How do you get the element/node count in the model without running it?
For getting the count of elements or nodes, you can use the *GET command. With this, you can store the element count value in a parameter.
Below is the command for finding the element count of selected elements:
*GET, E_COUNT, ELEM,,COUNT
Command for node count of selected nodes;
*GET, N_COUNT, NODE,,COUNT
In the above commands, E_COUNT and N_COUNT are the parameter names, respectively. You can check the values of those parameters under Parameters > Scalar Parameters.