innerwolf wrote:By viable I mean all-comers, tournament competitive.
Make sence
Loner? Assasins which can scout by default, with BS9 3x shots Rending stars which wound on 2+ with the right venom and Steed of Shadows as a bound spell
For 170 pts unit upgrade, M5, shooting range is like what..? 8"? And one wound, if I remeber correctly? T3 no AS for sure... Well, take him as a loner, please, please, pretty please!
Infantry? Rock solid hero with hatred and at least 4+ save, regeneration and a inverse ward which means 2+ ward against St5+,3+ against St4, 4+ against St3
What is this hero good for? To take all this stuff, he must be lord; sit A4S4. With 70 pts just in defence, and he is not unbrekable, most probaly not even stubborn. Not bad choice for me, break, run, kill! I am much more afraid from offenzive lords that from this "rocky" build.
Cavalry? They have better ofensive and defensive magic items to go with their heavy cavalry. And their fast cavalry is more difficult to kill than ours, but it's another thing.
Teir fast cavalry is only unit I like more that our equivalent; from whole DE list. Their heavy cavalry is just... Stupid. One failed test and your plans are just there.
Cold ones are not bad, but I will never think about them as anything like "uber" unit, as you are trying to say. Even with any kind of magic items.
Monster? Better dragon( for combat Lords and Mage Lords) and Manticores with KB for mere heroes, both with hatred. Better magic items to protect the rider.
And slower army to support them. I mention all this already.
I would like to know your cavalry hero. As far as I know, they are fragile, very weak in combat and don't give enough to the army as a whole.
Sniper general. Ld9, quick movement, can go either with GG or GR, and he greatly supports my defenzive part of army if I need it. He is damn good to make GR support charges strong and fearsome for many units; and he is good enough to scare opponents mages...
Between you and I we already answered monster ones. They have better monsters and better protection and weapons.
Between you and me, nope. Our monsters are about at the some. Eagle is cheap flying monster they do not have. Please, innerwolf, just stop mystaken plane CC capabilities with overall income... Our dragon is good, their is better. Our can go into woods, their will suffer if try. Can turn out as AWESOME capabilitie. But ok, their dragon is better. It always was. Our dragon is about the worst in WFB. I understand that is other problem to you; other thing you need to have "at least average" no matter what.
Rank and file heroes(I meant, inside ranked units) suffer from this "they don't have defence because they don't need it". They do need it, they can't choose their combats. So nobles/BSB/lords in EG units are too fragile, more if compared to DE equivalents. Scout sniper is bland, and Wardancer nobles where already listed as competitive.
Oh OK, you ask RnF unist as RnF, not as overall? Well, then you are right. And do you know why? IT IS BECASUE WE HAVE JUST 1 (ONE) RNF UNIT WHICH WE CAN GO WITHOUT EASILY, while DE can not go without theirs...
I'm sorry, I was talking only about elf characters.
Ah, so. So you ignore our best character in order to be able to say "de characters are much better that WE opnes? Dman, what a tricky strategy! You are so good, you got me! I think you compare all hero slots, but you compare just all DE slots to half of ours! You really got me!
Treeman Ancient could be the best Lord in WFB if it wasn't also a Rare unit. Even Greater Daemons are only Lords.
And dragon takes hero slot. And what?
But even if they are good, Ancient leave you without leadership 10( Highborn) or decent magic ofence/defence( Spellweaver). They are good, but they have also cons.
If they will have none, then WE will be broken. I am glad trheir are not; and I am glad that we have "just" one fo the best lord choices in the game and not the far best one.
I think DE could come with better characters than ours when they have 1 or 2 months to toy with the different options. But it is yet to be known in the future.
I better ignore this, as I really wish not to become rude. Again.
And yes, I left out mages on purpose, as theirs are plain better for me( Treesinging is too situational and requires a lot of points to be effective).
Yes, they are, It is because we are one of the armies wit hweakest magic in whole WFB, traditionally. And because DE are on of the armies with the strongest magic phase. Also traditionally.