A Look at High Elf Rules in The Old World

[wisetiger7]

There is a chaf unit i figured out, 5 spearmen in marching colmun, the dart, 15 inch move!
What is the deal with chariout runners how do we use them?
Also is there a trick with the horn of isha im missing, LD8 with no reroll for an excelent buff, that u wont get every 2nd or third game?

Interesting idea for the dart. What about making those Sea Guard for the Naval Discipline?

[Prince of Spires]

There is a chaf unit i figured out, 5 spearmen in marching colmun, the dart, 15 inch move!
What is the deal with chariout runners how do we use them?
Also is there a trick with the horn of isha im missing, LD8 with no reroll for an excelent buff, that u wont get every 2nd or third game?

Interesting idea for the dart. What about making those Sea Guard for the Naval Discipline?

I think changing them to LSG simply adds point unecesarilly. The whole point of such a dart is to stand somewhere and die valiantly while keeping some enemy unit busy. Getting a few more S3 attacks isn't going to make any difference there, while you are spending 10 more points per unit. Best case scenario, you redress after your single S&S to five wide. compared to the spearmen you get 2 extra attacks, which you will most likely not make, since you want to be blocking the big strong units of your opponent, which means you'll likely be whiped out before you get to strike. Not worth it.

Same with changing them to archers by the way. Since their purpose is to get in the way of the enemy, you will be marching almost all the time until you're dead. Which means no shooting. And the few times you don't march, you'll likely move, which means you'd get 1 S3 shot. Just not worth any points investment. Even if you don't move, they'd give you 3 S3 shots. That's not going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

All in all, if you do this, keep them as cheap as possible. So spearmen.

[Cirion RedDragon]

I mean, sure, I also agree somewhat. I think there are a lot of topics that could be considered a little, somewhat or overly, gamey in the current rules. Naval Disciplining out of charge range, a few things come to mind.

Bringing a Dragon to a 1250 pts game is an ass move, but you can. I think playing around positioning and movement and charge arcs has always been Warhammer Fantasy core functionality, hence why it is called chess with painted figures and dice. The Elves (of all flavors) have always been on the knife's edge of balancing correctly. Even with Strikes First across the board and 1st, 2nd or 3rd best Magic in the game. Where they were called crazy overpowered. A zombie or skaven slave still hits you on 5+, wounds you on 4 or 5+ and your Armour is only 5+. And is 3x cheaper (Spearmen) or 5-6x cheaper (elites). I advocate that Sisters are the best infantry model in the game right now. Still, they need a good game to clear an opposite amount of Zombie pts in a 6 Turn game. And 2 Magic Missiles delete them off the table if you are not bringing a Loremasters Cloak.

If there are only bully players in your community, maybe it is time to open up a new player group that looks down upon that and instead wants to bring fluffy lists and pre-agree e.g. no T6 monsters, no unkillable Dwarven Lord, etc. etc.

I've always been in favor of limiting mega-powerful characters or monsters to larger games, say, 2500+ points.
If it was up to me, I would enact a house rule that no single model in your army can cost more than 25% of the total army cost, which would pretty much eliminate the Lords on Dragons and such in games of 2000 points or less.
It would also be fluffy, since it is rather hard to imagine that Lords or Dragons would even get out of bed for such a small encounter.
Aren't Dragons supposed to be notoriously hard to wake up from their global cooling induced slumber ?
[Maybe that's what's happening to my house plants, which grew like crazy 20 years ago when it was a LOT warmer and for a lot longer than it is now, when they hardly grow at all.]
As for new player groups, they aren't so easy to find now that all the larger game stores have closed and what's left are 1 that resembles an airport Starbucks more than it resebles anything else and 1 that's quite literally a blacked-out hole in the wall next to a barber shop in a half abandoned strip mall....

[Ielthan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXzsdhZaOuw

An interesting discussion on some of the issues that we've been talking about here. I'm inclined to agree that while I like the ruleset, it's really lacking in "tightness". Sort of feels like a second edition after a few years in the tournament grinder could really be great.

[Csjarrat]

It's a gw game, it's never gonna be tournament tight. So long as it holds up as a gentleman's game I'm fine with that. A solid faq done regularly with points tweaks for egregiously imbalances things is what I'd settle for

[Ielthan]

It's a gw game, it's never gonna be tournament tight. So long as it holds up as a gentleman's game I'm fine with that. A solid faq done regularly with points tweaks for egregiously imbalances things is what I'd settle for

I think 8th ed did hold up enough for tournaments. My issue is the whole "gentlemen's game" aspect, that's a very nebulous concept. If you're playing with the same group of friends who you know well, it's fine; you understand each other, what you're both looking for from the game, how competitive you each are etc. However if you're playing someone new, all of those things are unknowns, and if someone brings something broken (e.g. dragon) and the other has a soft list, or interprets certain rules differently it can really have a big impact on the experience. Personally I really enjoy playing against new opponents, it's a great way to make friends, but I can definitely see issues in this edition arising pretty frequently. Even something like an FAQ is very often not seen by large swathes of the player base.

The issues with TOW seem to be kind of hard wired into the game, so I'm not sure an FAQ would fix them, needs more of a "3rd ed 40k replacement of phases of the game via white dwarf" kind of thing to happen. e.g. Even if they doubled the points of dragons, it wouldn't make much difference, there still aren't the tools to really consistently threaten them and they would become even more like 8th ed points denials deathstars, except they can take out a lot of points too.

I've often heard "casual players" use "tournament player" as a somewhat contemptuous term, but the ironic thing is a more tournament balanced game actually benefits casual players far more. The hardcore meta chasing tournament player is going to take the strongest army they can, so frankly balance doesn't matter that much to them, and a big part of tournament play is exploiting game mechanics where possible to the max; it's a different experience in general. Having great balance though means that casual players can take what might be a softer list and still enjoy a good game against said tournament player. I have to say 9th age is great at this; if you just transpose the setting to WFB it is great for narrative games as you can take so many of the units that are usually awful and still have them be decent.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle, dabble in tournaments, play more casually but with friends who are also competitive by nature, but love the hobby and the spectacle too. I definitely would prefer the game to be more tight just so we don't have to have a ton of rules discussions mid game, or have to start house ruling on things like dragons and skirmishers (which look kind of terrible tbh when in large number).

[Csjarrat]

It's a gw game, it's never gonna be tournament tight. So long as it holds up as a gentleman's game I'm fine with that. A solid faq done regularly with points tweaks for egregiously imbalances things is what I'd settle for

I think 8th ed did hold up enough for tournaments. My issue is the whole "gentlemen's game" aspect, that's a very nebulous concept. If you're playing with the same group of friends who you know well, it's fine; you understand each other, what you're both looking for from the game, how competitive you each are etc. However if you're playing someone new, all of those things are unknowns, and if someone brings something broken (e.g. dragon) and the other has a soft list, or interprets certain rules differently it can really have a big impact on the experience. Personally I really enjoy playing against new opponents, it's a great way to make friends, but I can definitely see issues in this edition arising pretty frequently. Even something like an FAQ is very often not seen by large swathes of the player base.

The issues with TOW seem to be kind of hard wired into the game, so I'm not sure an FAQ would fix them, needs more of a "3rd ed 40k replacement of phases of the game via white dwarf" kind of thing to happen. e.g. Even if they doubled the points of dragons, it wouldn't make much difference, there still aren't the tools to really consistently threaten them and they would become even more like 8th ed points denials deathstars, except they can take out a lot of points too.

I've often heard "casual players" use "tournament player" as a somewhat contemptuous term, but the ironic thing is a more tournament balanced game actually benefits casual players far more. The hardcore meta chasing tournament player is going to take the strongest army they can, so frankly balance doesn't matter that much to them, and a big part of tournament play is exploiting game mechanics where possible to the max; it's a different experience in general. Having great balance though means that casual players can take what might be a softer list and still enjoy a good game against said tournament player. I have to say 9th age is great at this; if you just transpose the setting to WFB it is great for narrative games as you can take so many of the units that are usually awful and still have them be decent.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle, dabble in tournaments, play more casually but with friends who are also competitive by nature, but love the hobby and the spectacle too. I definitely would prefer the game to be more tight just so we don't have to have a ton of rules discussions mid game, or have to start house ruling on things like dragons and skirmishers (which look kind of terrible tbh when in large number).

Nah, 8th was a broken mess. Too Many games decided by save or die spells going off with 6 dice irresistible force attempts.
I played ogres, friend played lizardmen, both got retired from local events as you just got purple sunned or pit of shadesed and lost without ever having to do anything tactical. Magic broke that game and broke its balance. Definitely not a tournament game

[Ielthan]

It's a gw game, it's never gonna be tournament tight. So long as it holds up as a gentleman's game I'm fine with that. A solid faq done regularly with points tweaks for egregiously imbalances things is what I'd settle for

I think 8th ed did hold up enough for tournaments. My issue is the whole "gentlemen's game" aspect, that's a very nebulous concept. If you're playing with the same group of friends who you know well, it's fine; you understand each other, what you're both looking for from the game, how competitive you each are etc. However if you're playing someone new, all of those things are unknowns, and if someone brings something broken (e.g. dragon) and the other has a soft list, or interprets certain rules differently it can really have a big impact on the experience. Personally I really enjoy playing against new opponents, it's a great way to make friends, but I can definitely see issues in this edition arising pretty frequently. Even something like an FAQ is very often not seen by large swathes of the player base.

The issues with TOW seem to be kind of hard wired into the game, so I'm not sure an FAQ would fix them, needs more of a "3rd ed 40k replacement of phases of the game via white dwarf" kind of thing to happen. e.g. Even if they doubled the points of dragons, it wouldn't make much difference, there still aren't the tools to really consistently threaten them and they would become even more like 8th ed points denials deathstars, except they can take out a lot of points too.

I've often heard "casual players" use "tournament player" as a somewhat contemptuous term, but the ironic thing is a more tournament balanced game actually benefits casual players far more. The hardcore meta chasing tournament player is going to take the strongest army they can, so frankly balance doesn't matter that much to them, and a big part of tournament play is exploiting game mechanics where possible to the max; it's a different experience in general. Having great balance though means that casual players can take what might be a softer list and still enjoy a good game against said tournament player. I have to say 9th age is great at this; if you just transpose the setting to WFB it is great for narrative games as you can take so many of the units that are usually awful and still have them be decent.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle, dabble in tournaments, play more casually but with friends who are also competitive by nature, but love the hobby and the spectacle too. I definitely would prefer the game to be more tight just so we don't have to have a ton of rules discussions mid game, or have to start house ruling on things like dragons and skirmishers (which look kind of terrible tbh when in large number).

Nah, 8th was a broken mess. Too Many games decided by save or die spells going off with 6 dice irresistible force attempts.
I played ogres, friend played lizardmen, both got retired from local events as you just got purple sunned or pit of shadesed and lost without ever having to do anything tactical. Magic broke that game and broke its balance. Definitely not a tournament game

8th was a very unbalanced game for sure, but it's core rule set held up over years of high level tournament play, none of the various comp packs at the big events (ETC, Swedish, South Coast, and eventually Triple Crown post 8th) changed the core mechanics of the game or special rules; they just adjusted army balance. That's a huge difference to needing to potentially change skirmish rules, or when you can reform, or having different events interpeting rules differently to each other, which is what we'll likely see over the next year or so. Pretty much out of the box you could play 8th edition with a complete stranger and there would be very little ambiguity, that is clearly not the case with TOW so far.

Sorry but small local events are a bad barometer for any game, they will just tell you the local meta. e.g. death magic was good, shadow was good with certain army builds, but they weren't the best and didn't dominate tournaments like light councils and metal magic did.

[Bolt Thrower]

...needing to potentially change skirmish rules...

This is not the first time I have seen mention of skirmish issues. Can someone clarify what the issue is with skirmishers? I may have missed the discussion.

[Csjarrat]

I think 8th ed did hold up enough for tournaments. My issue is the whole "gentlemen's game" aspect, that's a very nebulous concept. If you're playing with the same group of friends who you know well, it's fine; you understand each other, what you're both looking for from the game, how competitive you each are etc. However if you're playing someone new, all of those things are unknowns, and if someone brings something broken (e.g. dragon) and the other has a soft list, or interprets certain rules differently it can really have a big impact on the experience. Personally I really enjoy playing against new opponents, it's a great way to make friends, but I can definitely see issues in this edition arising pretty frequently. Even something like an FAQ is very often not seen by large swathes of the player base.

The issues with TOW seem to be kind of hard wired into the game, so I'm not sure an FAQ would fix them, needs more of a "3rd ed 40k replacement of phases of the game via white dwarf" kind of thing to happen. e.g. Even if they doubled the points of dragons, it wouldn't make much difference, there still aren't the tools to really consistently threaten them and they would become even more like 8th ed points denials deathstars, except they can take out a lot of points too.

I've often heard "casual players" use "tournament player" as a somewhat contemptuous term, but the ironic thing is a more tournament balanced game actually benefits casual players far more. The hardcore meta chasing tournament player is going to take the strongest army they can, so frankly balance doesn't matter that much to them, and a big part of tournament play is exploiting game mechanics where possible to the max; it's a different experience in general. Having great balance though means that casual players can take what might be a softer list and still enjoy a good game against said tournament player. I have to say 9th age is great at this; if you just transpose the setting to WFB it is great for narrative games as you can take so many of the units that are usually awful and still have them be decent.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle, dabble in tournaments, play more casually but with friends who are also competitive by nature, but love the hobby and the spectacle too. I definitely would prefer the game to be more tight just so we don't have to have a ton of rules discussions mid game, or have to start house ruling on things like dragons and skirmishers (which look kind of terrible tbh when in large number).

Nah, 8th was a broken mess. Too Many games decided by save or die spells going off with 6 dice irresistible force attempts.
I played ogres, friend played lizardmen, both got retired from local events as you just got purple sunned or pit of shadesed and lost without ever having to do anything tactical. Magic broke that game and broke its balance. Definitely not a tournament game

8th was a very unbalanced game for sure, but it's core rule set held up over years of high level tournament play, none of the various comp packs at the big events (ETC, Swedish, South Coast, and eventually Triple Crown post 8th) changed the core mechanics of the game or special rules; they just adjusted army balance. That's a huge difference to needing to potentially change skirmish rules, or when you can reform, or having different events interpeting rules differently to each other, which is what we'll likely see over the next year or so. Pretty much out of the box you could play 8th edition with a complete stranger and there would be very little ambiguity, that is clearly not the case with TOW so far.

Sorry but small local events are a bad barometer for any game, they will just tell you the local meta. e.g. death magic was good, shadow was good with certain army builds, but they weren't the best and didn't dominate tournaments like light councils and metal magic did.

Ah I see what you mean. For me, army balance is intrinsic to the "game". For me, any game system that needs an external agent to provide a balance fix is proof that the designers have either failed to make a tight tournament system or succeeded in creating a beer and pretzels system that other folks want to fandangle into a tournament system.
I'd agree that these rules have a fair bit that needs an faq, but I can't ever see it being run as a tight tournament game as it's clearly not written that way when you compare it to other game systems that explicitly are aimed at the tourney circuit

[Tethlis]

I don't agree with 8th. It had problems, but also a defined meta that was balanced enough for virtually all factions to get support and representation from interested players. 8th was also the best edition for multiple unit types being represented in the table, with infantry actually being useful because of horde rules. Not saying it was perfect, or even great, but it was playable. TOW has fundamental, basic rules that are still unclear and being debated. The discussion about Drilled troops and charging for example. That's not a niche rule, that's basic interaction straight from the rulebook that play testing (or even a close read through) should have easily caught.

That said, it can be made for tournament play. Tabletop will always lend itself to consensus and agreement, both among organizers and competitors. But certainly not in its present state.

[Cirion RedDragon]

You would think that after 9 editions spanning 40 years (!), they might have gotten it right......
But that's not really the point, is it ?
The point is to $€££ new stuff to (mostly) new players every 4 years or so.
The 'flaws' of the game aren't bugs, the are features.......
As far as I'm concerned, 3rd edition was probably the most realistic version, because it was the closest to a historical wargame, meaning the closest resemblance to how a real life battle might actually unfold. 5th edition was easily the most colorful, with super-mega characters, ultra-buff elite units, tons of multi-tiered special rules and instantly battle-winning spells dominating all else.

[NHB]

...needing to potentially change skirmish rules...

This is not the first time I have seen mention of skirmish issues. Can someone clarify what the issue is with skirmishers? I may have missed the discussion.

Few topics come to mind, but @Ielthan should reply, what in particular he is referring to.

• 360° Vision, so charging, shooting + spellcasting in all directions,
• difficult to shoot at or engage due to special rules. Fire & Flee, Feigned Flight, Evasive, Move through Cover etc.
• "Free Movement" in the sense, that they can just move however they want within their M allotment, no wheeling payment etc. L or C shaped movements are totally viable, "dancing around the front ark" if you will.
• You can position skirmishers anywhere between 1mm apart each model (still retain line of sight for second "rank") to 1" apart each model. So normally even in a e.g. 20 strong Sisters Unit all models get to shoot or S&S. Unless charged exactly from 90° in the flank.
• Lone Characters are considered to be in skirmish if infantry or cavalry and get also the Evade rule. And can't be targeted directly.

Of course this is all paid for by the fact that if you do get caught, you die more or less immediately to as much as a Skeleton. Which is why I think skirmisher are actually quite well placed, they are just a pain in the ass. As they should be.
I maintain that our Sisters are probably the best infantry unit in the game, but they also pay the cost, being 15pts each and in Rare (normally).
(before someone asks, +1WS and Strikes first, and re-rolling ones makes them better than Waywatchers overall)

[Ielthan]

...needing to potentially change skirmish rules...

This is not the first time I have seen mention of skirmish issues. Can someone clarify what the issue is with skirmishers? I may have missed the discussion.

Few topics come to mind, but @Ielthan should reply, what in particular he is referring to.

• 360° Vision, so charging, shooting + spellcasting in all directions,
• difficult to shoot at or engage due to special rules. Fire & Flee, Feigned Flight, Evasive, Move through Cover etc.
• "Free Movement" in the sense, that they can just move however they want within their M allotment, no wheeling payment etc. L or C shaped movements are totally viable, "dancing around the front ark" if you will.
• You can position skirmishers anywhere between 1mm apart each model (still retain line of sight for second "rank") to 1" apart each model. So normally even in a e.g. 20 strong Sisters Unit all models get to shoot or S&S. Unless charged exactly from 90° in the flank.
• Lone Characters are considered to be in skirmish if infantry or cavalry and get also the Evade rule. And can't be targeted directly.

Of course this is all paid for by the fact that if you do get caught, you die more or less immediately to as much as a Skeleton. Which is why I think skirmisher are actually quite well placed, they are just a pain in the ass. As they should be.
I maintain that our Sisters are probably the best infantry unit in the game, but they also pay the cost, being 15pts each and in Rare (normally).
(before someone asks, +1WS and Strikes first, and re-rolling ones makes them better than Waywatchers overall)

You pretty much covered it. the 360 degree arc in particular is incredibly strong.

[Anduil of Elithis]

What our gaming group found is that the skirmisher rules are quite unclear when it comes to getting charged and redirecting, e.g. which direction to you charge if the closest model in the skirmisher unit is not in your vision arc, what is the center of a skirmisher unit for the purpose of fleeing, etcetera. These are points we hope for an FAQ on.

[Morgen]

The rule for charging skirmishes on page 186 says they have to charge the closest visible model..there you go for that one. I'm assuming you're talking about an open/close order unit charging a unit of skirmishers of course. Hot skirmisher on skirmisher action doesn't care about visibility per model after all when moving the first charger.

The center of a unit of skirmishers is...well the center? They don't have special rules that make the center of the unit not the normal center so I'm not sure what you're looking for in an FAQ on that one?

[Anduil of Elithis]

I might not have phrased that well enough, previously.
But how then do you determine the centre of a unit of skirmishers in skirmishing formation (i.e. every model standing individually)? This would often involve guesswork as it stands currently as there is no explanation in the rulebook for this.

When charging skirmishers, you have to move into contact with the closest model visible as you said.. How is the closest model determined? According to pg. 92 or do you have to include the charge move to determine the closest model? This can make a very big difference in the charging direction.

How do skirmishers flee from a unit as a charge reaction - Are all models moved individually or is the unit moved in one direction (how is that direction determined?)?

What happens if there is no more model visible after the skirmishing unit declared flee as charge reaction? Depending on the previous questions, this can happen rather easily if planned for.

[TyrrenAzureblade]

The rules state you "move directly towards the closest model in the unit of skirmishers" and "as directly as possible into contact with the closest visible model in the target unit" both on pg.186. In General Principles on pg.92, Directly Towards is defined as moving to or from the center of a unit or object. So you're not moving towards the center of the unit in this case since you're only concerned with the single closest visible model, you move in relation to the center of that model as if it were a lone character/single model unit.

I can't find anything that helps further define what a fleeing unit of Skirmishers does exactly. In my games I have been fleeing by loosely figuring out the center of my blob and moving the models in a group as close in shape as to what it was when it started its flee move directly away from the charging unit. We'll need an official ruling/FAQ but this method has been working fine for me and my opponents.

As for no more visible models after a flee reaction, since you complete the charge up to your charge range (doesn't count as having failed a charge if a fleeing unit moves out of range), it may still be able to make contact depending on what the unit ends up hiding behind (most probable example would be a forest/woods) and the charge range rolled (if it is a forest, you'd of course have to apply the -1M modifier and take the lowest die result.

[Anduil of Elithis]

The rules state you "move directly towards the closest model in the unit of skirmishers" and "as directly as possible into contact with the closest visible model in the target unit" both on pg.186. In General Principles on pg.92, Directly Towards is defined as moving to or from the center of a unit or object. So you're not moving towards the center of the unit in this case since you're only concerned with the single closest visible model, you move in relation to the center of that model as if it were a lone character/single model unit.

This makes sense, even though the example image is not very helpful in that two models seem more or less equally distant to the charger.
But if we assume the above to be as intended and the distance not being related to the charge distance, can't you create impossible charges with skirmishers? E.g. one model being the closest visible model at the edge of the vision arc so the attacker would have to wheel, but other models from the skirmishing unit blocking the wheel movement (imagine a skirmisher banana in front of the attacker).
That seems unintended but possible if we only care about proximity and not charging distance when deciding which model is closest. Or am I overlooking something?

I can't find anything that helps further define what a fleeing unit of Skirmishers does exactly. In my games I have been fleeing by loosely figuring out the center of my blob and moving the models in a group as close in shape as to what it was when it started its flee move directly away from the charging unit. We'll need an official ruling/FAQ but this method has been working fine for me and my opponents.

We have been playing it this way as well, so far. But this is not a very tight way to solve this situation and is sure to lead to arguments too often.

As for no more visible models after a flee reaction, since you complete the charge up to your charge range (doesn't count as having failed a charge if a fleeing unit moves out of range), it may still be able to make contact depending on what the unit ends up hiding behind (most probable example would be a forest/woods) and the charge range rolled (if it is a forest, you'd of course have to apply the -1M modifier and take the lowest die result.

Thanks, this helps

[TyrrenAzureblade]

This makes sense, even though the example image is not very helpful in that two models seem more or less equally distant to the charger.
But if we assume the above to be as intended and the distance not being related to the charge distance, can't you create impossible charges with skirmishers? E.g. one model being the closest visible model at the edge of the vision arc so the attacker would have to wheel, but other models from the skirmishing unit blocking the wheel movement (imagine a skirmisher banana in front of the attacker).
That seems unintended but possible if we only care about proximity and not charging distance when deciding which model is closest. Or am I overlooking something?

I mean, if you're making contact with a model that's in the same unit as the model that you're intending to charge I'd say that's a successful charge into the unit and probably shouldn't be getting so caught up in which model was hit first. If you want something in the book to justify this, I'd say it would fall under Accidental Contact During a Charge on pg.131.

As for Skirmishers moving in ways that seem exploitative while fleeing, talk it out with your opponent, but ultimately, skirmishers have a lot of flexibility, and I'd chalk it up to another boon for Skirmishers. So long as they're not moving sideways to avoid a charge/pursuit, and are attempting to earnestly move directly away from your unit, I'd say a little shimmying is fair game.

[Anduil of Elithis]

Completely agree with you there on a RAI level and this is what is currently played in our group.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if GW did not leave so much open to our interpretation? Though after so many years of playing their games, what did I expect?

[TyrrenAzureblade]

Completely agree with you there on a RAI level and this is what is currently played in our group.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if GW did not leave so much open to our interpretation? Though after so many years of playing their games, what did I expect?

You're not wrong. I went back to read through the 7th and 8th edition rulebooks for fun and to brush up on them, and boy, by comparison, those rulebooks are crystal clear. I read a rumor that the new FAQ was coming this month, and I really hope it's true. I've been foregoing Drilled in my latest lists just because I don't care to have that conversation every time I play a new opponent.