots are now 1/3 cheaper and they might become a common sight on the battlefield besides our normal artillery.

Monsters can become Alpha Predators, also a cool upgrade depending how you want to use them.

[DarkSky]

Looking only at the Dread Elves and comparing the to the Dark Elves of 8th, the Knights (Cold One/Raptor) certainly got a great boost.

First they are cheaper
Second, the rules for cavalry changed and they now have T4
Third, the beastmaster upgrade basically negates stupidity and gives hatred for all those S4 Raptor attacks

I loved using them in 8th, gonna field even more in 9th Age!

[Vulcan]

The trick is going to be dealing with the new spear (KB vs. cavalry) and parry (overall -1 to hit) rules. Those two really HURT cavalry.