8 magic items, that's all you get

Looking at the 8th Ed. O&G army book and the new TK book, there's a obvious trend that's going on.  From now on, all the army books in WHFB will have 8 or so unique magic items.  This includes Banners, Enchanted Items, Arcane Items, Weapons and Armor.  This also means that the majority of the items that everyone can take will be from the BRB.  Is this good?  Bad?  If you could only keep 8 magic items in your army book, what would they be?

Just some food for thought.

Get ready for Battle Chronicler

From now on, my Fantasy Battle Reports will be using Battle Chronicler.

It will look something like this once the action starts:

And the Archmage casts blah blah blah..
Excited?

I am.

A closer look at Tomb Kings

I'll give you guys a long list of things I like about the new Tomb Kings book.

• I really like Settra in this book.  475 is a small point cost to pay for such a legendary icon of Tomb Kings.  Even though he's not as godly as before, he's still pretty good.  He's got a awesome number of special rules, my favorite being that his My Will Be Done spreads to every unit within 6" of him.  That means everyone within 6" of him will have WS7, which also means normal WS3 troops will be hitting things on 5s.  You add in his 4+/4++ save and his weapon that permanently reduces his target's chance to hit by -1 for the rest of the game and you've got yourself a winner.  I know if I was playing TK, Settra will be at the head of my warhost.  He's awesome, he's iconic, he's fluffy and he's balanced.
• The Herald Nekaph is also pretty good.  He's 120 points, slightly more expensive than regular fighty heroes but he adds awesome special rules.  The always issue and accept challenges might be a little bad, but his Herald of Despair and Flail of Skulls is pretty awesome.  Enemy units in base contact with him roll an additional dice for fear tests, discarding the lowest.  And Flail, well, is still Flail of Skulls that does 2 wounds on top of him being S6 in the first round of combat.
• Grand Hierophant Khatep.  For 330 points, you're paying for a Loremaster of the TK lore and a godly magic item.  The Liche Staff allows him to re-roll any casting roll per turn and combined with Loremaster, this puts him at a very comfortable purchase price.  However, I can see that many people will argue that a Lv.4 High Priest costs ~100 less and can take Death or Light depending on what you want.
• As for normal lords and heroes, these are the ones that caught my eye:  The Tomb King is a good buy because he can spread his WS6 to whatever unit he joins.  Throw him in a big TG unit with FC and you're pretty much good to go.  You can build him killy if you want or just do what I do:  Give him a GW, Glittering Scales (WS6 will hit you on 5s), and Golden Death Mask of Kharnut.  I really think Golden Mask is ridiculously OP vs. some armies.  For 60 points, you cause Terror and enemy units within 6" of you cannot use their general's leadership or their BSB's re-roll.  Let that soak in for a minute.  OK, let's continue.
• Liche High Priests are pretty cheap Lv.4s and will make you happy for ~200 points, a little more with magic items.  Tomb Princes are cool because for 100 points, you can spread his WS5 to whatever units and can throw down some Great Weapon/Flail action himself.  You can also mount him in a Chariot and buff up the killing potential of your improved Chariots.  I'm not really feeling the Tomb Herald but he is a pretty decent buy because he can take a Halberd and offer up a free wound for your Tomb King.  At 60 points, I don't see why not, especially since you can mount him in a Chariot and throw out some Flail attacks on the charge.  Liche Priests at 70 points is a bargain considering how most lists are going to rock a Lv.4 and a supporting caster.
• Now, Necrotects are something I want to talk about.  They're dick cheap, 60 points is a bargain for making the unit you're in Hatred.  I just find it ridiculous that they put a Egyptian guy with a Whip in the game lol.  Protected category much?
• As for the rest of the units the book, I'm fairly pleased.  4 point Skeleton Warriors who can be given Light Armor for 1 point and can hold the line vs. anything while your improved Chariots crash into the enemy is a godsend.  I look at the VC 8pt Skellies and just laugh, considering that your TK/TPs give them a permanent Crown of Command while adding their attacks to the combat res as well.  Archers are good still because they always hit on a 5, Horseman make for good misdirects because of their 8" move and Vanguard, and Skeleton Archers can Scout move with Fast Cav rules.
• Chariots got improved because they can take a magical banner worth of 25 (old, but still good), their crew have Hand Weapon, Spear and Bows, and they now hit enemies with increased damage and improved ranks.  They can rank up in 3s now and for each additional rank adds +1 strength to their D6 Impact hits.  That's just really solid.
• Tomb Guard are now down to 11 ppm and that's all you need to know.  With KB, Light Armor/Shield standard, they can be given Halberds but who really cares.  For 11ppm, you can take a huge block of 6x5 with FC for 360 points.  This is rock solid and with the TK's ability to give them 5+ KB or Hatred or WS6/5, these guys are your super stars when it comes to killing heavy infantry.
• Necropolis Knights are pretty good and Tomb Scorpions are still pretty good for their points.  Where the Necropolis Knights are great flank chargers because of their 7" move and good # of poisoned/KB attacks, the Tomb Scorpions are now more roadblocks more than anything.  They can no longer come out and charge whatever they want, but they can come out and move in front of a vital charge or misdirect accordingly.
• As for the bigger monsters, like the Warsphinx and the Necrosphinx, I don't really see a everlasting place for these models.  Yes, the Warsphinx rocks infantry regiments in close combat with its uberstomp and the Nerosphinx can chop a Hydra in half, but a cannon or two will still put these down before they can do anything.  Even the Necrosphinx, who can fly, can't really dodge a cannonball because it can't march.  If I was to take one, I would take the Necrosphinx because of its greater threat range and its HKB vs. bigger monsters.  Besides, I think it looks cooler.
• This leaves us with the Casket of Souls.  This thing needs to be taken in every, single game.  It's a Warmachine with T10 and gives you +d3 PD per turn for dirt cheap.  It practically pays for itself (Bound 5) with its average of 2 dice and gives your magic phase extreme flexibility.  It's really a no-brainer, take it in every list.  If the Light of Death goes off and bounces around expensive models like Chaos Knights, Blood Knights or Dragon Princes, bad things just happen.  Oh, and if you IF, it doesn't matter because it's an innate ability.
• I guess I should mention that the Screaming Skull Catapult is meh.  It's more expensive and Stone Throwers now allow armor saves.. so yeah.
• Oh, and the Neferra's Scrolls of Mighty Incantations is overpowered for 50 points.  You throw dice and it adds more dice equal to your casting wizard's level for free and it IFs on any doubles.  Yeah, this is going to get banned soon (just like PS, Teclis and BoH for me).

BR: 2500pt High Elves vs. Tomb Kings

Had another game of fantasy today vs. my friend Steve's 8th Ed. Tomb Kings.  As most of you know, I'm still pretty damn rusty with 8th since my last game was last year.  Steve's last game of 8th was also last year but since he just got a brand new army book, he wanted to throw them against my High Elves and see how it'll pan out.  It was quite fun, and the new TK book is definitely different than last edition.  That's for certain.

My HE list:
Lv.4 Archmage, Annulian Crystal
Lv.1 Mage, Sigil of Asuryan
BSB, AoC, Guardian Phoenix
30x Spears, War Banner
32x Spears
25x White Lions, Banner of Eternal Flame
25x Phoenix Guard, Banner of Sorcery
2x Lion Chariots
2x Eagles

His list:
Lv.4 Hierophant, 4+ ward
Tomb King, GW, 2+ armor, 5+ ward
Tomb Prince, some heavy armor
2x Lv.1 Wizards
Big unit of 40x Skellies w/ Spears
7x Chariots
20x Archers
20x Tomb Guard w/ Halberds
Necrosphinx
Tomb Spider
Casket of Souls

The game:

• We did standard pitch battle and both of my Wizards had Lore of Light.  His Hiero had the TK lore and the 2 Lv.1s had TK and Light.  I will reveal spells as I BR.
• Deployment saw both Spear units sitting in the middle with my White Lions on my left and Phoenix Guard on the right.  The Lion Chariots were placed on the flanks as well and the two Eagles next to the Chariots.  He won the dice roll to go first since he had less models to put down.
• As his army moves up the field, he flies his Necrosphinx to my right flank.  The rest of his army slowly moves up and his Lv.4 casts the spell to move again and I let it go.  His army moves up again the same distance.  His Chariots flanked my left by a bunch of trees directly across from my White Lions.  My main focus is drawn on his gigantic Necrosphinx that flies.  Magic phase sees Smiting go off on his Archers and he's able to shoot 30 shots at my Phoenix Guard.  Phew, after 6 wounds I was thinking I'd take more.  The rest of the magic on his turn was dispelled by my Lv.4.  His Chariots also shot at my left Eagle and didn't do anything to it.  The additional move from his Lv.4 also sees one of his Wizards try to move into his unit of Spears but he's just short.
• On my turn, I move my Eagles to intercept and misdirect his Chariots and his Necrosphnix so they cannot charge my flanks without going in some random direction.  His Necrosphinx was a little out of position for a charge on my PG so the Eagle was the only target.  The rest of my army moves up the board in full force and I move 5" with my Phoenix Guard.  The winds are generous and I'm able to obtain a good amount of PD for my turn.  My Lv.4 starts off with Banishment on his Lv.1 Wizard who's short of the Spears and he lets it through sadly.  He take 3d6 S5 hits because my Lv.1 support was also Light and he goes down in a spectacular display of fire.  I attempt to cast Net of Amyntok on his Tomb Guard but he dispels it with much gusto.  Without any more dice to throw down, Pha's Protection goes down on the Phoenix Guard.  My White Lions move up to intercept his Chariots and my Phoenix Guard face off against his Tomb Guard.  The two Lion Chariots inch closer to him with good pressure (one in range of his Hiero next round).
• Thanks to the Eagles, the Necrosphinx and Chariots simply reposition themselves so they're closer to my flanks but no charges were declared.  His charge range was just out of comfortable dice range so he reforms his Spears into a 5x8 unit.  The Tomb Scorpion also comes up this turn but it's unable to charge (thank god) and sits closely by my rear lines.  He also moves his Hierophant back now sensing the danger that she's in and then the magic starts.  Winds and rolled and it's a fairly average amount.  I dispel a good amount of the spells coming out but the Casket of Souls fire with IF.  Since it's an innate ability, it goes off without much penalty and my left Chariot takes 2 wounds, it bounces on a 3+ and 2 more Spears die.  It tries to bounce again but he rolls a 2 and it ends.  Shooting from his skeleton archers rolls poorly on the Lion Chariot on the right and his Chariots put a wound on the Eagle on the left.  His army is now in charging range of my army.
• On this round, my entire army surges forward to intercept the undead army.  My left Eagle charges the Chariots with my White Lions who only needs a 4 to get into combat.  I roll a 2 and a 1.  Awesome.  The right Eagle follows the Necrosphinx and once again, blocks his charge lane to my Phoenix Guard with his base (with the help of a building) and redirects to the middle of nowhere since he can't actually place his model because of the Eagle's base.  My two spear units with my BSB charge the unit of Skeletons w/ Spears and the Lion Chariot charges the flank.  The right Lion Chariot charges his Hierophant but he reveals her 4+ ward save and I only manage to do 1 wound.  He takes none back but he loses combat by 1 and breaks!  King of the jungle my ass.  My Lv.4 leaves his Phoenix Guard to get in the flank area of the Tomb Scorpion (avoiding LoS) while staying close to the center part of my army.  The Phoenix Guard advance as normal.  During the magic phase, I rolled a 7, I channeled for 2 more and I rolled for 3 more with my BoS.  With so many dice to play with, my Lv.4 started throwing out spells with confidence.  I led with Banishment on the Scorpion but it was quickly dispelled.  I followed with a greater cast of Speed of Light and it was scrolled.  I then threw down a handful of dice at Pha's Protection and it goes off.  Now all units within 12" of the Wizard has -1 to hit.
• Combat on this turn was pretty crazy.  The Eagle on the left charged in, does no damage and dies horribly.  The Spear units in the middle throws out a bunch of attacks and does less damage than I expected, but a good amount of Skeletons still go down.  I found out the unit was WS6 because of the King's My Will Be Done and I was hitting on 4s with re-rolls.  The Lion Chariot also killed a bunch of dudes and my BSB swung at his Tomb King, who took a wound.  His swings back into my unit kills a good amount of spears but I was still able to win combat by 7.  He pulls some dudes on top of the amount I already killed and he has about 25 dudes left after Unstable.  I'm a little saddened by the White Lions who's probably going to get charged next turn, but I'm pretty happy with the combat in the middle.
• On his turn, he rolls really low for his winds of magic.  I take one of his PD with my Annulian Crystal and I still had a scroll left should things go ill.  He says fuck that Eagle and charges it with his Necrosphinx who attempts to run but rolls like ass.  It's caught, but it's sole purpose in life has been fulfilled and the Necro is out of combat for another turn.  The Tomb Scorpion decides not to charge my White Lions because it'll probably die before it swings so he goes and have a staring contest with my Lv.4.  His Chariots charge through difficult terrain (rolls 7 dangerous and passes them all) and smashes into my White Lions.  10 White Lions go down to the impact hits and I throw back 11 attacks from 2 ranks.  I hit with all and wound with all and god damn, I lol really hard.  His attacks back kills 2 more White Lions after needing 5s to hit because of Pha's and I force him to take a few Unstable wounds.  Steve's Tomb Guard also charges my Phoenix Guard who holds and takes the charge to the face.  Magic sees a pitiful cast of 5+ ward on the TG which was promptly dispelled.  He throws 2 more dice at the Killing Blow spell on his Spears and I needed a average roll on 2 dice to dispel it.  Since I didn't feel like wasting Sigil on that one spell, I throw my dice and I roll just 1 value short.  It goes off and he gets back an entire rank of Skeletons.  Alright, that sucked I thought.
• Combat on his turn had my Elves swinging first with 4 ranks each.  I issue a challenge with my BSB and his Tomb King accepts.  I epically whiff with my BSB and I take 1 wound.  After dice are thrown from my Spears, a good amount of Skeletons go down.  The Lion Chariot also throws in his attacks but nothing special really happens.  His attacks back at my Spears sees a average number of hits but his attempts to wound were pretty subpar.  No Killing Blows came out and I made some of my 5+s for a decisive Unstable test in the middle.  He is now left with the King and ~13 Skeletons.
• The Tomb Guard engage my Phoenix Guard on the right and thanks of Pha's Protection and WS5, I nullify the Prince's WS buff on the unit.  He needs 5s to hit with his dudes and only manages to score 6 wounds.  After my 4+ ward saves, I pull 2 Phoenix Guard and combat goes decisively in my direction after I maul a good amount of TG.  We called the game here.

After game thoughts:

• Since TK's magic system got standardized, I don't think they need to have a bunch of casters anymore.  Steve was definitely overloaded in the caster department and he could of just brought a Lv.4, a Lv.1-2 supporting caster, and maybe 2x Tomb Princes or 1/1 TK/TP.  The casket is definitely a must have though.  It's basically a tough ass warmachine with a 4+ ward, no downsides and it practically pays for itself with ~2 PD per turn.  For it's points, it's practically a no-brainer.
• Tactically, Steve should of held his Necrosphinx back and used him as a counter-charge unit.  Especially when there's so many infantry units on my side, he really could of used the Sphinx to counter-charge the combat in the middle and sway it in his favor.  That thing would of killed a whole bunch of Elves and would of forced me to swing at it.
• A correction to the turn that Necrosphinx charged the Eagle:  We found out he could of actually charged my Phoenix Guard by placing the Necrosphinx towards the top right of my block.  A little awkward how the thing could fly through a building, but oh wells.
• I took my Teclis model instead of my normal Lv.4 model and just played him as a Lv.4.  Yes, I have gamer's superstition, but Teclis has never let me down.
• I was much more aggressive with my Spears this game and I think that's exactly what I needed.  I had 60+ spears in the center of the table fighting for Ulthuan and they came out victorious over the undead horde.  My BSB was foolish to challenege, but I thought I'd do it for shit and giggles because I was arrogant in centerfield (arrogance? as an elf? no way).
• Tomb Kings definitely play a lot different than they did last edition.  Their magic is now stoppable and their the dynamics of their army has changed a lot.  The My Will Be Done is fantastic to have because it's basically like a Crown of Command that's constantly in combat.  With 4pt Skeletons and 11pt Tomb Guard, I can see this being spammed out like crazy.  Settra can also apply his ridiculous WS7 to all units within 6", that's pretty godly.  Speaking of which, Chariots hit crazy hard this edition.  Steve didn't even field a lot of Chariots and they did 12 or so S5 hits once they hit my ranks.  Imagine if he had 2 of these units and just used Skeletons to pin down my Spears before he sent them in.
• I will probably make another post about Tomb Kings in the near future once I get a better look at their army book.  All I can say is that the actual Tomb King core (the troops themselves) got a lot better in terms of cost effectiveness.  While some things got worse:  Ushabti, Tomb Scorpions and Giants, the meat of the army got better:  Cheaper units that are more cost effective.  It's too early to tell yet, but I also think Scorpions should be on the field and used as roadblocks, kinda like Eagles.  The Necrosphinx should definitely play a more backfield role and act as a counter-charge unit, but just like every other MC out there, Cannons will be the death of him.

Another army in the works

Just sketching up army lists and random, competitive thought patterns right now, nothing too serious.  I'll give you a hint though, it has something to do with the picture above.  If you guys guess what army, I'll start blogging about my ideas.  It's gonna be really fun.


Update 2:49pm PST!

Brandon really did hit the nail on the head.  The symbol above is the chevron of Vlad the Impaler, which a lot of people believe started the idea of Vampires in the real world.  It also happens to be the perfect Blood Dragons symbol in Vampire Counts!  My VC army will comprise of a fighty Vampire Lord (because the idea of a big bad ass Vampire sitting in a puny skeleton bunker waving his wand makes me vomit), a big unit if Blood Knights and a unit of Grave Guard.

Check out the army list:

2523

LORD:
Lv.3 Vampire Lord = 440
Lore of the Vampires
Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Dreadknight
Blood Drinker, Crown, Dragon Helm

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire = 165
Forbidden Lore
Helm of Commandment

Wight King BSB = 225
Drakenhof Banner

CORE:
35x Skeletons (FC) = 300
40x Ghouls (Ghast) = 328

SPECIAL:
30x Grave Guard (FC, GW, Banner of Barrows) = 465

RARE:
9x Blood Knights (Musician, Flag of Blood Keep) = 600

I'm a few points over right now and I'm not entirely sold on what I want in the army.  I pretty much decided to go for close combat and slay face.  The combat lord is in, magic is not all over the place and the bulk of the army is broken up into the left flank, the GG center and the right flank.

What a new HE book would look like

First, the design vision of what 7th Ed. High Elves are supposed to be:

• Defense over offense; but quick enough to switch if needed
• Use of ASF as a damage buffer; kill the enemy before they kill you
• Strong in magic; both offensive and defensive; in lore and in items

I've been reading some wishlisting stuff from Ulthuan.net and I've never face-palmed more in my life.  With this in mind, from a game developer's point of view, this is how I think GW will design a new High Elves book for 8th Ed:

• If ASF is to remain, expect to see very minor price changes. Maybe 1-2 points across the board.
• If ASF is taken out, expect to see very drastic changes to the design process of the Elves themselves. I highly doubt that price will change too much because unless they change the fluff of the High Elves, they're to remain a small and compact army. With that in mind, expect to see HE striking in I order regardless of what weapon they wield. This is not ASF, but it will remain as Speed of Asuryan.
• With the current shift of limited magic items, expect to see a good amount of special characters. From a design standpoint, they are the ones that carry the "truly" unique magic items that our race use. For example, Star Lance and Armor of Caledor will disappear and Imrik will be added back to the army book. If you look at the new TK book, you can see Flail of Skulls (removed from the current book) on one of their new Heralds.
• The aspect of bringing Honors back is very unlikely. If you look at the trend of how GW books develop, they are trying to eliminate any aspect of army design that might be too complicated. This makes the book easier to jump into. Clear examples are the 4th Ed. CSM codex where they removed all the Legion specifics and wargear, the 5th Ed. Tyranid codex where they removed practically all the customization options, the 6th-7th Ed. High Elves book where they dropped our Honors, the 6th-7th VC book where they dropped the Bloodlines, the list goes on and on. Honors will not come back, stop wishing for it.
• Every unit will have a special rule. If not every unit, then 95% of the units in the book. That's how 8th Ed. O&G did it, that's how TK did it. Expect Shadow Warriors to have strong passive abilities, Ellyrion Reavers to do something special, and Lothren Sea Guard to be the finest Marines in the world, and Sword Masters to do cool things as well. That's just how all the units are designed these days. The really generic boring units that don't add anything special like Archers (at least our archers) won't get anything special except for a points decrease and comes with light armor. Everything else that has a real name in the lore or (and pay attention to this) have COOL and fancy models for, will get all kinds of special rules. This is to promote not only model sales, but encourage players to take a good amount of them. You think its coincidence that TK have the ability to take a Special version of their new T8 monster AND a Rare version? They can field like 8 of those things on the field if they wanted to. That's 400 dollars worth, you think GW's stupid? They are a business, a business that charges 20 dollars for a Zoanthrope.
• You might see a lot less customization on our lords and heroes, but we'll get a price drop across the board with more effective units. I studied the TK book these last couple of days and that's how the book is made. O&G is the same way. 8th Ed is all about big units, the ability to take a Spearmen Horde or fielding Dragons everywhere (and this will happen). More chaos, more models dead, more models sold.
• Dragons and Griffons will get a overhaul for the better. There's a reason why there's a 50 dollar model out there that's not really selling because of 8th Ed. TLoS and warmachines. GW might be blind, but they're not stupid. Expect to see much improved Dragons for their costs out there.
• Also, I want to touch upon the fact that you'll NEVER see a lord that's limited to 3k+ games. A 700 point Teclis? Not in my vocabulary. Settra is 475 with his Chariot, which is playable in a 2k game. GW knows the standard is 2k-2.5k for a normal sized game. 3k is where shit goes all over the place. They designed the rules, they designed the models. In order to sell more models they need to sell it at the level that everyone plays.

Of course, I can be completely wrong and they'll give the book design over to someone like Ward or Cruddace and they'll turn the book inside out.