This is why I really dislke swordmasters now as this combined with the fact my HE opponent takes lore of life allowing him to grant the unit +2 T with flesh to stone and the 2nd rank also striking with 2 attacks per swordsmen cause my skaven and skinks a large amount of pain.

Why does the 2nd rank of theire swordmasters get 2 attacks? It says that “…. to represent this he can only ever make a single attack regardless of the number of attacks on his profile or any bonus attacks bla bla bla” on page 49

Chrome polished cheating riff raff hedgehog mimicing *mumbles* …

First comment, w00t! To be honest, that FAQ seems broken to me. It is also contradictory to the actual words written. It states that they have Always Strikes First, regardless of weapon, but that doesn’t negate the weapon’s Always Strikes Last, it just means that both come into effect and you end up striking at Inititiative order. Considering the high Inititiative of elves int he first place, they’d usually still be striking before you as is, but now they get the re-roll as well in most situations. It feels like they’ve not considered it properly. Great Weapons in Initiative order… Read more »

In my local club, theres a guy who uses a empire gunline and skaven mass slave armies, whose sole intention is too win by restricting how much fun the other player has. As soon as he saw my high elves would be striking first with great weapons (and it’s no change from 7th all you nay-sayers who say its over-powered) he called cheese on my whole army. High elves were not broken in 7th, yet with the 8th changes that made shooting deadlier and more common, and the striking in two ranks casualties from the back, if anything lessened the… Read more »

You get to re-roll to hit, if you have Always Strikes first and your initiative is Higher than or Equal to your opponents initiative not just if it’s Higher.

I see many points in this discussion… and i ´gotta say that “Always strikes First”+Great Weapon+HE initative sounds really F* up to me. although ive never faced HE but as long as this rule exists i surely dont want to. according to this rules 10 swordmasters would launch 20 attacks at str5 WS6 with reroll to hit?(as i said, i´ve never encountered HE so correct me if im wrong) but in that case they would probably kill at least 14 clanrats each round of combat… and then the rest of that unit would break and flee… sorry all HE players… Read more »

Goblins could still slaugter them once you pass the animosity and fear tests. 5 gobbos to each blond emo elf or there abouts o.o;

as far as im concerned every army needs a perk or two. It just so happens always striking first wont matter against.. MY STEAM TANK muahahaaha!!

No matter how much you debate about High Elves…they’re cheesy!!!!
Espessialy with a well balanced armylist!

But a good gun-line should do the trick 😉

God plays High Elves… Made me laugh!

I am a Empire/High~Wood Elf/Dwarf player and i have played both with and against HEs and it isn’t broken per-say it just needs to be modified a bit sorta make it to where they lose either the re-roll or strike in initiative order or something… i am saying this as a HE player so any other He player that wants to complain go ahead…

its obviosly that the way to go against swordmasters is ranged units like archers or handgunners takin the swordmasters down before they could enter close combat with their crash & smash rules… wich take me to my biggest problem against HE… Skaven seriosly lack ranged units…the only unit with a decent range is the warplock jezzails… wich is: A; a special unit and B; have the potential of blowing themselves up… while both the ratlinggun and the doomwheel have ranged weaponery its a range of 18″ wich aint a comfortable range… and since highleves got som serious archers its likely… Read more »

I love my High Elves army. I’ve only played one Warhammer Fantasy battle with it so far and it was pretty good. Having that ‘Always Strike First’ rule came in very handy!!!