8th Ed. Ethereal

So... Ethereal seems a bit ridiculous. I just had a match with an ethereal Slann. My opponent went hunting with this Wyvern + mounted lord (O&G), and through a series of poor movement decisions on my part, my solo Slann got caught. I panicked, my palms began to sweat, this was the end for my poor Slann. Then as he was rolling a fist full of dice I remembered. He is ethereal, you need a magic weapon, haha! The day was saved, the character riding the Wyvern did not bring a magical weapon (just a whole lot of other magical gear) so the combat was just the Slann trying to poke at the Wyvern (which of course failed). The combat resolution came to +2 to him as he charged and was a BSB. No big deal, I ward saved them both.

Now, at this point, what can the Wyvern do? If he cannot attack the Slann can he only ever bank on causing 1 wound (due to the BSB counting for combat res every close combat round?). Can he disengage from combat? What if he did not have a BSB, would he have been tar pit into eternity until the Slann tickled him to death?

This causes me to wonder about other armies that may have less expensive ethereal characters. Could they simply charge into monsters and hold them down until some magic or other unit with ranks comes along? If so, which armies do this well?

Seems to me like ethereal is much better than bunkering a Slann in TG. (It at least keeps your TG safe from the inevitable miscast). With an obsidian amulet that is a 2+ ward vs magic, immune to all ranged attacks (aside from some obscure magic bows), and able to just run through terrain to stay away from melee.

 

it's all all good and well until he gets gets flank charged by a large block and crumbles.

 

had a battle against VC the other night and his stupid hexwraiths held up my bastilodons the entire game. Those are a little harder hitting. They still didnt break my basti until he had two units against it. you can read about it in my battle report http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=14283

 

So VC has ethereal units, who else should I worry about?

 

Apart from VC, there are very few ethereals in other armies but the VC have several types (banshees, hexwraiths, spirit host, cairnwraiths, black coach (maybe) ). The only other ethereal I can think of is the Bretonnian special character, the green knight although rumours have it that the woodelves may be getting some type of ethereal when/if their new book comes out. Just as a future note, the slaan doesn't get his 4+ ward against the combat resolution losses due to having the unstable rule when he is ethereal.