The "get by" army list, Ravening Hordes, will be used until the Army list books appear (supposedly one every 2nd month). Generally armies get very few magic items, the elite units get put to specials, with warmachines becoming rare. Some races have definitely suffered as most special rules are no longer being used, this particularly affects Bretonnians, but most lists have suffered in some ways. The pointy-eared ones take another hammering, so what's changed for the poor High Elves? Be warned this is done from memory, so email me with glaring errors.
General stuff:
 | Min and Max numbers for both numbers of characters and troop types. |
| Lords may have up to 100 points of magic items, Heroes 50 points. |
| Each mercenary regiment counts as a rare choice. |
Special rules:
| Can pick from any Lore of magic. |
| High Elf mages gets a +1 to the dispel roll - combine this with the Staff of Sorcery and you can probably save yourself one die per dispel. |
| No more Mithril armour. |
| No DragonRider rule. |
Characters:
| Cheaper, although not much by comparison with other races (Archmage 220 points, 260 for 4th level spellcaster - Chaos sorcerer 200/235 points but has -1M +1WS -1BS +1S - Grey Seer 230 points for 4th level -1BS +1S +1A -2Ld +Unbreakable on Screaming Bell). |
| Commanders/Heroes only 3 Toughness, why?! when every other race gets +1T for Heroes, even skinks and goblins go up! |
| Champions for units now only +10 points, but they only get +1A (+1 BS for archer units), almost worthwhile now. |
| Griffins and Unicorns are probably the best mounts now. |
Core units:
| Lothern Seaguard seem prohibitively expensive. You seem to pay 5 points for a bow, kinda steep if you ask me. This all means it might be time to return to separate spear and archer units. |
| Silver helms are core, so these might get used a little more too. |
Special units:
| The only actual difference between Phoenix Guard and Swordmasters now is paying 1 point for +1S (damage), they can both have magic banners, and are only 2 points more expensive than spearmen. |
| Shadow Warriors are broken beyond belief. They can only skirmish (no regular formations), max size of 15, and hate is much less useful. Why do I say they are broken? their best use was as regular units vs Dark Elves. 5th edition hatred, with a 20-30 strong unit made them quite hard. Although your units may actually be even with Darkies now, losing this is a major blow. |
| Reavers are fast cavalry, but this is much worse than the old list. They are still useful, but in a different way. |
| Chariots can be had 2 for one selection, much weaker but the simpler rules will make life easier for fast play. |
| Dragon Princes get one more Leadership but lose their banner bonus. Probably worth it over Silver Helms, except for the fact that they suck up a special slot... |
Rare units:
| hmmm, does one pick your RBT (now str 6 single shot, or 6 S4 -2save non-penetrating multi shots), have some fliers, or get the White Lions? Well RBT are still worth it, if only because they have more strength than the rest of your army. |
| The Lions are worse than 5th edition, but are stubborn if the general is with them. One trick is to use their hand weapons! Yes it's a bit dodgy, but you get a unit with WS5, S4 and the rule about shields means you get a 3+ save in melee! They only do D3 wounds with their axes, and have nothing else special. But this makes them far better than Swordmasters now (as you get to go first like normal chargers when using axes). |
| The other viable option is Great Eagles, these too are weaker, but as the only fliers you can take means you will probably need to get some in mid sized games. |
Point Costs: Supposedly cheaper. I know Mac's Chaos Tournament army works out to be about 1500 points in 6th, but my army is still up at 2134 points, neither is legal, but it would be interesting to see how cheaper lists are comparatively. My figures total to about 4000 points (it used to be close to 6000), here's what I have:
61x Spearmen
5x Standard bearers
2x Musicians
40x Archers
25x Shadow Warriors
12x Dragon Princes (assorted characters, incl Tyrion, mounted Imrik and 2 standards)
6x Ellyrian Reavers (champion, standard)
3x Phoenix Guard
12x White Lions (champ, standard, musician)
15x Sword Masters of Hoeth (champ, standard, musician)
4x Chariots
3x RBT
6x Great Eagles
8x Heros
4x Mages (inc Teclis)
Sundry: Unicorn & mage, Avatar, Dragon & rider (Asarnil), Griffon & rider
(Eltharion)
Note: some troops are interchangeable - Lothern Seaguard, some spearmen could pass for 2H swords/halberds, characters that look like mages, etc.
Magic Items: These are pretty crap. The Star Lance is too expensive, and you wont get any armour because of this. Sea Gold means you wont be wounding much. Crown of Atrazar is one use only, and the Gem of Hoeth is unuseful too. I guess this fits with the lowering of magic power, but some other races seem to have a slightly better selection. At least Vampires don't get much of a selection either. Lizardmen for example, a Slann Mage with Piranha Blade(30pts), Bitametl(25pts), Amulet of Zapati (40pts) and Jaguar Banner (20pts) gives you a death-dealing 6 attacks, strength 5 doing D3 wounds each. He gets a 5+ save he can take twice, and then have a 4+ ward. He can go toe-to-toe with a Bloodthirster, and will beat a Dragon moderately easily. I won't have anything that can do near that damage...
Summary: Well things are more balanced, I guess. But I am very disappointed in the blandness of the current list. There is nothing unique, and point costs still seem a little unbalanced. This will probably change with the Army List, but as it stands it will be some hard slogging to win any games. The selection process means that IF you want a melee fighter you must take the Prince, meaning for most games you will be denied a 3rd/4th level wizard, not taking one limits you to a Toughness 3 hero with 3 attacks, and a choice of a weapon or magic armour. Not very inspiring.
The best from the rest? Black orc warbosses, 135 points, look real mean. Savage Orc Boar Boys are the same cost as my Lothern Seaguard! 2 point night goblins - core units, and you still get fanatics.&nnbsp; Vermin Lords (still!). Troll Slayers, completely obscene - 3 mean characters as part of the unit. Wood Elf Wardancers are pretty cool now. Because they reform into a unit you can cover an area when skirmishing, when charged they form up revealing the chariots (and maybe a glade guard unit for rank bonus), do Shadows Coil, and next turn all the woody stuff charges!
More as it happens....
