https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/7/31/dangerous-beauty/

Heres hoping those swords, arent that flimsy. Most expensive rank and file melee guys too.

That battle ability is really cool. Curious to see what their average damage output is.

Plus defense on move is cool, too bad its a pretty slow advance.

Green turns. At first I was so confused because they seemed so effin slow, but man is their dial mobile. 3 march into reform or shift is pretty nice

Cant read corruption rune, but they get MoI and triumphant cry, so we know most of the pack already

These guys are really interesting. I want them! With their ability, though, it seems like you are better off with smaller units, right? They don't benefit from threat as much, so there's no point making them too big, and adding more ranks is detrimental because you discard dice as you reroll.

11 minutes ago, taylorcowbell said:

Cant read corruption rune, but they get MoI and triumphant cry, so we know most of the pack already

Corruption Rune comes in one of the Uthuk packs and it was dissected in that thread. Basically, you choose an enemy unit at range 1-[unstable energy] and discard the top card of the morale deck. The defender suffers damage equal to the number of morale icons on the discarded morale card and then receives a bane based on the type of morale card: stun for confusion, panic for doubt, immobilize for fear.

Swords look fairly thick so i dont think it should be too bad. Swords on the cavalry are quite rigid and theyre only slightly thicker than the spears.

The...melee attack is a bit of a flop. After rerolls you must remove 1 die...? Ok so if i dont reroll at all i dont remove jack then. Intentional? Could be, but blue dice have no blanks.... you still prefer Hits over Surges since Hits are multiplied while Lethal X just adds flat damage to the result, but if it means not removing a die i'd just take the Lethal any day.

Theyre kinda slow, but elves have tons of ways to amplify that so not that big a deal. Still, they have a sideways charge should the need arises so thats useful. Plus a white reform, so they wont dive you very quick but you also cant skirt by them easily.

EDIT: wrong game, Armada blue dice have no blanks lol

I dont think youre discarding multiple dice. I think its just 1. So while they roll 3 dice, they discard one of them, it just works at basically reducing variance/giving essentially a free reroll. Thats just how Im interpreting it though.

Do they maybe mean after reroll step? So even if you have a single rank you arent discarding a die?

4 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Could be, but blue dice have no blanks

Uh oh. Looks like I need to update the wiki. I thought blues had 1 blank face.

Imma put a frontline rune golem in em.

Just now, Budgernaut said:

Uh oh. Looks like I need to update the wiki. I thought blues had 1 blank face.

Whoops! Wrong game lol Armada blue dice have no blanks

Added to Tabletop Admiral

7 minutes ago, taylorcowbell said:

I dont think youre discarding multiple dice. I think its just 1. So while they roll 3 dice, they discard one of them, it just works at basically reducing variance/giving essentially a free reroll. Thats just how Im interpreting it though.

Do they maybe mean after reroll step? So even if you have a single rank you arent discarding a die?

My understanding is that if you reroll, you must discard one die, whether that's one you rerolled or not. For example, you roll 3 dice. Then you reroll 2 of them. One of the three dice must be discarded. You choose to reroll one more die (because you have the 9-tray configuration). Now you must discard one of your two remaining dice, meaning you are down to a single blue die for your melee attack.

However, I'd guess you don't need to discard any dice if you choose not to reroll any. However, if the opponent can force rerolls of the attacker's dice, I think they would still have to discard one, which could be brutal for them.

The ability means after the reroll step. They will always discard 1 die. If they have any rerolls from rank bonuses, those get to happen before dice are removed.

13 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

Uh oh. Looks like I need to update the wiki. I thought blues had 1 blank face.

They do, he was mistaken!

3 minutes ago, rowdyoctopus said:

The ability means after the reroll step. They will always discard 1 die. If they have any rerolls from rank bonuses, those get to happen before dice are removed.

Hmm. That's interesting. It just seems so vague. If I were to write it, I would have written one of the following.

• After you reroll dice, you must remove 1 die
• After the reroll dice attack step, you must remove 1 die.

The former is how I first interpreted the ability. The latter makes it clear that it happens whether you reroll dice or not. At this point, I'm not really convinced which way it should be played.

I think it means "after all rerolls," but if you don't reroll any, then you don't remove a die.

When I first saw that command tool, I thought, "Oh man, my Reanimates are in for a rough time." But like @Vineheart01 said, they're kind of slow: with low-speed marches, and average initiative values. It's odd to me because Death Knights and Crossbowmen are very popular, clearly bringing something extra to the army that isn't already there. The only thing these guys bring is a decent melee attack as an infantry unit. If I were collecting Elves, I'd be more excited about getting more Leonx Riders than getting these guys. I'm sure I'll change my mind after I have time to think about it.

I think the latter makes more sense just in context, why would you be penalized for rerolling?

Since it says rerolls not reroll I think it's only ever one dice removed but it always is removed after reroll step regardless.

9 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

Hmm. That's interesting. It just seems so vague. If I were to write it, I would have written one of the following.

• After you reroll dice, you must remove 1 die
• After the reroll dice attack step, you must remove 1 die.

The former is how I first interpreted the ability. The latter makes it clear that it happens whether you reroll dice or not. At this point, I'm not really convinced which way it should be played.

I'm stumped too, as it is written terribly. My thoughts were ReRoll and keep 2 dice, but 2 blues melee is pretty terrible, lethal or not, consistent or not, so am leaning towards it being a ReRoll penalty based on their high cost. Blues have no double hit. Even with 3 blue, max dmg would be 12 (3 hits*3 threat, +3 surges via lethal, 3 hit/surges). 2 dice becomes 8, from a 6 or 9 block. That's pretty soft for an epic melee Warrior thing they are trying to sell us.

Given the damage stats, I'm leaning on 'lose a die if you ReRoll'.

Doesnt say "reroll step" and what "reroll step" are you talking about?

There is a "Modify dice" step but not a "reroll step"

2 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Doesnt say "reroll step" and what "reroll step" are you talking about?

There is a "Modify dice" step but not a "reroll step"

Attack step 4 is "Reroll For Extra Ranks" and I could envision it being referred to loosely as the "reroll step."

EDIT: And rerolling happens before step 5, which is the "Modify dice" step you mentioned.

Good point, I hope it is removed only after choosing to reroll, but I remain skeptical. But please, prove me wrong...I'd like to be wrong.

3 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Doesnt say "reroll step" and what "reroll step" are you talking about?

There is a "Modify dice" step but not a "reroll step"

The step before that. Reroll for extra ranks.

I read it as meaning remove one die after all rerolls. Wording is arguably ambiguous.

Thats disapointing. I hope FFG gets better editorial on the power text.

6 minutes ago, Darthain said:

I'm stumped too, as it is written terribly. My thoughts were ReRoll and keep 2 dice, but 2 blues melee is pretty terrible, lethal or not, consistent or not, so am leaning towards it being a ReRoll penalty based on their high cost. Blues have no double hit. Even with 3 blue, max dmg would be 12 (3 hits*3 threat, +3 surges via lethal, 3 hit/surges). 2 dice becomes 8, from a 6 or 9 block. That's pretty soft for an epic melee Warrior thing they are trying to sell us.

Given the damage stats, I'm leaning on 'lose a die if you ReRoll'.

They have a Hit on their modifier dial.

What is really interesting to me is that you can't turn unless you're doing a later initiative at 5 or 6. If you want to turn early at a 3 or 4, then it has to be a charge. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty darn awesome! If you foresee a later charge by your opponent, dial in a 5 or 6 initiative march + turn so that the opposing charge falls short. Then you're ready for a speed 1, initiative 3 charge next round before they can react. I'm liking this.

I'm pretty sure you remove a die whether you actually rerolled or not.

Aside from that though, this definitely seems like an MSU kind of infantry rather than a deathball one like spearmen. I guess I just assume that because of the lethal on the surges and the fact that they only have blue dice.

As is, its a way to keep them strong but prevent them from stacking to be Spearmen + Runegolem + Character of choice level of ridiculous (which tbh i dont like doing just because it feels....stale)

3 raw blue dice stacked with that Lethal ability could do quite a bit of damage, but you dont have any rerolls. If you reroll, you drop down to the same power level of any other footman with Lethal supposedly making up for the lack of a red die.
You could still totally deck them out like a usual deathstar (assuming elves have tools to do that, im not up to snuff on the leaked upgrades) and treat is as a potential bonus, but not expect to get it.
On average a small/medium unit will be just as deadly as any other footmen unit w/o the third blue, its the giant block that suffers since threat3 means little when your damage comes from lethal

Which technically feeds into the elves' highly mobile mentality. A giant block isnt mobile....but 2-3 2x1s are!