So after some contemplation, I decided to make a couple of changes to the list (again). Genies can now act as individual units (you're welcome, Pumpavius!) and are ethereal , and thus replaces the Sandwraith, which is gone from the list.
Bladedancers have been moved back to Rare, and the Hashishin special choice has been replaced by the Mujahiden, skirmishing scouts armed with handguns. Hashishin are still part of the list, but only as a hero choice.
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Well talking about good news!
ReplyDeleteGenies as individual units makes me one happy WHFB player!
I'll be checking some of the new stuff soon. Just to give you some feedback: Played yesterday with the new list (the one before this last update) and well, the bladedancer as a hero works great! But sadly never get to use the dervishes (they were blasted away by a spell!)
I will keep playing this army and giving you feedback!
Thank you so much M4cR1II3n!
Pumpavius.
Yeah, the Bladecancer was never bad a hero choice, it only suffered from being a better fighter than the normal Sheikh, as well as being a weird choice to have as a General. With the Sandwraith gone however, this freed up a rare slot to put them.
DeleteDervishes no longer have their 5+ Ward but always counts as being in soft cover instead. Do you think they should be cheaper or be given some other kind of protection? Possibly a look out sir if close to friendly units?
Mmm well, I've only played once with the new army list (although I've played several times with the older army list)but my feelings are:
ReplyDelete- The bladedancer should remain as a hero choice. It adds flavour to the list, and you could state that they can't be your army's general (as with the hashishin). Maybe a little point cost increase. It's good to keep in mind that as they can't be your battle standard bearer, if you want to use one you must field a Sheik (I always bring my BSB to battle, they are too good).
- Looked at the genie. I will give them a try now that they are a individual unit. I fielded a Vizier on a lesser genie on my last battle, it played better than with the previous army book. I will tell you how it turned out.
- I never get to play with the dervishes, I shall try them a few more times and tell you, but without a WS, they shall die easily against magic missiles. I know, a good unit of ten died against a fireball!. Maybe they should be cheaper, as a WS may be too much, and a look out sir for an entire unit doesn't seem logical.
- The grand vizier should say "may be accompanied" instead of "maybe mounted on" a genie.
- Also, there seems to be a problem on page 89, at the bottom on a blank square.
Best regards.
Pumpavius
- The Bladedancer unfortunately trades a middle-ground between the Sheikh and the Hashishin as a hero choice, since they are all fighter characters. Also, she is severely limited as she cannot lead units, be the army's general, can take neither magic armours, arcane items or standards, and pretty much always forces you to buy a Ward save to her to offset her lack of survivability, making each build very similar. As a rare choice, Bladedancers fill a role similar to that of Wraiths and Eshin Triads.
ReplyDelete- Try playing them at 15 pts each, and make sure to dispel those magic missiles! ;)
- Fixed the "accompanied" error.
- Hopefully fixed the error on page 89, not sure why it's acting up. Will check before uploading next patch.
I would be interested in knowing your reasoning for increasing the points cost of infantry. Is it because of the empire book? The new detachment rules in the empire book mean that most of the infantry in a well constructed army will have stubborn and hatred so you might not have to worry that much.
ReplyDeleteIt's both because of the Empire and O&G book, where the infantry for the most part have gotten more expensive due to steadfast and such, whereas cavalry has gotten cheaper. Ofc, if this trend will not continue in other books, I might have to lower the points cost in future updates again.
DeletePage 77 under "Prince of Thieves" says:
ReplyDelete"MAGIC: Jaffar is a Level 4 Wizard..."
Copy/paste error on my part, will fix it soon. Thanks for letting me know!
DeleteWell, here is some feedback from my last games! We played a little tournament (only 4 players), the armies were Araby, Empire, Dark Elves and Norsca. 3000 pts battles, so that left room to field and test different units.
ReplyDeleteI tried to test all the new stuff from the army book. So here it is how each unit performed:
- The Sultan (with "The Conqueror" and "The fanatic" titles) performed really well. His holy commands were fundamental to win some battles but didn't felt unbalanced. Kudos to him!
- Fielded a sheik BSB. It performed as it is supossed to be: a little combat boost to his unit.
- Grand Vizier with the lore of Desert accompanied by a Greater Genie. Against Norsca the greater genie managed to kill the valkyries, but against empire an unlucky roll by my Grand vizier against the final spell from the lore of metal turned him into gold and with it my genie vanished from existance. I would suggest the following: Genies may be fielded as rare choices or as a "mount" for a vizier or grand vizier, as with the army book before the last one, so that every attack directed against the wizard are resolved against the genie (except with attacks made with the sniper rule I suposse). Also, genie not diying when the vizier is slain, maybe going back to WS5 (maybe 4+ would be ok) and not ethereal?
- Hashashin, performed well.
- Warriors and bowmen performed well. Imams are still great. Dibbukim with all the new changes still is a good choice, I think it only attacked his own unit once.
- Slaves are great (really helps to make araby a characterful army).
- Desert riders are also really good, totally controled the WoC player's barbarian riders, killed them easily, but died against pistoliers. Well sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
- Camel riders were understimated by the Empire player and for that they helped kill a horde of halberdiers and a strong unit of greatswords.
- Palace guard performed great. Cut down by WoC, but against everything else performed well (with frenzy and an aditional attack thanks to the sultan, 3 S6 attacks per miniature, they were fearsome!)
- Mamelukes were ok, a decent heavy cavalry worth taking thanks to devastating charge.
to be continued on the next post...
- Bladedancers were odd... I really prefered them as a hero choice. On the field they kind of feel like almost the same thing as dervishes, performed really well against WoC (got lucky with the Killing blow attacks against his chosen warriors) but poorly against Norsca (they were dead from the start against valkyries). Against empire they almost killed an entire unit of flagellants, but then they were wiped out by them the next turn (bad rolls for me, great rolls for my opponent). The overall feeling from the other players was that they were a little bit OP, the Norsca player also said that he prefered them as a hero choice (the most common opponent to my araby army), and the empire player said that they were like an unit of heroes.
Delete- The dervishes. A unit of ten (played at 15 pts each) destroyed without problem and entire unit of halbardiers (one of the dervished couldn't complete his movement outside the unit so we considered that it means that the unit landed within the unit... that requires a FAQ), but were destroyed by a little group of harpies and by 2 chaos warhounds (stupid archers that didn't managed to kill them all). It seems really though to balance them out. My group and I were thinking that maybe it was easy to play them as the old dwarf slayers doomseekers from Chaos Storm Slayer list (hitting every miniature in btb with them and every miniature in btb with the miniature originally striked, but being able to hit the dervishes back). It's really a tough unit to test.
- War elephant with mahout, spike chain and spiked tusks. A BEAST! Destroyed a steamtank, destroyed then by a second cannon ball. It was the doom of the WoC player and engaged in an epic battle with the norse's Mamouth, until some valkyries came and finished my poor dumbo. It performed pretty well, everybody felt that it was balanced, with good pros and cons as any monster should be.
- Desert Lore: Really tactical and I like that!
- I almost forgot the Mujahedin. I was going to field some Janissaries with handguns, but the mujahedon seemes a much better option. Liked them, but I miss my good old hashishin. I would suggest keeping the hashishin and making Mujahedin as an option. Maybe something like this:
Hashishin: 12 points, poisoned attacks, skirmish, scout, 1 attack, 2 hand weapons, hand crossbow 3 points, throwing knifes 1 point, trade poison attacks for mujahedin upgrade for free (giving them handgun).
I think that's it.
At the end I lost against Norsca, won against WoC (totally destroyed them still undefeated against them) and almost tied against empire, he won by some few points.
Hopes that my feedback helps!
Bets regards.
-Pumpavius-
Oh I almost forgot to clarify: I won against Dark Elves on the mini tournament, the battle against WoC was latter that day.
ReplyDelete-Pumpavius-
I made a 2000pts Araby army, but having a little problem with the Flying Carpet Riders.
ReplyDeleteThe Carpet Bombing Special Rule is a little confusing.
Can you explain how it works?
Thank you.
@ Pumpavius - I'll have a look at both the Bladedancers and Dervishes, might change them a bit.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Genie, they are supposed to be frail when it comes to the connection between them and the sorcerer. If the one controlling them dies, there's no need for them to stay and fight, so they will simply vanish. I could possibly lower their pts cost a bit if this makes them too great a target. Resolving all attacks against the Genie instead of the sorcerer might also be bit tricky now that they are on separate bases.
Hashishin and the Mujahideen are also so widely different in fluff and background that having them as an upgrade would be weird to say the least. The Hashishin hero choice can pretty much perform the same role as the old unit anyway, so you are not really losing out on much.
@ Michael - what do you find confusing about it? When you fly over an enemy unit, you may carpet bomb them. If you do so, you will cause D3 S2 hits for every carpet rider, and the enemy moves at half speed the following turn.
And every Carpet unit can use it once per game, right?
ReplyDeleteThanks. The wording of the rule is a bit confusing. Your comment made it a lot clearer.
Well, I played with them (2,250) and here's my comments:
ReplyDeleteThe Vizier Lord and Hero were pretty nice, though they had no defenses at all and so they died fast. They were able to cast Quick Sand and Mirage before dying and both did a pretty cool job. I like the Desert Lore.
The Genie were amazing and totally worth the points!
Until the moment they were too far away from the Viziers and so they couldn't grant wishes, and they died when they Vizier died, which was a LOT of points loss on my side.
Camel Riders are fun, but I played against someone who places his army very far from them. They reached him only at the end of the game and did nothing...
And the Carpet Riders - they suck. They can only use their Bombing once and then they die. They have no defenses at all and their Bows are weak. Weak in attack and speed... I'm not going to take more then 1 small unit of them again.
I have Mujahedins, 1 unit which died 2 seconds into the game and another which did nothing all the game.
The Onager was very fun. I should buy more then one next time. I really like the Naphtha bombs.
And the Sandglass of Time...
First, it was very fun running into the enemy with it, until it exploded and killed half of my army. Next time I'll put it far from my units. The explosion did almost nothing to my enemy though. I did some very bad placements.
On the other hand, his spell are cool, one of them worked and stopped an enemy unit, but it was at the end of the game.
I did some very stupid first-time-army mistakes, but it was fun.
I think the genie's cost is okay. I was suggesting to use the genie either as a rare choice (individually) or as a mount for a grand vizier or vizier, as a ridden monster, in wich case, all the attacks are resolved against the genie (the monster in this case). Of course isn't like the vizier is actually riding the genie, he is acompanied by the genie, so they're on the same base. When you field a genie as a mount for a vizier, and you kill that vizier (either by a spell or by the sniper special rule), the genie vanish from existance.
ReplyDeleteYou might be right about the hashishins, but I still miss them, as a unit. Maybe the Hashishin could be "acompanied" for up to 2 "hashishin initiates", for let's say 12 points each, so that when the Hashishin is revelead the other two members of the triad appears with him (much like the nasty skulkers from OnG). If I recall correctly, the original arabian assassins used to work in groups.
I'll be playing this weekend, I would let you know If I test anything else!
Best regards
-Pumpavius-
I really like the additions to the book. But can you tell me where to find Mujahedin models?
ReplyDeleteHell Dorado has some perfect models for them, rather pricey, but great sculpt. Search for "Berber Hunters".
Delete