$500 1st prize! Battleground Championship, Cambridge, MA 4/30 & 5/1.

[Chad_YMG]

I think they're absolutely viable.  They're on my short list of factions I might play in the tournament.

[BubblePig]

I am familiar with many of their troops, but haven't seen their special cards. I am especially fond of the ogres, myself.

[Niko White]

The troops are good too, but you should check out the cards sometime - lots of neat stuff in there.

[BubblePig]

Sounds like they might have to be my next faction.

[RushAss]

All I have to say is "Cry Havoc" and "Ordered Retreat".

Drooooollllll....

[Chad_YMG]

Here's a quick summary of the faction-specific cards:

Battle Cry.  Strike for engaged only, gives your unit C+1 and enemies it's engaged with C-1.
Ordered Retreat.  Play when a unit routs -- instead of routing it takes one damage from each unit it's engaged with (this doesn't cause a second rout check).  Move your unit up to 1.25" away and rally it.
Final Push.  Play on an attack to get (+1)+1/+1.  If you're still engaged at the end of combat, take a rout check.
Cry Havoc.  Get four 'Havoc' points.  One point gives a non-routing unit a Close order, two gives a unit +1 attack and +1 courage this turn.
Battle-Tested.  Defensive, gives +1 toughness but if you're charging or being charged you get +1 defensive skill as well.

In terms of the units, Ogres are pretty sexy at just under 300 points.  What other heavy infantry moves at 5"?  Wildmen Horse provide a lot of harassing options.  Elementalist is a good ranged unit that doesn't fold like paper if it gets engaged.  (OK, it folds like cardboard...but that can make a difference!)  Half-Orcs are very solid infantry with weak courage...but Spoils takes care of that.  And it has big monsters!  What's not to love?

[Niko White]

Battle Cry is a Might not a Strike, otherwise what Chad said.

[gull2112]

Ordered Retreat is awesome! I turns a 'hole in your line' into 'not a hole in your line.' Until this happens (and it always happens ) its hard to appreciate the significance of this card. Next game your playing, when this happens, imagine what a difference it would make if you were playing M&M and had this card.

[Chad_YMG]

Ordered Retreat is generally equal to and sometimes superior to I Kill You Meself...and I Kill You Meself is one of the cards we use as an example when telling people designing a faction, "Don't make a card that's better than this!" 

[RushAss]

1 thing about the Cry Havoc that wasn't mentioned was that you cannot stack the +1 attack die ad +1 courage on the same unit, so you basally can give 2 units +1 attack die and +1 courage for the turn.  Or it can act like a poor man's sounding of the charge for 1 command action.  Still pretty nifty.   

[gull2112]

Ordered Retreat is generally equal to and sometimes superior to I Kill You Meself...and I Kill You Meself is one of the cards we use as an example when telling people designing a faction, "Don't make a card that's better than this!" 

It is a great card, and along with some of the other Orc cards are one of the reasons this faction is still regarded quite favorably in spite of the younger sexier factions . Usually, it only buys you a turn, but we know how game making/breaking that can be.

Hey...wait a second...If that's the litmus test, why did you create a card that is as good as and often superior to...

[Niko White]

Ordered Retreat is awesome! I turns a 'hole in your line' into 'not a hole in your line.' Until this happens (and it always happens ) its hard to appreciate the significance of this card. Next game your playing, when this happens, imagine what a difference it would make if you were playing M&M and had this card.

The especially nuts thing about it is just how good it is in a pinch.  If you fail the precombat courage check, your guy leaves the pinch and takes two (non-check-causing!) autodamage.  That generally buys an entire extra turn, and might let you convert the pinch into a Two's-Company next time.

Honestly my big complaint about the card is that it means I often want to fail a rout check and I'm awful at failing them when I want to.  On the other hand, it has especially good synergy with the way M&M work, because they tend to have questionable courage backed up by Spoils, and you're never required to erase the spoils box...

[Kevin]

I own the M&M Reinforcement deck, but not the basic (with the command cards).  In my very first playtest game of Alexander vs. Persia the Persians had a card analogous to "Ordered Retreat," which Jaime totally screwed me with--zipping his unit almost painlessly out of a pinch, then charging it right back into the extra-vulnerable flank of my (non-)pinching phalanx!      

My report contained a beautiful hissy fit about that Persian card, and it was replaced (Others didn't like the card much either.).  When folks said it was based on a preexisting card I initially didn't believe them! 

[Niko White]

That card was a little different because you could do it at will, IIRC, rather than having to fail a rout check.  But yeah, Ordered Retreat is a pretty sweet card.

[Kevin]

Back to the tournament.  The rules/changes below will be in effect:  These grew out of the "Kevin's Rule Requests, Dark Elf Edition" thread http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,1942.0.html , but the rules below will be used in lieu of those.

Note that some of these rules affect non-Dark-Elf units as well as Dark Elf units.
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[Update, see the post downthread.]