Reworking Elves ASF

[deecee]

none of the people I regularly play against in either friendly or tournament games have ever complained about the current version of ASF elves, however they did used to complain about the 7th edition version of the rule.

I hear more complaints about PG being too cheap for what they can do and that view is even held by a DE player

[Eirik]

I mean, the current implementation of ASF is no doubt a little clumsy and could use some refining, but GW did just print 3 army books that work around that specific version of the rule. I expect any changes to it next edition to be minor.

[Ielthan]

Does anyone else feel it's getting hard to play elves with all the haters around? I even had a GW manager telling me they were bent and that high elves should never lose a game. Tbh I think so much of the reason that elves do well is meta related, if bs based shooting came back in vogue I think it would change things dramatically.

It's very frustrating having people attach a huge asterisk to every one of your victories, no matter how well you play or even if you bring softer lists. It's gotten to the point at my club that no matter what I bring I'm called out for filth, I've literally had blocks of spearmen being called op.

Now I've kind of given up and am just embracing it, figure just enjoy it while it lasts, the new marine faction and the departure of Matt Ward (the last designer to actually like elves) are sure to bring the nerf hammer. Meanwhile the farcical 10 model warriors armies don't seem to bother people.

[Aicanor]

This thread was already commented on Warseer so please, be polite and all that!

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When I first got into the game, it was just after 8th edition came out. I was purchasing an IoB, HE and Skaven armybooks (quite pricey even then) and had a newbie question: "Will there be a new 8th edition HE (and Skaven) army book soon?"
On that a pair of 40k players at the table looked up and said something in the lines of "what more do HE need, they are the most overpowered book out there, ever! You will win every time because Skaven have no chance against them."
I was left staring in bewilderment at what just happened, then recovered somewhat and said: "All right, if I ever lose with them I will return them and ask my money back." Finished my purchase and left. I must say I feel bad every time I go to that particular store ever since.

[Shannar, Sealord]

The 5e HE book probably was overpowered (and did have to many special rules, but they were interesting. Better than the none that they had in 6th). It was also out only fairly short time before 6e changed everything. Honestly it's not as bad as the Bret book or the DoW book anyway.

When the 7e Book came out it was very clearly overpowered (though that changed after later books).

But those two books and the brief times they've been the top of the pile have been enough for everyone to decide that elves are clearly overpowered in all situations and until the end of time.

[Eirik]

But those two books and the brief times they've been the top of the pile have been enough for everyone to decide that elves are clearly overpowered in all situations and until the end of time.

enough for everyone to decide that elves are clearly overpowered in all situations and until the end of time

clearly overpowered until the end of time

end of time

So what you're saying is, after the ET books everyone will stop complaining ?

[Shannar, Sealord]

Well, about ASF/Elves maybe. But only because we'll all be to busy complaining about the End Times books.

[cptcosmic]

haters gonna hate

imho ASF is far too common in warhammer now anyway.

if the weapon skill table was similar to the wounding table and initiative had a bigger impact then I would ditch ASF completely but unfortunately this is not the case thus GW has put this bandaid solution into the game.

I have plenty of ideas of how to make it work but the most important part is that the weapon skill table must be changed first.

[finreir]

Terrible players whinge about asf as broken IMHO

High elf book average overall and the weaker elements need asf to win the more competitive choices for the most part don't.
Wood elves only really use asf on wild riders everything else has a bow or is s3 so who cares
Dark elves didn't need asf they were bent enough, however they lost hatred

Overall RBT, way watchers, phoenixes, dragons, flying /cavcharacters (first thing to abuse asf), wild riders, witch elves and general avoidance tactics are the issue with elves

People in UK at least dislike high elves because of banner, I'm on that band wagon. However without banner there are very few decent choices in the book.

Wood elves they dislike because they never fight except when wild riders flank them, it's like being in a game where you have no control. Very very strong book in 1 set boring build

Dark elves are disliked because their characters are bent, warlocks are bent, witch elves due to asf and now core are bent, and the list goes on.

Just my opinions but all 3 books have terrible internal balance, also cheeses items and negative or board controlling play styles. Run HE infantry list take off the banner and no one will care your asf. If you get your eternal guard out or corsairs or spears or whatever no one cares about asf unless you are rolling 6 dice mind razor.

As for someone saying asf is to common Yep it is, it's sad that the 3 elves lost their individuality in the different special rules Nd got this lumped on them, but their are many other armies also with it now.

Anyway to bed was only checking scgt thread and caught my eye

[notare]

I don't have a problem with HE having ASF but don't say you pay a premium for it in points. For 3 more points than a chaos marauder a spearelf get +1 i, +1 ld, asf, light armor, shield, and martial prowess. If the marauder pays for the light armor and shield the spearelf is 1 point more expensive for +1i, ld, asf, and martial prowess. That is the closest comparison in the woc book.

But woc players don't use marauders, so what about a chaos warrior? A base chaos warrior (ws5, s4, t4, i5, a2 ld8 4+as) costs 14 points. That is before the price of a chaos mark, weapon or shield which could easily and often does bring them up to 19ppm. That is paying a premium.

ASF on HE is fine. The problem with HE is the banner being able to be carried by a unit's standard bearer, the book being able to be used on every spell, and the frost phoenix being slightly underpriced. If the book was once per phase I would have no problem with it. If the botwd was 55pts, I would have no problem with it. If the frost phoenix was 275pts (the price of flaming breath/regen chimera) I would have no problem with it. But they aren't. The book is used on every spell and dispell, the banner is used by any elite unit, and the phoenix is only 10 more points than a naked chimera. Of the three the phoenix is the one I have the least problem with, the banner I hate.

HE have plenty of strong choices, no other army has units with s6 hitting at i5 (white lions), or units that come with a 4+ ward save. Overall I feel they are rather balanced. ASF really isn't that big a deal, don't worry about the ASF whiners.

[Ielthan]

I don't have a problem with HE having ASF but don't say you pay a premium for it in points. For 3 more points than a chaos marauder a spearelf get +1 i, +1 ld, asf, light armor, shield, and martial prowess. If the marauder pays for the light armor and shield the spearelf is 1 point more expensive for +1i, ld, asf, and martial prowess. That is the closest comparison in the woc book.

But woc players don't use marauders, so what about a chaos warrior? A base chaos warrior (ws5, s4, t4, i5, a2 ld8 4+as) costs 14 points. That is before the price of a chaos mark, weapon or shield which could easily and often does bring them up to 19ppm. That is paying a premium.

ASF on HE is fine. The problem with HE is the banner being able to be carried by a unit's standard bearer, the book being able to be used on every spell, and the frost phoenix being slightly underpriced. If the book was once per phase I would have no problem with it. If the botwd was 55pts, I would have no problem with it. If the frost phoenix was 275pts (the price of flaming breath/regen chimera) I would have no problem with it. But they aren't. The book is used on every spell and dispell, the banner is used by any elite unit, and the phoenix is only 10 more points than a naked chimera. Of the three the phoenix is the one I have the least problem with, the banner I hate.

HE have plenty of strong choices, no other army has units with s6 hitting at i5 (white lions), or units that come with a 4+ ward save. Overall I feel they are rather balanced. ASF really isn't that big a deal, don't worry about the ASF whiners.

Woc players don't use warriors either. They use nurgle chariots for core, they don't need the banner when you can get a 3++ rerolling 1s stubborn chaos lord tag teaming things with an unbreakable daemon prince who's cacobombing/purple sunning the entire enemy army. Oh and a t5 3 wound 3++ bsb to go with them. If you're going to complain about elves, don't use warriors as a comparison, it's far and away the most bent book in the game. The netlist consists of about 15 models, all of which are swiftstride/flyers, it's a farce. Btw chimera are fairly priced, their damage output far exceeds that of a frost Phoenix, which struggles badly against anything it can't thunderstomp.

Marauders were intentionally overcosted this edition because they were so undercosted in the previous one. Warriors are actually fairly costed, their statline justifies their cost. They will still win mano e mano vs any other infantry in the game, and they strike simultaneously with elves with great weapons, which they will outgrind all day. Also shooting them doesn't tend to do much, whilst shooting elves does a hell of a lot. The reason warriors don't get taken that much is because so many other choices in the book are so bent.

I completely agree with finreir, the internal balance of the elf books is pretty terrible and the banner is a huge crutch for he. It's the control of the move phase that can make elves so frustrating to play against. Most of all though it's that the players who whinge about asf tend to be shit players. Yes the banner is bent, but just about every book has bent stuff in it that gets abused:

Warriors: too much stuff to write.
ogres: hellheart, core gutstar, mournfang, ironblaster, sabretusks, the thing that bounces off spells
daemons; kairos, epidemius, beasts, skillcannon, plaguedrones, reign of chaos
Empire: demis, stanks, light councils, cannons
O&G: underpriced warmachines and manglers, savage orc big guns with shrunken head 6 dicing foot
Skaven: skaven magic/magic items, a-bombs, stormfiends (faced the triple ratling cannon, ouch.)
Dwarves: spellbreakers, war machine spam, gyro spam
Lizards: tetto, scar vets, tbh I think lizards have really good internal balance, just everything's a little weaker than it needs to be

Even brets can do the character wall with the 1+ rerolling paladins flanking a heroic killing blow lord.

[Cherubis]

Let's just face it. We've had it pretty good. The only time High Elves had it hard was in 6th edition, although I feel that it was that period that forged the best High Elf generals in most metas. The thing is that the army has a learning curve, but once you plateau, the caliber of gamesmanship is very high--much higher than you'd find in a dedicated Chaos or Vampire Counts player.

That all being said, I was a fan of army wide ASF when it was introduced in 7th ed, and am even more a fan of it being the elven racial trait. I guess I've been blessed with opponents with egos durable enough to win or lose.

Also, I can appreciate being a little butthurt about people's sentiments toward elves on Warseer, but let us not forget that making broad statements about entire communities makes us no better than those we perceive to wrong us. Warseer is a vast community with lots of great personalities as well as some toxic ones. I was compelled to say something since I've noticed a smattering of posts deriding that community without much substantiation.