@@jtrain9926 Are you kidding?! The book is very lopsided, good things being dragons, sisters and to lesser extent dragon princes. Rest is bad or meh at best. Lion chariot being T4. Elite infantry bad, phoenix overcosted and bad, bolt thowers super overcosted. HE core is really bad, apart from the sisters. Compare the core to almost every other book. All of them has at least one good choice. Dragons is the crutch, without them nothing would reliably hurt high T monsters and characters in other armies.
Video on saw with a guy who is ostensibly the best HE player (I think at least in the UK) said was doing 40 handmaidens with two archmages and the general in 2 ranks. One of the archmages has the lore familiar to make the unit ethereal. Then there is a unit of dragon knights and a BSB on a gryphon. He likes using the handmaiden's horn the turn before he gets charged to have it work with the ASF brick.
Great re-review! I agree that HE has great units as well as some almost mediocre ones, which makes the game more focused on elite units rather than basic blocks (in general). I miss those Swordmasters
I agree 100% that Core should be Core. Just your meat & potatoes kind of troops. Spearmen, archers, etc. Nothing fancy. Goes for all the lists IMO. Also, I'm not a huge fan of that whole MSU style of play that a lot of people do in TOW. Makes the game look like AoS. I think core units should be at least 15-20 troops, instead of down to 5+ for some armies.
Great video. It’s a pleasure to watch your videos. You know the game and all the armies - and it shows you play a lot of games. Have you thought about making a how to play The Old World videos? And You get these rules wrong videos? I think they could be good for new and experienced players. And next time you make these “one year later” it could be cool if you and Luca could discuss it.
First experience with sword masters. Get charged by a small cheriot. 1 on impact hits and i fail to wound back at all loose heavily and have the whole unit fukky broke run and get caught.
@@MountainMiniaturesHigh Elves strike me as being good at everything so it just makes sense that their basic core are both ranged and melee. Would love to see each sub faction fleshed out to their own army (Chracians are my personal fav)
I like a lot of new rules in the old world but I agree that sisters of Avalon and black orc should never have been core. It is like GW just gave the people what the masses wants. Core should be core. I also would like to see a restriction to heroes and lord so to only 20%. Warhammer should be about troops first not characters and monsters. Also agree about the warband rule is broken. Goblins and skagens should never be more disciplined than state troops and elven spearmen.
can someone confirm or deny this tactic being viable, after all the FAQs I think it is and I think it gives the Swordmasters great utility: You deploy your 14 Swordmasters 7x2 (two ranks). (this works of course for all drilled units, but it is much more fun with M5 units such as the elves) Your Opponent moves their Elite Heavy Cavalry to prepare a Charge for the next turn. They are likely the only ones going first or at least at the same time as the Swordmasters. High Elf Turn. You use drilled to go 2x7 (two files) for free. March up 12" Now you are allowed a single Wheel "whilst marching" so you wheel 3" (gets you 90° on 2 width 25mm) All within the 15" total allowance of 15" for Swordmasters in Marching Column. Due to the Wheel, you are now 14" closer to the Heavy Cav instead of the 12" you marched. Most Heavy Cav want to be 15" or closer to have a high likelyhood of the charge. You now have a Problem. Do you charge the one or 2 remaining inches into the SMs who are going to go first with 7+1 Attacks S5 AP-2 and Cleaving Blow. Or do you weirdly wiggle around, due to the proximity you can only retreat a few inches or shuffle to the side. On the other hand the Swordmasters, now wheeled are looking at your flank, and can again redress to 2x7 before charging. Also a good opportunity for SM darts if you ask me. 5 SM with drilled come at 75 pts or 81 for 6 attacks.
@@nhb1986 if the swordmasters get that close to you in a 2 by 7 formation, just go stand next to them so they can’t drill out of the marching column and just ignore them because the sword masters next turn they can’t really do anything. Drilled is a very powerful rule, but after playing against it a bunch you start to see many ways of shutting it down. You gotta be careful with drilled, your opponent can effectively turn off your unit just my standing next to them.
@@MountainMiniatures The trick here is the wheel and offering the flank, squeezing through a space your opponent might not have anticipated something could fit through. and a flank of Swordmasters at
@ I actually do it all the time. I won’t be able to find you timestamps in the hundreds of hours of streams. But if a unit with drilled in in a marching column, you just run up one of your units just outside of 1 inch of either of their flans in the first row and now we can’t use drilled to get out of marching column, and are stuck not doing anything other than moving around. I use fast Cav, skirmishers and gyrocopters to do this all the time.
@ it’s not the easiest thing to explain with text. If you come to a live stream I will explain it with a demonstration using the miniatures. If you can’t make the live stream, I’ll do my best to find the time to make a video explanation of some of the finer rules to take advantage of.
0:45 but forom + side you dotn see dragon than ;] bacose general hiest LD trick and the normal noble need to be BSB and cant take dragon i think? or i workng and he can do liek dragon siange with same title;
gonna have to hard disagree here bud, on the swordmasters. I've taken them against Lizardmen, Brettonians and Dwarfs (my usual opponents) and they rip and tear against pretty much anything that dares to face them. the lack of strikes last while retaining great weapon stats (plus a checky razor standard) has had them rip apart Iron breakers, tear through Bastilodons and temple guard and not only take a charge from Realm Knights but Slaughter the front row before they could attack back. Heavy Cavalry won't charge them? that's fine. Heavy Cav has to charge something eventually and then the Swordmaster get the flank. Never should the sword master be alone. Hell my brettonian Friend fears Swordmasters above all other High Elf Infantry cause they buzz saw through his men at arms, (Little High magic boost there) and can strip his knights in short order. the only thing they can't take on easily are the infamous Pegasus knights. But well. Pegasus knights are broken as shit.
"with magic buffs and/or extra magic banner my expensive elite infantry kill literal peasants and do well against basic knights"... yeah pass. As a old school HE player they used to be able to go up against chaos chosen with no extra buffs and win, they've been heavily nerfed and it's sad. Plus infantry are just not it this edition.
@Dom-ei8uf you stick magic banners on everything and buffs are the most powerful spells around. You picked apart tge two most common options *everyone* does to their units to aid them in battle and act like that's too much? Piss off poser. Ive been playing high elves for over 20 years and counting, im well aware of what they were and tge minor nerf swordmasters got is nothing.
That's every army, every army wants to be bringing bricks of the units that should be making up their armies instead of ridiculous monster and wizard spam, alas tOW is badly balanced , interesting you picked out HE spearmen specifically#
@@uclearwhale maybe you misinterpreted my meaning, or I failed at explaining it. I play every army, and I and every one I play with plays a lot of infantry. Only empire infantry and high elf/dark elf spearmen don’t seem to be able to play even in our infantry heavy meta.
Swordmasters are definitely not garbage if use them properly. They are basically the only infantry that will hit before most cavalry when charged, and they do hit hard. They work amazingly well in units of 13-14 with drilled in marching column, where they're not the main target for enemy shooting. White lions are utter garbage though sadly, they don't have drilled.
This game is unplayable at a tourney level/competitive level or even for tactical enjoyment with a semblance of "rank and flank" -the purpose of "Warhammer Fantasy." Instead we got diet-AoS. It's incredible sad that the entire game's meta was effectually at launch as rock-paper-scissors: MSU avoidance, Mixed avoidance or SEU push lists (all with magic spam if possible). The fans wanted a 8th ed reskin but slightly better balanced for rewarding for charges in rears/flanks. Instead, we got a bastardized 6th meets AoS with skirmishers, single models, and 360 line sight proliferation with ENDLESS FAQs needed (more than an editions prior). It's disappointing to see GW fumble my favorite game, and years of invested hobby. I yearn for the days of putting my blocks back on the table and they actually have a purpose. In the mean time there's always MESBG and it's new edition.
My only "complaint" is that these reviews are assuming that you're playing sweaty, competitive tournament play. Which is my least favorite playstyle. But the videos are still well done and very interesting. Great job.
I don't think that's the case. The whole bit about HE spearmen vs cheap-inf-with-warband revolves around the rules not reflecting the lore. I'm not a competitive player at all, but I still want my shiny Elven spearmen/swordmasters/etc to be more disciplined and skilled than that goblin rabble. They should kill more goblins than the gibbons kill them, precisely because that reflects the fluff. If the review had only been for sweaty tournament play, it would have just been "take dragons and Sisters, beat everyone, great army".
i feel sorry for the high elf players who lost their always strike first.... no wait i don't. high elves are still an all-round good army the issue is inf sucks this edition.
Great paint jobs but damn, those High Elf spearmen, archers - and the Silver Helms for that matter - are just poor models in 2024. They do not hold up. Such a slap in the face by GW that they didn't update these models.
My HE have seen no play. They are Hoeth themed, Spearmen, Archers and Swordmasters, a couple of boltthrowers and a chariot. Wizards and prince to complete. Utter rubbish!
I agree with almost everything. I miss more special rules for HE. They are a bit too boring to play with. I hope they will get some fun rules in the AJ. I disagree on the swordmasters. I've played them 8-10 games, usually between 1000-1500 point games. I always throw in an archmage or a loremasters cloak to provide some protection for them. They have been really really good. Not sure they would be worth the points in a 2000 point game, but in smaller games, they are very good.
I am really enjoying the 1 year later series of videos. Will you be doing the Legacy factions as well as the core factions?
TOW High Elves plays just like my late game Total War HE armies, Sisters and Dragons.
Dragons outshining so much of the book just underscores how overtuned they are. HE is such a good book without them.
@@jtrain9926 Are you kidding?! The book is very lopsided, good things being dragons, sisters and to lesser extent dragon princes. Rest is bad or meh at best. Lion chariot being T4. Elite infantry bad, phoenix overcosted and bad, bolt thowers super overcosted. HE core is really bad, apart from the sisters. Compare the core to almost every other book. All of them has at least one good choice. Dragons is the crutch, without them nothing would reliably hurt high T monsters and characters in other armies.
@@bjornforsberg449 agree, the big issue really is elite infantry is just bad in old world unless they're black orcs.
I was waiting for this. This is the army I got started with in Fantasy
Same here. Dont like the fact their infantry is not block effective though. Not keen on starting Warhammer the Old World...
Video on saw with a guy who is ostensibly the best HE player (I think at least in the UK) said was doing 40 handmaidens with two archmages and the general in 2 ranks. One of the archmages has the lore familiar to make the unit ethereal. Then there is a unit of dragon knights and a BSB on a gryphon.
He likes using the handmaiden's horn the turn before he gets charged to have it work with the ASF brick.
Yeah thats a great list. Played against this with my Ogres and got obliterated.
Do you plan on doing the legacy armies?
Jesus christ this video is insanely high quality for 2014
Great re-review! I agree that HE has great units as well as some almost mediocre ones, which makes the game more focused on elite units rather than basic blocks (in general). I miss those Swordmasters
I agree 100% that Core should be Core. Just your meat & potatoes kind of troops. Spearmen, archers, etc. Nothing fancy. Goes for all the lists IMO. Also, I'm not a huge fan of that whole MSU style of play that a lot of people do in TOW. Makes the game look like AoS. I think core units should be at least 15-20 troops, instead of down to 5+ for some armies.
Great video. It’s a pleasure to watch your videos. You know the game and all the armies - and it shows you play a lot of games.
Have you thought about making a how to play The Old World videos? And You get these rules wrong videos? I think they could be good for new and experienced players.
And next time you make these “one year later” it could be cool if you and Luca could discuss it.
I would love to see them bring back the old citizen levy rule and maybe heavy armor for he spearmen/seaguard that would help them alot.
I agree with the swords masters theme. I feel like there is no “theme” like phoenix temple/sea guard unless its what I say is thier narrative.
First experience with sword masters. Get charged by a small cheriot. 1 on impact hits and i fail to wound back at all loose heavily and have the whole unit fukky broke run and get caught.
I always thought MSU meant minimum size units, or at least I currently remember/imagine I always thought that. Huh.
It does
@@JulienBourjault no it doesn't.
It means Multiple Small Units.
While SEU means Singular Expensive Unit(s). I.E spamming chariots or flying cowboys.
greate paint army;
is is like any specyfick kingom of ultuan?
Personally Ive always found Sea Guard have always overshadowed basic spearmen and are more on theme for Elves
@@jtrain9926 yeah I’m hoping that we get a seaguard army in the arcane journal!
@@MountainMiniaturesHigh Elves strike me as being good at everything so it just makes sense that their basic core are both ranged and melee. Would love to see each sub faction fleshed out to their own army (Chracians are my personal fav)
Please do vampire counts next!
Good work! Will there be a video about demons too?
I like a lot of new rules in the old world but I agree that sisters of Avalon and black orc should never have been core. It is like GW just gave the people what the masses wants. Core should be core. I also would like to see a restriction to heroes and lord so to only 20%. Warhammer should be about troops first not characters and monsters.
Also agree about the warband rule is broken. Goblins and skagens should never be more disciplined than state troops and elven spearmen.
9:27 I think the phoenix guards have martial prowess?
Great video
can someone confirm or deny this tactic being viable, after all the FAQs I think it is and I think it gives the Swordmasters great utility:
You deploy your 14 Swordmasters 7x2 (two ranks). (this works of course for all drilled units, but it is much more fun with M5 units such as the elves)
Your Opponent moves their Elite Heavy Cavalry to prepare a Charge for the next turn. They are likely the only ones going first or at least at the same time as the Swordmasters.
High Elf Turn. You use drilled to go 2x7 (two files) for free. March up 12"
Now you are allowed a single Wheel "whilst marching" so you wheel 3" (gets you 90° on 2 width 25mm)
All within the 15" total allowance of 15" for Swordmasters in Marching Column.
Due to the Wheel, you are now 14" closer to the Heavy Cav instead of the 12" you marched.
Most Heavy Cav want to be 15" or closer to have a high likelyhood of the charge.
You now have a Problem. Do you charge the one or 2 remaining inches into the SMs who are going to go first with 7+1 Attacks S5 AP-2 and Cleaving Blow.
Or do you weirdly wiggle around, due to the proximity you can only retreat a few inches or shuffle to the side.
On the other hand the Swordmasters, now wheeled are looking at your flank, and can again redress to 2x7 before charging.
Also a good opportunity for SM darts if you ask me. 5 SM with drilled come at 75 pts or 81 for 6 attacks.
@@nhb1986 if the swordmasters get that close to you in a 2 by 7 formation, just go stand next to them so they can’t drill out of the marching column and just ignore them because the sword masters next turn they can’t really do anything.
Drilled is a very powerful rule, but after playing against it a bunch you start to see many ways of shutting it down. You gotta be careful with drilled, your opponent can effectively turn off your unit just my standing next to them.
@@MountainMiniatures The trick here is the wheel and offering the flank, squeezing through a space your opponent might not have anticipated something could fit through. and a flank of Swordmasters at
@ I actually do it all the time. I won’t be able to find you timestamps in the hundreds of hours of streams. But if a unit with drilled in in a marching column, you just run up one of your units just outside of 1 inch of either of their flans in the first row and now we can’t use drilled to get out of marching column, and are stuck not doing anything other than moving around.
I use fast Cav, skirmishers and gyrocopters to do this all the time.
@@MountainMiniaturesi dont get it can you explane this to me? Step by step?
@ it’s not the easiest thing to explain with text. If you come to a live stream I will explain it with a demonstration using the miniatures.
If you can’t make the live stream, I’ll do my best to find the time to make a video explanation of some of the finer rules to take advantage of.
how do they get those nice fall leaves on the silver helm bases?
I get my leaves from AK and spray them with scenic sealer or some kind of matte adhesive.
@@jajastrzemb oooh good advice
Whats about seaguard?
seaguard and swordmaster, ellyrian reaver stuck in the bloodisland, the hell mould just mix rat and elf kits, second reprint for bloodisland I think.
@devastatorchaos5817 😂😂😂
I feel like HE spearman haven’t been useful since 5ed
They lost their heavy armour in 6ed and now they only fight in 2 ranks their no longer special.
The minis also look terrible, I prefer the old 4th edition ones
They were awesome in 8th could fight with like 4 ranks
If they were infantry in 5e they were useless then too
@@jtrain9926 That cause 5ed was hero hammer.
w/ your FAQ comment at 6:20 about no ethereal dragon- where is that stated in the errata/FAQ?
@@jasonhuffman1404 it’s in the FAQ that you can’t cast conveyance spells if you declared a charge
@@MountainMiniaturesthanks!
I'm just waiting The lizardmen or Skaven review:"thrash, thrash,thrash,best skirmish in the game,bullshit,thrash..."
@@unchinomalo292 go outside.
As someone who often plays Sword Master of Hoeth theme armies haha. Sad.
Ah! The army Steve wishes he knew how to play! 😜
0:45 but forom + side you dotn see dragon than ;] bacose general hiest LD trick and the normal noble need to be BSB and cant take dragon i think?
or i workng and he can do liek dragon siange with same title;
How dare you slander my swordmasters
gonna have to hard disagree here bud, on the swordmasters. I've taken them against Lizardmen, Brettonians and Dwarfs (my usual opponents) and they rip and tear against pretty much anything that dares to face them. the lack of strikes last while retaining great weapon stats (plus a checky razor standard) has had them rip apart Iron breakers, tear through Bastilodons and temple guard and not only take a charge from Realm Knights but Slaughter the front row before they could attack back.
Heavy Cavalry won't charge them? that's fine. Heavy Cav has to charge something eventually and then the Swordmaster get the flank.
Never should the sword master be alone.
Hell my brettonian Friend fears Swordmasters above all other High Elf Infantry cause they buzz saw through his men at arms, (Little High magic boost there) and can strip his knights in short order. the only thing they can't take on easily are the infamous Pegasus knights.
But well. Pegasus knights are broken as shit.
"with magic buffs and/or extra magic banner my expensive elite infantry kill literal peasants and do well against basic knights"... yeah pass. As a old school HE player they used to be able to go up against chaos chosen with no extra buffs and win, they've been heavily nerfed and it's sad. Plus infantry are just not it this edition.
@Dom-ei8uf you stick magic banners on everything and buffs are the most powerful spells around.
You picked apart tge two most common options *everyone* does to their units to aid them in battle and act like that's too much?
Piss off poser. Ive been playing high elves for over 20 years and counting, im well aware of what they were and tge minor nerf swordmasters got is nothing.
That's every army, every army wants to be bringing bricks of the units that should be making up their armies instead of ridiculous monster and wizard spam, alas tOW is badly balanced , interesting you picked out HE spearmen specifically#
@@uclearwhale maybe you misinterpreted my meaning, or I failed at explaining it.
I play every army, and I and every one I play with plays a lot of infantry.
Only empire infantry and high elf/dark elf spearmen don’t seem to be able to play even in our infantry heavy meta.
@@MountainMiniatures So you're basically just saying that Helf spearmen and State Troops are just bad even for infantry, makes sense
@@uclearwhale amen brother!
Swordmasters are definitely not garbage if use them properly. They are basically the only infantry that will hit before most cavalry when charged, and they do hit hard. They work amazingly well in units of 13-14 with drilled in marching column, where they're not the main target for enemy shooting. White lions are utter garbage though sadly, they don't have drilled.
This game is unplayable at a tourney level/competitive level or even for tactical enjoyment with a semblance of "rank and flank" -the purpose of "Warhammer Fantasy." Instead we got diet-AoS.
It's incredible sad that the entire game's meta was effectually at launch as rock-paper-scissors: MSU avoidance, Mixed avoidance or SEU push lists (all with magic spam if possible).
The fans wanted a 8th ed reskin but slightly better balanced for rewarding for charges in rears/flanks. Instead, we got a bastardized 6th meets AoS with skirmishers, single models, and 360 line sight proliferation with ENDLESS FAQs needed (more than an editions prior).
It's disappointing to see GW fumble my favorite game, and years of invested hobby. I yearn for the days of putting my blocks back on the table and they actually have a purpose. In the mean time there's always MESBG and it's new edition.
My only "complaint" is that these reviews are assuming that you're playing sweaty, competitive tournament play. Which is my least favorite playstyle. But the videos are still well done and very interesting. Great job.
@@TheIronMarshall fair take. I can say that honestly wasn’t the point of view I held in my mind as I was recording these.
I don't think that's the case. The whole bit about HE spearmen vs cheap-inf-with-warband revolves around the rules not reflecting the lore. I'm not a competitive player at all, but I still want my shiny Elven spearmen/swordmasters/etc to be more disciplined and skilled than that goblin rabble. They should kill more goblins than the gibbons kill them, precisely because that reflects the fluff. If the review had only been for sweaty tournament play, it would have just been "take dragons and Sisters, beat everyone, great army".
Interesting take. But I think the statement “sweaty, competitive” is a bit strong. Rather he is discussing effectiveness of units.
i feel sorry for the high elf players who lost their always strike first.... no wait i don't. high elves are still an all-round good army the issue is inf sucks this edition.
Great paint jobs but damn, those High Elf spearmen, archers - and the Silver Helms for that matter - are just poor models in 2024. They do not hold up. Such a slap in the face by GW that they didn't update these models.
yeah weird choice by GW
My HE have seen no play. They are Hoeth themed, Spearmen, Archers and Swordmasters, a couple of boltthrowers and a chariot. Wizards and prince to complete. Utter rubbish!
I agree with almost everything. I miss more special rules for HE. They are a bit too boring to play with. I hope they will get some fun rules in the AJ.
I disagree on the swordmasters. I've played them 8-10 games, usually between 1000-1500 point games. I always throw in an archmage or a loremasters cloak to provide some protection for them. They have been really really good. Not sure they would be worth the points in a 2000 point game, but in smaller games, they are very good.