Topic: Doomfire Warlocks vs Inner Circle Knights

[sandstorm]

I have been looking through the new Dark Elves book and just realised how rediculously good Doomfire Warlocks are. Lets do the comparison and you will see. Most people continue to say that DE players will only be taking them in units of 5 because and only because they are fast cav. This will turn out not to be the case. Fast Cav is S3 T3 with no save. Warlocks are NOT fast cav. They are heavy cav with the ability to vanguard thrown in, along with about 20 other things. Lets do the comparison.

Doomfire Warlocks vs Inner Circle Knights(25 points each):

Warlocks advantages
Warlocks: M9       ICK's: M7
Warlocks: 2 attacks each     ICK's: 1 attack each
Warlocks: Initiative 5       ICK's: Initiative 3
Warlocks: Vanguard and Free Reforms    ICK's: NO
Warlocks: 4+ Ward   ICK's: NO
Warlocks: ASF    ICK's: NO
Warlocks: Poisoned Attacks   ICK's: NO
Warlocks: Reroll ones to wound   ICK's: NO
Warlocks: Level 2 with Soulblight and Doombolt    ICK's: NO
Warlocks: Free channel    ICK's: NO

Inner Circle Knight advantages
ICK's: S6 on the charge   Warlocks: NO
ICK's: 1+ Armor Save    Warlocks: NO(this can be a plus for warlocks in certain matchups, with bolt throwers, doom divers etc and spells that allow no armor saves)

Now lets do a close combat comparison:

vs Nurgle Halberd Warriors 5 wide

10 Warlocks: Do 4.33 wounds and take 2.22 wounds
10 ICK's: Do 2.75 wounds on the charge and 1.11 wounds after the charge, and take 1.85 wounds

As you can see warlocks spit all over inner circle knights in almost every way. I can't wait to see DE players running 2 units of 10-12 of these.

[Dosiere]

Warlocks do seem crazy good.

I think you are not putting enough stock in that 1+ armor save however.  Sure there are things that can deal with it, but there are lots of things that can't too.  1+ armor saves lives.

[Fandir Nightshade]

1+ save is great....4+ ward too

also the amount of special rules tossed into the cocktail make the warlocks ....well insanely good offense wise you won´t have the rubber lance syndrome..well because you don´t have lances but also due to the re rolls...every turn. Poison isn´t bad either.


But they surely will suffer against Slaanesh armies 

[The Peacemaker]

Are warlocks rare or special?

[Fandir Nightshade]

Rare but there they only compete with the kharybdys

[Albrecht Hexenjaeger]

Doomfire Warlocks vs Helblaster.

 

[sandstorm]

I can see a 2400 point build like this:

Supreme Sorceror: Sacrificial Dagger, 4++ ward(Shadow)
Noble BSB: 1+ rerollable
Level One: Dispel Scroll(Beasts)

38 Witch Elves
5 Dark Riders
5 Dark Riders

38 Executioners
2 Bolt Throwers

12 Doomfire Warlocks
12 Doomfire Warlocks

Stacking the minus D3 S and T from shadow, +1 S and T from beasts and -1 S and T from soulblight is crazy good.

[Krokz]

Well every book has some new unit that is a MUST buy. DEs got Warlocks. Since I love fast cavalry I envy them greatly.

[Fandir Nightshade]

But they have must buy in every section. Well lets see how they perform in the field. I for my part find me considering x bows and outriders again.

[Krokz]

Only rare section has new units. Must buy as in spending money on army you already have.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

This DE book certainly bucks the trend of basically pretty balanced AB's not only with this unit. ASF alone is absurdly stupid and I'm already seeing powergamers apply for a couple of 2014 tournaments with DE. Something like unit wide auto-hitting AND auto-wounding (which high WS/ini, poison/hatred/ASF, re-roll 1's etc. practically amounts to) simply shouldn't be in the game - but I'm not calling the shots, so we've got to deal with it somehow.

[sandstorm]

Dwellers is becoming more and more mandatory for Empire. I might even have to start running a Level 4 Life wizard along side my Light council. Because 4 wizards wasn't enough right.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Flaming Cage is a lot better against T3.

[Finlay]

its a shame the models SUCK ASS

[commandant]

Fireballs got more juicy.

Even Bsb shooting is kinda juicy against them.   Sure they are good but they won't come in large number.   Strip off a few with shooting, which is not impossible given the Empire shooting and you'll be fine.   They really really won't like helblasters.

Also it means more and more people competing for a limited resource [casting dice] and I assume they have no wizard levels.

[Finlay]

extra wizard level per rank, iirc.

hence expecting people to run them in more than 5s.

[commandant]

So 30 of them becomes a level 5 wizard [or are they capped at four]

That isn't nice.

They are quite expensive though so people will likely run them in 10-15 units.

Also I think the OP forgot the core v rare which is kinda important here.

[Finlay]

they are capped at a bonus of +3 to cast.

but they dont roll on miscast table, Instead suffering d3 wounds without saves if miscast.

They’re not even that expensive, cheaper than a CoK! They’re pretty nasty, really. But you make a good point that they compete for a still limited dice pool. I think they work nicely with a single caster list. Don’t need a level 2 for backup.

[Krokz]

Anyone taking more then 5 of these in a unit has to be "special". Or plays for fluff.

[polybus11]

This DE book certainly bucks the trend of basically pretty balanced AB's not only with this unit. ASF alone is absurdly stupid and I'm already seeing powergamers apply for a couple of 2014 tournaments with DE. Something like unit wide auto-hitting AND auto-wounding (which high WS/ini, poison/hatred/ASF, re-roll 1's etc. practically amounts to) simply shouldn't be in the game - but I'm not calling the shots, so we've got to deal with it somehow.

I was honestly hoping they would change Dark Elves to simply have autohit rule to save time on dice rolling.  I always finding myself hoping they miss when playing against them but it always works out to everyone hits except 1 die out of the bucket that is spilled on the table. 

Might as well change lizards to have auto pass all leadership rolls while you are at it heh.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Of course people will field them at 10 or 12 they are pretty amazing and not that expensive.

As far as I know the miscast wounds are no armoursaves but they have their wardsave against it. 

Can any DE player confirm this?

[sandstorm]

Miscasts do D3 wounds and they have a 4+ ward save. On average they will do one wound to themselves through a miscast, not enough to even cause a panic test.

[Finlay]

yes, it is only armour saves. So they lose their 6+ mounted save

[yanko]

I don't see people taking more than 5 in a unit, though I would not be surprised to see 2 units in a lot of lists. While they are good, even with a 4++ they are still too fragile to take in large numbers. If they get in close combat with a large infantry block they will not be able to break steadfast, they have no banner, and will not have many ranks. And then you want more points for your executioners, hydra/kharybdiss, and just more units for army fortitude.

[psychichobo]

Remember, it's still T3 with a 4+ save. A Captasus could have a good go at them, I reckon.

Ironically, a friend of mine just sold me his Slaaneshi Chaos Warrior army. He's a bit narked off now that he had the chance to mock Dark Elves by running his 100% fluff army...