Fun with Dark Elves - Initial thoughts on the faction

[RushAss]

That's right, a review!  feel free to add your own.

I was lucky enough to attend Council of 5 Nations this October and be one of the first ones to get their mitts on the brand spanking new Dark Elves.  While I have not played them yet, I got to play against them 3 times at the convention and I figured I'd share my thoughts on them with all of you.  I usually list pros first, then the cons.  I'm going to switch that around here and start with the cons so that I can finish the post on a positive note

Cons

Ability Creep - gull2112 mentioned in a post of his a while back that he feared that as time went on, newer factions would slowly out distance the older ones in potency because their faction abilities would be better than the oder factions.  This seems to have certainly manifested itself with the Dark Elves.  They have pain touch, a ton of spell abilities, and tons of fearsome dudes.  Compare this to a faction like the Hawks who get bravery.  Whoopy ding.

Points Cost Accuracy - It's my feeling that the points costs for some of the units may be a bit off.  Actually, it's a pretty big consensus amongst the players at Council.  Take the Lowblood Levy at 132 points.  They are almost as good as the Umenzi Spearmen, who clock in at 170 points and just about as good as the Skeleton Spearmen which clock in at at 167.  The Lashmistress is another one, which for a little over 300 points has a unique ranged attack that can totally mess up your opponent's line.  Not only that, but at (5) 6/5 that ranged attack HURTS.  Couple that with the fact that the combat stats are almost as good as High Elven Swordsmen and you've got something that seems a bit cheap for what it can do.  Also, the Dusk Knights are much better than Hawk Knights, yet only outscore them by 30 or so points.

Consistency of units with their stats - This is more fluff related than play related.  You've got units like the Blade Dancers and Lash Mistress that appear scantily clad in the art work, yet they fight at a 3/1 defensive stat despite having no armor or shields whatsoever.  I guess they are just super fast?  And do the Lashmistresses have a bodyguard of warrior dudes like the M&M Elementalists do?  Not a big deal, really.

Lots of stand and shoot - This entire faction screams to be used in a stand and shoot fashion.  You've got 3 Spearmen units and 3 Ranged units.  While I've got nothing against stand and shoot armies, a faction that blatantly encourages it needs to be watched.  Dwarves and slow Hawkshold armies beware.

Courage - This faction will have a courage advantage against any other faction hands down except for the Undead.  Of the 13 units, 9 of them have a courage of 13 or greater and all but the halfbloods and lowbloods are fearsome.  The lowest courage rating is a 12.  While I think the fearsome thing is cool, I think the points calculation seems to be based upon the pre-shaken fearsome attribute and not the new 3.0 one.  Basically, at least half of the enemy army is going to be minus an attack die on the charge turn which is the most important combat turn of the game.

Pros
OK, it looks like I roasted these guys above, so I'm going to try and make it up to them here.

Very great unit variation - You pretty much have it all here.  You've got cheap line units, Solid mid-priced line units, Very potent line units, cheap fast cavalry (and they are core!), brutal heavy cavalry, FLYING cavalry, a spell casting unit that is also cavalry, and 2 other spell casters that are very powerful in their own right.  The only thing you don't have is bowmen and believe me, you won't miss them if you are using the spell casters.  You can create a huge variety of army variations from the faction roster.

Sexy units - This is a pretty cool thing to see since we've been waiting 2 years for a new fantasy faction.  Rome and Carthage where all well and good, but very few of those units had any "wow" factor.  The Dark Elves more than make up for that as easily half of the units are pretty darned impressive.

Flavor - The history of this faction is very interesting and translates well to the game play.  At the bottom of the heap you've got the low and halfblood guys as well as that hilarious peasant unit.  At the top you've got the highbloods armed with the dusk weapons and spells.  I love the concept of the slavetakers and the fact that they are also core.  The faction abilities of Pain Touch and Fearsomeness play right along and it feels right.

Finesse - This faction encourages finesse play, which I think is great.  Sure you can line up a bunch of heavy infantry dudes (and dudettes!) and just go bang with them, but the faction really shines when you try to get tricky.

Artwork - Richard has really outdone himself here.  The flavor artwork on the backs of the cards is just stunning and the top down views are not too shabby either.  And not only do you get 2 different topdowns for the Drake Riders, you get 2 different flavor pics as well!  There's plenty of sexiness to go around for sure.  Guys into hot warbitches will drool over this faction.  The only drawback to the artwork that I can see is that folks who hate the color purple are really going to have an issue...

Packaging - The same as the historicals with the new and improved 3.0 rulebook.  I cannot stress how much of an improvement this is over the old way of packaging factions.

[Kevin]

[Update:  paragraph about Lowblood Levies has been snipped; see Niko's post below.]

The Dark Knights feel about OK to me in price.  3/2 may be a bit sexier than 2/3, but it has its drawbacks.  In my game with Ron a lucky shot from two skirmishers on higher ground (each (3)5/4, plus 1 accuracy) did 2 damage before they get into combat.  And defensive stats aren't really all that helpful to cavalry, whose main purpose is to kill things fast.

My big nominee for the Most Underpriced Unit goes to the Coven.  They get (3)6/6 every turn (range 14), or (4)7/7 every other turn (including the first time they shoot).  And their shot can reduce the MC of the attacker by 1, meaning more shots and the ability to totally screw up the enemy line.  Plus they move 6" so can retrograde and shoot and, as a final insult, they function as (albeit mediocre) cavalry, so unlike fantasy archers they're not an auto-kill when the infantry finally engages.

Overall, I consider them essentially equivalent to Hawkshold Longbowmen (cost 360).  One less die and worse range, but cool bells and whistles, and the ability to run and fight (which, by the way, means their 14 inch range is better than it looks--longbowmen need to hide behind another unit, so they're 2.5" behind the battle, while coven can sometimes be right there on the main line.)  I suppose that if I absolutely had to make a choice, I might go with Longbowmen, but it would be a very close call.  Since Longbowmen cost 360, I consider the Coven worth around 350  maybe you could convince me that they're 340, but under 310?  Um...I'll have what they're having..  (By similar logic, in most battles I'd rather have Coven than  Elementalists (also 360, though mercs generally feel overpriced). 

The Lashmistress also feels underpriced (I'd put it in the 330-340 range), though if not employed correctly it can be a waste.  It frankly feels like its cost is the same that of a unit with the same combat stats and no cool pull-the-enemy-forward ability.

Other units looks good pricewise.

[Niko White]

On the issue of the unit costs, I'll just say play a few more games first.  We changed a lot of costs a lot in development, especially the Lashmistresses and Lord of Dusk, because strange ranged attacks are very difficult to cost and don't really feature in our formula.  The Lashmistresses especially can be very disruptive, but get much easier to deal with as you learn about their tricks and play against them a few times, and also as you realize that they have a real issue with biting off more than they can chew - medium to heavy infantry, even units somewhat cheaper than they are, can do a lot of damage to them in combat, and anything with impact hits is really bad news for them.  The first few times you play against them they're dragging stuff all over the place and it is annoying, but then you learn to deal with the dragging and realize they tend to fold pretty quickly if you get a good unit up against them.  (Dark Elves in general have that issue, really; as anyone who plays Ravenwood regularly can tell you, 3/1 is still pretty fragile!)

On the Levies: yeah, I double checked and they should be 4/5 not 5/5 on the attack.  Chad and I are both pretty confident that we sent this as a correction to our last page of proofs, but it doesn't really matter who the error came from; frustratingly, they should be played as 4/5's.  (Misprints like this make me sad )  I'll post a separate announcement thread for this.
 
The rest of those units are fine - play with them a bit more.  Though I will say I personally think Hawk Knights are a bit overcosted because defense skill seems stronger than toughness to me on heavy cavalry, I know opinions vary on that.  (Comparing Dusk Lances to High Elf Knights is probably a better comparison in any case.)

On the 3/1 stat line: x/1 has always been pretty questionable in terms of actual armor involved; Hawk Peasant Mobs, for example, are 1/1s despite wearing basically no apparent armor.  0 toughness is such an annoying stat to have that we decided early on that flashy armor bits interspersed with clothing should be "good enough" to get the x/1.  Availability of 3D models is also relevant; we wanted different troops to look different, which meant in some cases they were slightly more or slightly less armored than the initial vision because that was the best or only way to get 3D models that were sufficiently distinct.  Given Battleground only goes from (realistically) 1-3 in the armor category, though, I think it isn't too much of a stretch to think that all of those fall in about the same band for that, certainly when you think of Hawk Footmen as 2 and full plate as 3.

Elves also tend to have 3 defense skill if they're dedicated line units; see Ravenwood, which gets to count nets as shields.  For a while I thought about making the guys with actual shields 4/1, but that's an incredibly annoying defense profile, especially on core troops, so I finally decided that the "flashy" troops like Blade Dancers and Lashmistresses would get the "superior defense" to make up for the lack of a shield, which makes the stat lines for the highblood combatants nice and easy to remember.  It isn't perfect, but given both of the 3/1 line troops that don't have shields are templated as the bad-ass-est of the highbloods, it seemed not unreasonable.  (This modifier is the same one responsible for the Orc Marauders being 2/3 not 1/3.)

Anyway, I think the overview is fair in most points, especially for a first impression, so I'm of course not trying to argue with you or be like "no take back the mean things you said about my elves!"  But I know a lot of people on here like being involved with the design and development, thinking about it, and things like that, so I figured I'd type up a few of my thoughts about the points in question

[Niko White]

Well, my reply was posted while Kevin was posting his, so I guess the powers-that-be were listening

[ajax98]

If asked to play Lizards v DE, without Healer Mages for either side, I'd take Lizards any time.
I'd have to take Umenzi, even with allowing HM. Too many targets makes DE start to slide.
They really shine with fewer High Value targets.

DE w/o Healer Mages is so iffy.

[ajax98]

...
Cons

Ability Creep - There is a big perception of this as this Army is fundamentally a 'shoot em up' army. If allowed they will inflict serious damage. The one time I was seriously checked was facing 2 Dwarven Ballistas with an Elementalist supporting. I was seriously overmatched shooty wise but the Dwarven line units thought they were missing out on the fun and got suckerpunched. 3 Dwarf line units just do not take on 6 very po'd DE taking casualties and nothing better to do.

Points Cost Accuracy - Subjective; I've always been a little miffed when building a roster the units I want come in 1 to 20 points over. DE seems to be able to be put together at 1 to 20 under. [Edit- After reviewing the DE published stats and finding some different costs, I find that the DE generally fall into the first cost point assessment.]

Lots of stand and shoot - A new form has arrived. If you play against DE, you better have a plan, that takes account of the DE strengths. Easiest answer is to have a realistic shooting answer. The other is to use any terrain to mask your important units (preferably all) until you can get into Engagements that you set up to maximize success. That means finding and eliminating the DE weak units.

Courage - DE are probably going to take 'lucky' hits whenever they are struck. If you are lucky to get the hits, that usually translates directly to damage. DE know this and the courage level acknowledges this acceptance.

Pros

Very great unit variation - Between units that will hurt an opponent and those that are place holders & sometimes get in the way. I've found there are specific units that will do the majority of the 'work' and those that are support. If even one of the 'workers' get taken out, things fall apart rapidly.

Finesse - If you don't have Finesse, you will get clocked.

[grjsk]

If asked to play Lizards v DE, without Healer Mages for either side, I'd take Lizards any time.

just out of curiosity; why? What makes the Lizards so attractive in this match up?

[Torrg]

I believe its because the liz have some healing CC's, and their Army ability is similar to the DE plus Blood Frenzy would put them over DE???

[Kevin]

just out of curiosity; why? What makes the Lizards so attractive in this match up?

For the record, grjsk, I'm not seeing it either.

[Forevernyt]

Because, let's face it.

Lizardmen ROCK!

[Niko White]

just out of curiosity; why? What makes the Lizards so attractive in this match up?

For the record, grjsk, I'm not seeing it either.

Well yeah, but you also hate Raptor Packs.  And probably freedom. 

(Just kidding, I overall don't see it either, though I do think Raptor Packs are not something Dark Elf forces are thrilled to see.)

[Hannibal]

I think the DE aren't thrilled to see any unit with Off. Skill 6...

[grjsk]

just out of curiosity; why? What makes the Lizards so attractive in this match up?

For the record, grjsk, I'm not seeing it either.

haha, it wasn't meant as a "what are you talking about?! please explain yourself" kind of comment. I love the flavor of the lizards, I am just not quite able to see what strengths they have against certain factions.. I've read the guide and it helped a bit, but I still feel.. well, underwhelmed by them on paper. Maybe that changes after I've brought them to the table

[lazyj]

I think Lizards remind me of Dwarves. They're both rock solid but not rock stars. I've enjoyed playing them but not so much that I crave putting them on the table like I do with Hawks.

But really, when it comes down to it your favorite faction is just going to resonate and make you feel more confident. Maybe we're gleaning insight into Ajax's fav faction! 

Alternatively, it could be that he feels that the glass cannon effect of Dark Elves means that he feels Lizards are best able to take the initial blow and deal it back (Off Skill 6, Impact Hits, Fury, etc).

[Forevernyt]

Or that Dark Elves are tasty when basted with butter.