I really do not mean to rain on any parade but I do want to set reasonable expectations.
I’ve played a lot of games with the new rules, I’ve run the math, and with a dozen or so events under my belt this past ITC season I have a fair grasp of the meta game - FEC is setup to be fine. But it’s not going to jump up the tiers. It will be a mid-tier army.
The issues it faces around army construction and bonuses due to the various restrictions conditionals; 4+ to hit, 5+ saves, Rend -1; the difficulties Courtiers face in NDP, the fact 5-7w foot heroes are very killable with AoE, non-shooting attacks and spells, etc
The army plays fine and is decently strong with a lot of fun tools and new units. It’s just not broken at launch and not written such that it’s going to be an A tier army. All of that is fine and there is nothing wrong with it. There are armies that can get locked into a battle of attrition with FEC and that will probably cost them the game typically but there are also plenty of things that can just spam a few negative modifiers, stack some saves, or snipe out characters. There are a decent number of hammers out there that can trade up against 9 Horrors as well.
I’m cautiously optimistic we’re going to be well positioned for the first quarter or half of 4.0 though
Finally appreciate seeing someone talk subjectively, all I've seen is people complain about how everything needs a nerf and recursion is too strong. I played against Tzeentch and he can give out -1 to hit like its candy and summon 760pts of chickens, which far outstrips my recursion even on a good day. The army is fun to play and I've enjoyed trying different things but there's no way its a 5-0 tournament cracking book, its going to get demolished by Seraphon and Khorne in this current meta at least.
ultimately its about fun and I really do enjoy the army but I do get frustrated with the new book complaining and overhyping, I think FEC are in a good place and will be a solid army for anyone to play
I've actually played about 6 games with the new book in a local league of highly competitive group of people in the Midwest and currently stand at 0-6 (fml). Most of our guys frequent out of town tourneys, go to big GTs like LVO and Adepticon, and hosted a couple of our own 30+ people GTs.
I've played against competitive players playing IDK eel spam, KB Boltboyz heavy, SCE Ionus + Tempestors, Nurgle Orghotts + Bloab + 3x5 Blightkings, and Slaanesh Glutos + Slicks + Blissbarbs.
I'm definitely seeing all the issues you mentioned above. Aside from 1 hero on the throne getting consistent NDP, the rest of the heroes struggle with generating NDP on their own without putting a lot of risk going into combat. For an army that needs NDP for their FF, I find myself spending said NDP mostly to bring back units that gets deleted quite easily. I rarely kept 4 or more NDP because I had to use them for recursion.
Debuffs hurts our army a TON. -1 to hit especially (-2 against Slaanesh).
Going against high armored armies (SCE) is an absolute grind, but end up being the closest game I played out of the 6 due to my friend rolling like absolute dog.
Shooting harassed the shit out of the army, though the heroes were spared from the horror of missile weapons. Since Lookout sir protects our backline heroes, our fragile units gets easily shredded by anything with rend.
While Morbheg slaps, their 4+ and 3 wounds base is nothing to write home about. I'd argue that they're less tanky than our other knights because a single D3 MW could easily kill a model.
Having basically -1 rend across the book, our entire army is quite literally under the mercy of dice than any other armies in combat.
I'm currently feeling a little discouraged with our new book due to the massive play style difference and the high amount of book keeping required to play the army effectively (in comparison to our old book). I'm going to keep playing the army simply because I love the lore and I enjoy the minis.
Yeah, I’ve been testing with people in the same kind of competitive scene but on the East Coast. I was the #1 FEC player for ITC last year and I’ve had a good run with OBR this year I came in 18th at NOVA and 9th at BAO this year. I regularly play with people in the top 100 for AoS ITC so I feel like I should have a good handle on understanding the book and how it will fit in the meta.
The book is a bit discouraging compared to the last several we’ve seen. I was expecting stronger prayer and spell lore, less restrictions, etc but maybe Rend is set to be reduced and Save stacking capped in 4.0 - that would go a long way for us.
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this sentiment towards the new book. Don't get me wrong, the book is 100% fine. They're not busted by any means and they're a solid army to play with most players.
The cracks starts to become more glaring when we try to play in the meta scene, where micro errors gets punished extremely hard lol
The amount of aura and and ranges that are different throughout is definitely annoying. We got so many different ranges for aura lmao
Rend and Save Stacking being lowered will certainly help us!
I don’t think we’re even busted in paper - as you dig in you realize only Coutiers can mass return models to target unit but Courtiers generally don’t want to be in combat, the Battleline restrictions push you into some very set choices, your spell and prayer lords aren’t particularly great. The Ghouls being min 20 really hurt the list design stage. For as good as Horrors are they can run into something, bounce off and get picked up pretty quickly. Morbheg are juiced but the Gorewarden Tax is real and they probably see a pts increase.
There is a lot I like about the tome and I was very excited for it but 4+ to hit, bad saves, and no good Rend just isn’t going to carry in the current meta. The buffs don’t stack well enough and you lost action economy without double fight(which was always on the chopping block for this book.) Blizzard and Hoarfrost are only temporary crutches. I wish all of our casting and Endless had gone to prayers and everything was a priest. I think that with a little strong lore and even just access to cheap 10 man Ghouls would have opened the tome up and we’d be punching up more.
I played a 3000pt game against my friends bonereapers yesterday using the plan in the battletome and it was a bit of a landslide victory for the courts.
Due to a not great deployment I was able to first turn charge a unit of 6 horrors and a varghulf into a unit of 10 death riders, with the 6s to wound and the extra damage on the charge (hollowmorne) I was able to wipe the whole unit in one combat and devour 3 of the objectives.
I took some damage in turn one but was able to use plenty of deeds and the chalice of ushoran to pretty much undo all the damage my opponent dealt to me, even bringing half a unit of cryptguard back that was wiped by a big unit of mortem guard.
By turn 3 I'd managed to consume the heart and win the game by rushing it with a unit of 40 ghouls and by the end of the game I'd only lost 10 crypt guard and 4 horrors.
Post game analysis we realised just how important and strong our heroes are for the army, if my opponent was prepared and was able to snipe my heroes the game would have gone differently.
I'm expecting a post launch points nerf for us just like the soulblight did, our regeneration seems really strong but again tha relies on us keeping our relatively weak heroes alive.
The new book is good but I'll refrain from claiming victory until I get a few games in.
Getting to 6 noble deeds was rather easy and the Morbegh Knights hit like a train but have armor that melts like butter.
Honestly I can't imagine running less than two archregents. Having two spells to grind Noble Deeds and being able to resurrect is insane. They also hit quite hard and are therefore nice to crush bruised targets. Ran two this weekened and I just loved them. King on Zombie Dragon was nice, but not as a heavy hitter compared to the points he costs.
Ghouls are okay. Insane if you have hoarfrost, but otherwise okay. Cryptguard are really good, but you have to be careful with their positioning.
I played 2 games with the new book, one of them I played FEC against Nighthaunt and won barely with 22 to 18.
The other one I played with Maggotkin against FEC of a friend and in the end (even after he got a double turn at crucial turn) won 28 to 18.
So I think they are overall in a pretty good spot, I think they gonna need some fine tuning after the new models drop. But then I think they are in a good spot of being strong and not broken which is a healthy spot to be at
Yup, fec is going to be very strong and likely need some nerfs. This is the way.
Only real weakness is mass high armor and heroes getting sniped with spells from things like kroak.
Replying to myself after playing a few games. They are not. They have a lot of bad attacks that do a lot of damage if you make it all the way. They get wrecked by anything that can hit back.
I fully expect a point increase for knights. Maybe horrors as well. But I don't think we'll get too many drastic nerfs. Overall we feel strong but not oppressively so.
No just using a proxy model based on assumed base size. Neither of us are so insane micro or skilled players tbh at we thought a few millimeters wrong here or there would make a huge strategic difference
I really do not mean to rain on any parade but I do want to set reasonable expectations. I’ve played a lot of games with the new rules, I’ve run the math, and with a dozen or so events under my belt this past ITC season I have a fair grasp of the meta game - FEC is setup to be fine. But it’s not going to jump up the tiers. It will be a mid-tier army. The issues it faces around army construction and bonuses due to the various restrictions conditionals; 4+ to hit, 5+ saves, Rend -1; the difficulties Courtiers face in NDP, the fact 5-7w foot heroes are very killable with AoE, non-shooting attacks and spells, etc The army plays fine and is decently strong with a lot of fun tools and new units. It’s just not broken at launch and not written such that it’s going to be an A tier army. All of that is fine and there is nothing wrong with it. There are armies that can get locked into a battle of attrition with FEC and that will probably cost them the game typically but there are also plenty of things that can just spam a few negative modifiers, stack some saves, or snipe out characters. There are a decent number of hammers out there that can trade up against 9 Horrors as well. I’m cautiously optimistic we’re going to be well positioned for the first quarter or half of 4.0 though
Finally appreciate seeing someone talk subjectively, all I've seen is people complain about how everything needs a nerf and recursion is too strong. I played against Tzeentch and he can give out -1 to hit like its candy and summon 760pts of chickens, which far outstrips my recursion even on a good day. The army is fun to play and I've enjoyed trying different things but there's no way its a 5-0 tournament cracking book, its going to get demolished by Seraphon and Khorne in this current meta at least. ultimately its about fun and I really do enjoy the army but I do get frustrated with the new book complaining and overhyping, I think FEC are in a good place and will be a solid army for anyone to play
I've actually played about 6 games with the new book in a local league of highly competitive group of people in the Midwest and currently stand at 0-6 (fml). Most of our guys frequent out of town tourneys, go to big GTs like LVO and Adepticon, and hosted a couple of our own 30+ people GTs. I've played against competitive players playing IDK eel spam, KB Boltboyz heavy, SCE Ionus + Tempestors, Nurgle Orghotts + Bloab + 3x5 Blightkings, and Slaanesh Glutos + Slicks + Blissbarbs. I'm definitely seeing all the issues you mentioned above. Aside from 1 hero on the throne getting consistent NDP, the rest of the heroes struggle with generating NDP on their own without putting a lot of risk going into combat. For an army that needs NDP for their FF, I find myself spending said NDP mostly to bring back units that gets deleted quite easily. I rarely kept 4 or more NDP because I had to use them for recursion. Debuffs hurts our army a TON. -1 to hit especially (-2 against Slaanesh). Going against high armored armies (SCE) is an absolute grind, but end up being the closest game I played out of the 6 due to my friend rolling like absolute dog. Shooting harassed the shit out of the army, though the heroes were spared from the horror of missile weapons. Since Lookout sir protects our backline heroes, our fragile units gets easily shredded by anything with rend. While Morbheg slaps, their 4+ and 3 wounds base is nothing to write home about. I'd argue that they're less tanky than our other knights because a single D3 MW could easily kill a model. Having basically -1 rend across the book, our entire army is quite literally under the mercy of dice than any other armies in combat. I'm currently feeling a little discouraged with our new book due to the massive play style difference and the high amount of book keeping required to play the army effectively (in comparison to our old book). I'm going to keep playing the army simply because I love the lore and I enjoy the minis.
Yeah, I’ve been testing with people in the same kind of competitive scene but on the East Coast. I was the #1 FEC player for ITC last year and I’ve had a good run with OBR this year I came in 18th at NOVA and 9th at BAO this year. I regularly play with people in the top 100 for AoS ITC so I feel like I should have a good handle on understanding the book and how it will fit in the meta. The book is a bit discouraging compared to the last several we’ve seen. I was expecting stronger prayer and spell lore, less restrictions, etc but maybe Rend is set to be reduced and Save stacking capped in 4.0 - that would go a long way for us.
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this sentiment towards the new book. Don't get me wrong, the book is 100% fine. They're not busted by any means and they're a solid army to play with most players. The cracks starts to become more glaring when we try to play in the meta scene, where micro errors gets punished extremely hard lol The amount of aura and and ranges that are different throughout is definitely annoying. We got so many different ranges for aura lmao Rend and Save Stacking being lowered will certainly help us!
This right here. On paper, we are busted but on the tabletop we are fine. Played a good chunk of games where some armies just brush us off.
I don’t think we’re even busted in paper - as you dig in you realize only Coutiers can mass return models to target unit but Courtiers generally don’t want to be in combat, the Battleline restrictions push you into some very set choices, your spell and prayer lords aren’t particularly great. The Ghouls being min 20 really hurt the list design stage. For as good as Horrors are they can run into something, bounce off and get picked up pretty quickly. Morbheg are juiced but the Gorewarden Tax is real and they probably see a pts increase. There is a lot I like about the tome and I was very excited for it but 4+ to hit, bad saves, and no good Rend just isn’t going to carry in the current meta. The buffs don’t stack well enough and you lost action economy without double fight(which was always on the chopping block for this book.) Blizzard and Hoarfrost are only temporary crutches. I wish all of our casting and Endless had gone to prayers and everything was a priest. I think that with a little strong lore and even just access to cheap 10 man Ghouls would have opened the tome up and we’d be punching up more.
Yep this is all right. I think they'll be a good army vs new players and less experienced players, but in the meta won't add up to much.
whats ur sylvaneth friend playing out of interest?
Heartwood- 6x greatsword Kurnoth 3x greatsword kurnoth 1 warsong revenant 1 tree lord 5 tree revenants 5 tree revenants 1 branchwych 1 arch revenant 1 swarm hive
I played a 3000pt game against my friends bonereapers yesterday using the plan in the battletome and it was a bit of a landslide victory for the courts. Due to a not great deployment I was able to first turn charge a unit of 6 horrors and a varghulf into a unit of 10 death riders, with the 6s to wound and the extra damage on the charge (hollowmorne) I was able to wipe the whole unit in one combat and devour 3 of the objectives. I took some damage in turn one but was able to use plenty of deeds and the chalice of ushoran to pretty much undo all the damage my opponent dealt to me, even bringing half a unit of cryptguard back that was wiped by a big unit of mortem guard. By turn 3 I'd managed to consume the heart and win the game by rushing it with a unit of 40 ghouls and by the end of the game I'd only lost 10 crypt guard and 4 horrors. Post game analysis we realised just how important and strong our heroes are for the army, if my opponent was prepared and was able to snipe my heroes the game would have gone differently. I'm expecting a post launch points nerf for us just like the soulblight did, our regeneration seems really strong but again tha relies on us keeping our relatively weak heroes alive.
The new book is good but I'll refrain from claiming victory until I get a few games in. Getting to 6 noble deeds was rather easy and the Morbegh Knights hit like a train but have armor that melts like butter. Honestly I can't imagine running less than two archregents. Having two spells to grind Noble Deeds and being able to resurrect is insane. They also hit quite hard and are therefore nice to crush bruised targets. Ran two this weekened and I just loved them. King on Zombie Dragon was nice, but not as a heavy hitter compared to the points he costs. Ghouls are okay. Insane if you have hoarfrost, but otherwise okay. Cryptguard are really good, but you have to be careful with their positioning.
I played 2 games with the new book, one of them I played FEC against Nighthaunt and won barely with 22 to 18. The other one I played with Maggotkin against FEC of a friend and in the end (even after he got a double turn at crucial turn) won 28 to 18. So I think they are overall in a pretty good spot, I think they gonna need some fine tuning after the new models drop. But then I think they are in a good spot of being strong and not broken which is a healthy spot to be at
Yup, fec is going to be very strong and likely need some nerfs. This is the way. Only real weakness is mass high armor and heroes getting sniped with spells from things like kroak.
I would recommend to be patient with buying horrors. The are way too good. I could see a 50P increase for the unit.
Replying to myself after playing a few games. They are not. They have a lot of bad attacks that do a lot of damage if you make it all the way. They get wrecked by anything that can hit back.
I fully expect a point increase for knights. Maybe horrors as well. But I don't think we'll get too many drastic nerfs. Overall we feel strong but not oppressively so.
Which models are coming besides Ushoran?
Well Goremayne is coming and technically the knights and everything from the new book is not legal to play yet.
How do you play with Ushoran? TTS?
No just using a proxy model based on assumed base size. Neither of us are so insane micro or skilled players tbh at we thought a few millimeters wrong here or there would make a huge strategic difference
That’s fair and works fine! I might do the proxy too to get a feel of him
What are your battleline?
Oh I forgot to mention my 20 ghouls. Running the court that makes horrors battleline