Swissdictator:
Where we can talk about some of our reactions.
My friend and I did a test game. He ran Dark Elves, I ran Empire.
Granted, we don’t have the FAQs, so maybe we did some things wrong.
My dice turned treacherous, I think the Hobgoblin drink was sneaky and manipulated my dice… as my handgunners were forced to deploy on their own on the far right flank where nothing of my opponents deployed. Beginning and end of game, my dice were horrid. In the middle, they were good.
Two magic phases I had 12 power dice, albeit with no “Wizards Proper”. I had a couple priests, popemobile, and the Ring of Volans. Getting WS10 I10 spears via the Golden Griffon on the Pope Mobile on a 5+ was nice. I got that off twice!
For those who doubted the power of horde spears, I can assure you… they are brutal. My spears were not horde, to gain some extra ranks. My opponents were. We both had hatred (he being DE, and my having a priest). He stilled out killed my spears by quite a bit.
Meanwhile my spears, when charged by frenzies corsairs, outkilled them significantly.
The random charges really changed things. Still not totally sure how to feel about that. It really does get rid of that ‘game’ of trying to deny the charge and all. Though I just wish the ranges were less extreme.
The changes in ranks negating really sold me on detachments. I almost never took them in all of 7th edition. Less than 5% of the time I played Empire, as I felt they really didn’t do a whole lot… or earn their points. Now with firing in two ranks, small handgunner detachments are worth their points. Also 15 strong Sword detachments work very well, as they can negate the ranks and might have the distance to do it without being to far forward.
Dark Riders just got a lot nastier, they really did. As did Shades.
Comments from opponent:
So I played my first game of 8th last night and liked how the changes went. I played a 2250 game against Robert Elmer’s Empire.
My rough List:
Dreadlord General
BSB
Lvl 2 Sorc
Fighty Lvl 2 Sorc
39 Spears, FC, Armor piercing Banner (10 wide)
19 Corsairs, FC, Frenzy Banner
10 Crossbows, Musician, Shields
2 units of 5 Dark Riders w/ Musician
17 Black Guard, FC, +1 LD Banner
6 Shades w xhw
Hydra
Rob’s List:
Captain General
Arch-lector on Pope-mobile
2 Priests
BSB
38 Spears, FC,Armor piercing banner, Detachment of 6 Hand-gunners, Detachment of 15 swordsmen
38 Spears, FC, Detachment of 6 Hand-gunners, Detachment of 15 swordsmen
2 units of 10 Hand-gunners
Cannon
Mortar
18 Flagellants
Tactically, the only mistake made by rob was not running his spears 10 wide as he tried to go for the extra ranks to gain stubborn. Some of the things I saw that were cool were:
On my third turn I charged his pope-mobile with my crossbows and sorceress. After casting a spell from the lore of shadow, I was able to switch her with my general, which locked them into a challenge and ended up killing his Arch-lector.
My frenzied corsairs with my combat mage charged his unit of spears and got whiped and chased away. not taking the wounds from the front really makes a difference.
Later on Robs spears charged my Spears. Rob then made his spears WS and In 10. he killed 6 of the 38 models I had, and I returned the strikes. Even with needing 5’s to hit, I still did enough damage that he needed snakes to hold. I broke him and gave chase.
I then charged into his other unit of spears while running down his first unit. because of the hoard rule, I still had 28 models attacking, and again breaking his unit by a lot.
So, in all, loving the new rules with hoards and spears, and Dark Elf Spearmen Rock. Also, I really like the lore of shadows.
FrozenDarkElf
