High Elves in 8th Ed.

I'm not sure what the new format of games are going to be.  Everyone played 2250 in 7th Ed. and I think that the new format will be either 2k or 3k.  I'm leaning towards 2k because 25% percentages are pretty easy to figure out at this point level.  From what I've read so far, there must be 25% min core and probably 25% max rares and specials.  That leaves 25% for heroes or lords.  The good thing is that this will make things very balanced throughout Warhammer in general.  No more deathstars, lord and hero spam or other ridiculous cheese lists, but what does this mean for High Elves?  This means the death of Teclis and Star Dragon lists outside the 3k realm.  One of the biggest turn offs that I hear from people who play other wargames and not WHFB is that it takes too long to "get in it".  The fun doesn't start until 2k+ points and that means a lot of models, assembly and painting.  I don't know how I feel about this percentage stuff just to play your favorite looking models; such as a Prince on Star Dragon.

Percentages is perfectly fine with me.  The Star Dragon and Teclis lists were starting to get stale and I was getting tired of playing them competitively anyway.  What kind of hero setups we'll see instead?  I can see more of Korhil and Caradryan (these two were always awesome anyway), a mounted BSB carrying a Radiant Gem of Hoeth (battle wizard), or a normal mounted Prince with either Star Lance or carrying the White Sword on foot.  There's plenty of choices to go around and the fact that the current rumor says that wizards pick their spells instead of randomizing is pretty bad ass.  Why?  Because High Elf mages know all the lores in the game (in the BRB + High Magic) so they're extremely flexible in the realm of magic.  The only thing that sucks about magic in general is that spell casters are supposedly generating magic dice on rolls of 2d6.  I absolutely hate RNG.  It just doesn't make sense fluff wise how a scrub mage with a lucky roll of boxcars would ever outdo Teclis on a bad day.  Even if you add the wizard level to the 2d6, it still doesn't make sense this should ever happen.


Back to percentages really quick.  First thing's first:  High Elves core suck.  I know it, the players know it and GW sure the F knows it.  There's a reason why the core of the High Elves are 2+ in the book when everyone else is 3+.  We have room for 6 specials and 4 rares but we have a min core of 2 for a damn good reason.  The reason is that you pay 11 points for a single Archer and 9 points for a Elven Spearmen.  You pick a unit with 20x Spears and it costs you 180 points before you do anything with it.  Every elf is a T3 model with a 5+ armor save (and Archers have none).  You can argue that Lothern Sea Guard can do both roles, but they cost 13 points EACH for the same T3 5+ elf.  New models or not.. I'm not happy with this change.  The new Spears might fight with another rank than they do now, but in a game with a limited amount of points, I get nervous thinking about it.

High Elves have always been an elite army.  We rely heavily on using our break neck Sword Masters, our stubborn White Lions and our durable Phoenix Guard to carry the day.  The same could be said about our fast and powerful Dragon Princes and Lion Chariots, and our shooting from our flexible RBTs is second to none.  At the end of the day, it's our rares and specials that win the game.  According to the latest rumors, 25% is not going to change for us.. but rather that we can 3+ of the same specials and 2+ of the same rares.  Let me tell you something.. 25% specials at 2k points is 500 points to play with.  For a 0-6 specialized elite army, that is not enough points to field anything substantial.  You know why this is so?  Because our special infantry costs 15 points a piece for a T3 model and 30 points per Dragon Prince.  Now I see a whole bunch of rumors floating around the internet that we ignore percentages or what not, but until I see it for my own eyes, I'm pretty bitter that an elite army is no longer very elite.

Lastly, I want to quickly touch upon the ASF vs. ASL rule from Great Weapons.  Supposedly, if we have ASF on our units, we cancel out the Great Weapon's ASL rule.  That means all our stuff will strike in I order.  In addition, units with higher I and ASF gets to re-roll hits in combat.  This is great for units like Sword Masters and White Lions.. but at 15 ppm, this gets expensive fast.  Especially if you try to take them in bigger units than we currently use.  Supposedly.. great weapons can also attack in 2 ranks so that's why we might see people try to maximize their ranks.  Units with I6 like Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes will be really happy with their re-rolls to hit.. and so will our combat Nobles and Princes, but overall I need to see it in action.

I believe in a thing called "cost effectiveness".  I really do.  Every decision that I make when building my army lists is based on how much bang I'm getting for my buck.  Am I really getting my bang with my buck with all things considered above?  9 point spears?  15 point elite infantry?  What about my limited percentages at 2k points?  Does this mean that my future games require me to play 3k?  No further comment until I hold the actual rule book in my nervously sweaty elf hands.