I played against a fairly standard list today with my double mortis engine grave guard army.
It was an entertaining game for the most part. Some things that I took from it:
1) Sword masters are not very good. I made a positioning error that allowed 18 and a loremaster (with the banner of nerdrage) to hit a flank while being charged to the front by phoenix guard and the other flank with sisters of averlorn. I had VDM up and a 5++ regen save, but when the dust settled, he'd killed 10 grave guard (from all 3 units) and I'd wiped 13 models from various sources. So, after being triple ganked, I tied the combat. Admittedly, I was roid raging on buffs.
2) The loremaster is incredible. Expect to see him with a 4++ and the book of hoeth. He's a friggin super star. He basically dispells like a level 4 since he can modify low rolls, and he certainly casts like one. In the early game, you've got lots to dispel to keep your ethereals and chaff alive (see point 3) but once he gets in combat it's where he really really shines. Miasma, ice shard blizzard, earthblood and widform can swing combats to a startling degree (well, maybe not earthblood). Had he done his magic phase right, I'm pretty sure my grave guard would have been in for a rough time of it. He can't really fight that well, so chill out.
3) High elves are the kings of chaff. They have the ranged power to clear out just about anything, and since so much of it is magical (arrows or MMs) I was out 3 units of dogs and a units of bats almost before my models hit the table. Again, had he prioritized his spells properly, I'd be down a couple spirit hosts as well. Heck, he probably had enough firepower (assuming a decent PD pool) to drop a bunker of zombies in a single round of blasting. It was interesting and quite cool. Not sure why he didn't try and blast away the mortis engines though...
4) The icebird is cool, and in combat is really quite a factor. I like it from a rules stand point. However, it's all kinds of squishy. And I mean ALL kinds. It's not stubborn, it doesn't get rerolls, it's only ld 9 and it's only got a 5++. I know it's got a chance to be s7 or a 4++ or whatever, but the point is the HE player can't throw it around like a demon prince, and since it's such an important support piece, it can tell you a lot about where your opponent is putting emphasis strategically. It does not like ghouls or hexwraiths! Even normal wraiths give it the heebie-jeebies.
5) Fragile. Fragile fragile fragile. Let me say it again: fragile. You know how nobody takes skeletons because they don't hit that hard and are easy to squish? Well, these guys are as easy to kill as skeletons (almost). That should put lots of people's minds to rest! It's also why world dragon wasn't a problem for me; it was on the 18 swordmasters, and ghouls don't have magic attacks. 36 poisoned attacks later, there was a very lonely loremaster looking at a very angry vampire lord. Even white lions aren't what they were, mainly due to the loss of rerolls. Additionally, remember that they are only I5. The vampire lord goes first. With rerolls. And red fury. Will 28/40 still mess you up if they hit you? Sure. Will they be dang hard with the world dragon? Absolutely. Are they any worse than the rerolling blenders of the days of yore? I don't think so. I expect the ETC power lists will have as big a unit as allowed with world dragon and a caster with book of hoeth (possibly high magic) backed up by a unit of dragon princes and murder of phoenixes/bolt throwers. Another possibility is the mounted death star, in which case it's probably all 3 elven characters (prince, arch mage and BSB) in the world dragon pain train. I've not faced that yet, and I'm not sure what I'd do about it. Probably sacrifice the ghouls to get a good flank charge on the bus with grave guard/big vargheist unit or something like that.
All in all, it's a really interesting and well done book. I applaud GW! That's 2 in a row IMO, and another in the string of well written 8th ed books.
erv:
