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High Elves

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High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Thu Mar 17, 2011 7:30 pm

O.k. so after help on the forums before I'm back for more. I'm playing High Elves at 1500pts, but looking to move upto 2000pts soon, anyway I'm looking to get together a solid core to my army (say 1250 pts) thats stays the same between games and then add 750 from a selection of units. But I have one big problem.

High Elves specials are great, high elf core not soo great, but I have to take 25% core. So I've plumped for taking one large unit (40) of spearmen with command, they pretty much cover my 25% at 1500pts and I'll make them 50 strong for the points coverage at 2000pts. Problem I have is this, the spearmen are OK, just OK, against fellow hordes they will do well, against anything a little more elite they arn't soo good (This is coming off the back off facing chaos warriors for three games and getting smashed by units of 20!).

So my questions / problem / challenge to you all, what can I add to the spearmen to give them a little edge over similar infantry and a fighting chance over elites? Idally I'd like to do this without magic, so I'm thinking characters / magic items, any fellow high elf players have some good combinations? Failing that anyone got any good ideas for magic? I've been toying with having 2 lvl 1 mages knocking out the beasts signature spell on them when needed, but thats alot of extra points and all my power dice getting used up for the chance to cast the spells. So ideally I'm looking for something thats a little more guaranteed hence items / characters combinations firstly.

to add some context, I'm also including 2 units of 14 swordmasters in the basic build after one unit tour through 2 units of 20 khornate maruaders in 2 game turns (one unit in his, one unit in mine - back to back smashing!) These would flank the spearmen unit.

So any ideas fellow gamers?
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Re: High Elves

Postby Firecrest_inc » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:29 pm

Aren't seaguard core as well? Giving you some shooting before receiving the charge.
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Re: High Elves

Postby Ogregut » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:11 am

Without magic the only thing that will help elven spearmen is numbers, being T3 and lightly armoured they die very easy.

A unit of 40 - 50 is quite scary tho more elite troops will still beat them (as the chaos warriors have proven), however dont forget you don't have to beat a unit to hold it up - steadfast is your friend. Againest the chaos warriors I would reform and go with deep ranks so your steadfast even if you lose and use the swordmasters to counter charge.

By putting magic into the mix, Wildform does make spearmen alot nastier but shadow magic can help to; the basic spell reduces enemy WS lessening the amount of hits you take, the hexes which reduce the enemy toughness and strength are both great.

As for characters a good support for the spearmen would be a noble with a great weapon, Armour of Caledor and the Dawnstone. He gives a little extra punch and can tie up enemy characters. Give him the battle standand and you get extra point of combat resolution and a re-roll for steadfast if you need it.
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 7:53 am

Yeah I think your right, just wishful thinking trying to do it without magic! I suppose a level 1 mage with wildform could be in the standard mix just to cast it on the spearmen. But then you raise good point with the steadfast, maybe I shouldn't look to use the spearmen to do damage, just use them to tie things up whilst my swordmasters do the damage.

one alternate I thought of would be to attatch a chariot to the unit permanently, so that if they recieve a charge they at least have some immediate avaliable support for a counter charge the turn after.

I'm thinking of giving them the standard of discipline and throwing a noble in there to give them leadership 10 and also pass that leadership across the army!

Hmm, got a game on monday will have to test out just using the differently instead of using them to cause damage.

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Re: High Elves

Postby Baragash » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:38 am

My opinion of HE:

Movement Phase - they have a slight advantage over most races, but only significantly if you build a list that utilises strong cavalry elements on the flank(s). Otherwise average.

Magic - this is the bread and butter of the HE list as it stands. HE are over-priced in the context of 8th Ed, so you need to use Magic as both your Shooting and to buff your troops to compensate for their T3/low armour and lack of numbers. As I've learnt (see Bat Reps Forum, plus another kicking of my ass to go up soon), playing without buffs is a non-starter.

Shooting Phase - Longbows continue to be rubbish and Bolt Throwers are way, way too expensive for what they do. You can have a small presence if you take Sea Guard as your Core, which is occasionally useful for picking off things like Skaven Weapons teams.

Combat Phase - HE can dish it out pretty well, but can't take it, so you need to stack the odds with Magic to either buff or hex, and despite the way a lot of people malign cavalry, slamming a unit of cavalry into the flank is still a big plus.
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Re: High Elves

Postby BigJim » Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:05 am

HE are a very tricky army to play in 8th Ed - even more so when you try to play at low points.

A few things I can offer as advice:-

- Movement speed is your friend - make use of it to fight the fights you want.
- I use spearmen as my "throw away - tie up a unit for a turn" units - angle them weirdly etc to stop easy overruns.
- Swordmasters should win any fight - even outnumbered 2-to-1 - but are vulnerable to shooting & magic so protect them when they are not in combat.
- Archers work - continuous rounds of shooting will take down any unit (even chaos warriors & knights) - if you need a strong core then I would base it around 30 of these in units of 10
- Make sure to include bolt throwers to backup the archers and deal with the harder to break units

- It is in your interest to soften up units on the way in - that way even the spearmen might hold

- Chariots are OK - but often fail to break units like they did in 7th Edition - so be careful about using them stand-alone

- Knights can work well - but u need to include a decent amount to give them a chance to break through units in a turn (7+ for Dragon Princes, 12+ for Silverhelms)

- Magic has become a very variable thing in 8th Ed - some turns very powerful, others barely usable - don;t load too many eggs into this basket - especially considering the cost of magic users and items.
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:07 pm

I'm thinking along the lines of having 2 Lvl 2 Mages (Possibly just level 1) both running Lore of Beasts and just use them to cast wildform on whatever unit I need, at least it's a signature spell so I can base tactics around it because I'm deffinately going to be getting it, plus having level 2 for these means I'm casting it on 8 (viable with 2 D6) but 3 D6 each works better, which means using up 6 power dice a turn on casting these - again more than feasiable to have 6 power dice (especially with the Jewel of Dusk for an extra power dice). Will need to playtest with that a bit more, in 2000pts I rekon I could get those 2 mages and a BSB and a Prince in addition to my 40 Spearmen and 2 Units of Swordmasters and still have points to spare. Will need to total it up and see.

Do any fellow High Elf players have great magic buff combinations they like to use regularly?

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Re: High Elves

Postby Ogregut » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:58 pm

I enjoy using metal magic with high elves. A lv 4 with the seer staff so I get the spells I want. There are some great hexes and arguments to help as well as good offensive spells. Metal and beast work well together as well, put wildform and glittering robes on a unit of spearmen and you turn them from elves to space marines!
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:02 pm

I'd be tempted to save some points and go for a lvl 4 with magic wand, rolling for 5 spells and swapping doubles, chances are your going to get everything you want / need from that lore. Just a little trick to save some points.
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Re: High Elves

Postby Cobby » Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:04 pm

For me I will always take 2 x 20 spearmen with command and 1 x 10 archers with 2 x bolt throwers - I will also include a level 4 and normally 2 x level 2 wizards - take the seer staff to pick spells for the level 2 from poss metal for Enchanted blades for archers and Sword masters and Final Transmutation as great against horde armies and elite expensive models or Plague of Rust. level 4 with High Magic as you want Curse of Arrow attraction as I have found nothing yet to like 2 or even 3 bolt throwers with re roll misses shooting at them especially chaos warriors. Normally take 18 sword masters with banner of Sapphery for more power dice to hopefully keep you near your max 12 dice. I have also foud 10 white lions with a champion just very dangerous against anything big of with a decent armour save. I normally have most units reduced in ranks by the time i decide to fight and then the spearmen can hold up good troops of start winning some fights. I have to agree with Baragash on the Elves being overpriced at present which is why you just need to pick your fights carefully.
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:26 pm

Hi Cobby, yeah I'm toying with 2 units instead of one for my spearmen, however my rational is that if I have one big unit then I only need to buff one unit, instead of two if I have small seperate units, thereby saving me powerdice and maximising the effectiveness of the one unit over the two seperates.

I'm working on this as ny base at the moment

Mage - high magic / lore of beasts
Mage - high magic / lore of beasts
- can't deice between the two lores which signature spell I like the most - shield of saphery or wildform.

40 spearmen - full command - standard of discipline

14 swordmasters - full command (although I may dump the musician, can't see these guys reforming much)
14 swordmasters - full command (but same as above for the musician)

This comes to something like 1050, so I'm looking to add an archmage in there for offensive magic, this will add 300 points.

Then for the last 700 odd (to make me 2000pts)

i'm thinking a noble BSB

from there I'm pretty open what to take.

Really like the reaver models but soo far they have done not much for me, so might not take them (I have 15 though!)

Love the new dragon princes - these may need to get added.
Really like the white lions and pheonix guard - but for the money GW wants for them - I'll pass.

Anyway, cheers fro advice guys, I'm going to point up my basic I've listed above and then go from there.

How do people feel about reavers? great models, rubbish in an army? that's the feeling I'm getting from my games with them (maybe it's me!)
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Re: High Elves

Postby markb » Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:59 pm

For me Reavers are vastly over priced for what they are. Light cavalry should be fairly cheap and expendable (like Wolf Riders, they are just over half the points of a tooled up Reaver), for the points you spend on a Reaver with bow you can get a Silver Helm, they are just not worth it, a bit like Shadow Warriors really. I have 5 from the IoB box but have absolutely no intention of ever using them unless I decide that I will take my army to 4000 pts (have the models for it its whether I can be bothered painting it up) then they will just be thrown in to eat up the points.

If you want Phoenix Guard have a look on eBay for the old metal ones, nearly as nice as the plastic ones and 100% less of a pain in the arse to put together!

Quick one though, 40 Spearmen isn't enough for your min core choice in 2000 pts, what else would you add? Personally I'd think about adding a small unit of archers (10 or 12) with a Hawkeye. Dragon Princes are quite hard but the min size might be a bit too weak, my unit is 5 (min size) but with a noble thrown in to add that extra bit of oomf. I also gave them the Banner of Ellyrian so they can move through difficult terrain and hopefully get in a good position to hit someone in the flank or rear.
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 7:45 pm

Yeah at 2000pts, I'd either add extra spearmen to that main unit, or maybe split it into 2 smaller 30 odd sized units.

If I add dragon princes then yeah I'd go the way you said, 5 with noble and banner of ellyrian, be a nice suprise charging through a wood at someone!
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Re: High Elves

Postby Cobby » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:54 pm

The big issue you will have is being outnumbered not just in models but in units - A unit of 20 spearmen is very good as is - they might be Strength 3 but with 21 attacks and most of the time re rolling misses and the swordmasters being only 14 will hurt other units but should get decimated with the return attacks or just a few lucky shooting shots will make the unit useless. The only time I might take a noble is if I want a Battle standard. This is the beauty of the hobby with so many options and different ideas, good luck with them. I am holding out for my updated Tomb Kings book so can give my mates at my club a break from fighting the Elves.
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Re: High Elves

Postby samuelgrimwade » Fri Mar 18, 2011 11:28 pm

True about the number of Unit, I've been playing a chaos army a lot recently and even they had more units than me on the table, which always put me off engaging too much because I figured they would always have a spare unit or two to flank me with. I'm thinking with cheaper army I'll be getting doubled on unit count! hmm quite a worry. Might look at unit of 20-25 when I play 2000pt games. I think at 1500pts I'm going to stick with busting my core out in just one large spearmen unit of 40.

Big problem I forsee with my elven army is that I'm only looking to get to 2000pts - maybe 2500pts, but I want value for money points and pounds wise, so the white lions and phoenix guard (Unless I get ebaying) are never going to make it in. The pricing GW has set on those is criminal, where as the cost for the dragon princes is at least in the right ball park, so might get a unit of these to add some smacking power.

Again your right with the noble only being taken for a BSB, otherwise i'd just take one of the special characters (can't remember the names straight off, but the phoenix guard or white lions one, not any of the other hero level specials).

Cobby what do you run at 1500pt / 2000pt for high elves then?
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