SpellArcher wrote:Thanks for the detailed reply Ferny.
In early 8th, under the 7th edition army book, elite infantry were just good, in most configurations (Sword Horde was dodgy because of prolific templates IMHO but anyway). This was because they hit first and they re-rolled. With high strength attacks, the damage output, before the enemy hit back, was horrific.
They lost this pre-emptive damage output with the 8th edition book. 10's remained viable in pure MSU lists because of the particular mechanics but diminished. In general though, you would see a 20+ model unit of Swords or much more usually, Lions, with World Dragon. This yielded the three ranks to maintain damage output (with Martial Prowess) and the Banner took enough stuff out of the game to make the unit a strong choice. Not unbeatable though, elves in particular were an issue because of ASF. Units without World Dragon were not very good and were rarely taken. Yes you could sink loads of points in with an Anointed or something but in general.
9th Age has removed World Dragon (good) and also Martial Prowess. MSU Swords seem to be functional because Initiative 6 means they reduce enemy return attacks and they themselves have enough attacks to put some damage on. Lions are not so good at reducing return attacks and are more prone to fluffing their damage (fewer attacks). The same issues afflict units of 14, say and the SM version is prone to being ripped up by ranged attacks, without the balancing feature of being lethal when what's left hopefully gets into combat.
Yeah, agree that in 8th we saw big blocks of WL with banner (yeah, SM too, but much much rarer and generally considered less optimal cos of S6 and stubborn). Banner is gone so we're now vulnerable to MM and big 6 again, and shooting (BS and WM) remains a threat, obviously as ever much more so for SM than lions. The change from ASF to LR also hurt us with the re-rolls, both in terms of pure percentages but also for variance. That said, I'm not agin these changes. I would argue that SM remain lethal when they get to combat (WS6 I6 2A S5 ignoring parry - that's pretty lethal), but the balancing feature makes this difficult to achieve. Lions I would argue are also very viable in combat, but they're more specialist, with their intended target being monsters, cavalry etc. They're also more able to get there because of AS3 vs shooting. I tried SM and WL block in an earlier iteration but found the SM too vulnerable to shooting, but I wonder whether now the PG/WL combo of old might rise again, offering anti-infantry and anti-cav/monsters, both with some survivability. SM I think currently are bessed used as small supporting units.
So Horde. Without protection, Swordmasters are going to be murdered by templates, massed BS shooting, spells like Cataclysm. Lions are better off but still not better as a unit than the equivalent version in 8th edition, which was rarely taken.
Yeah, these are definitely hard counters for SM. It makes them quite polarised (even more so in the previous iteration) - armies without shooting will get eaten by them, armies with sufficient shooting will wipe them out. Epitome of glass cannon. The trick, arguably, is to retain these as hard counters to a hard combat unit, but perhaps soften the edges of both enough that it is less polarising? But there has been sooooooooo much discussion about these guys, and it is very much still ongoing, because the community cannot coalesce onto a single (or even really onto a few) favoured approach for them.
To work, in any edition, M5 infantry have to be good. They are too slow to be worth taking otherwise, this a recurring issue in every edition of Warhammer. To the best of my knowledge, it's been Monsters and Skirmishers dominating the HE metagame, not combat infantry blocks, despite the defensive tools (which have now been removed) being present.
Skirmish shooty avoidance was dominating. That has now been heavily nerfed. There's been a lot of discussion about monsters, but I don't think they're generally considered within the community to be overpowered, especially since Last of their Kind came out. (Outside the community there was a fear about flying circus, especially with avoidance and/or shooting). It'll be interesting to see the effect of the young dragon as MC - apparently dual YG Prince is the new power build. We'll see. Personally I think there's lots of builds which excite me, but I'm maybe being a bit of a n00b and just getting excited about all the new internal balance and not being quite critical enough as to what will make the best list
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The beauty of the 5++/6++ banner is that it does just enough to make a 14 of Swordmasters say, viable. They lost killing power but the 6++ helps. 5++ is far from strong but it's enough to stop this M5 unit getting casually decimated by whatever ranged resources the enemy happens to have available. Both Wards stack with Blessing of Amhar but are still hardly broken. Lions become solid with it but only have reliable killing power in Horde and have lost true Stubborn. This banner also offers interesting possibilities to cavalry, Silver Helm buses look underpowered as things stand.
I think Blessing changed in the last round making 3+ a thing? The banner does work well as you describe it. Two things against it: 1) a medium sized minority of folks, myself included, aren't great fans of 6++ for various reasons, although I can live with it
2) this banner is fluff wise associated with Knights of Rhyma, but has less benefit for them (certainly relative benefit) than it does for other elite units. But something which has that sort of effect would be useful for us. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that replace cloak of stars for example, although I don't think that's somethign which has been suggested.
I'm not understanding what Thunderous Charge fixes. Knights of Ryma are already strong, they don't need a buff. Helm Buses can hit hard with characters already. M5 infantry will get charged more often than not.
I've seen a few folks argue that it is amazing on PG, and good on SM. I'm less convinced for reason you give, and because it seems just so good on KoR. I also agree that they were in a good spot already and arguably didn't need this boost. However, there was a lot of folks wanting the banner to be related to them (perhaps for fluff reasons in part) and this proposal carried the day. It is also a much simpler proposal than a lot of others, which RT generally prefers.
The fact that Cloak of the Stars also hampers buffs makes it a questionable pick. I feel what H(B)E need is a little more solidity, so that elements that do not Fly or Skirmish last long enough to come good. The 5++/6++ banner achieves this in one go.
To be fair, the only skirmishers now are shadow warriors (as before) and max 1 small unit of lions. Flyers are more varied, but I don't think the HBE game is dominated by them. But I do agree that something along the lines of 5++/6++ would help our infantry builds.
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