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Wanting to start high elves, are they competitive?
I usually play as Dwarfs and have never played HE
is the IOB set any good?
Whats better Sword masters or Phoenix guard?
If there is anything else i have missed and should know could you please tell me

Thanks for any help in advance.

1. Yes, they're commonly marked in the top 5.
2. Yes, but it's actually not legal to play outside of an IoB game (the prince is too expensive on a griffon).
3. It depends if you want to play defense or offence. PG for defense, SM for offense.

If it's not to much to ask can someone tell me what units are useful and why? or link me to a page that tells me?

Thanks.

There are quite a few threads in the tactics section discussing High Elves. Thats probably the best place to start looking.

Basically, High Elves are all about the special choices.

White Lions, Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard are all useful in their own ways, and how you want to build your army will help you determine which of the 3 units you want to stock up on.

The weaker selections in the HE book are the Bolt Throwers, Silver Helms, Ellyrian Reavers, Archers and to a lesser extent the Dragon Princes. You will notice a theme in that most of the High Elves mounted choices are much weaker in 8th.

Cerebrium wrote:1. Yes, they're commonly marked in the top 5.
2. Yes, but it's actually not legal to play outside of an IoB game (the prince is too expensive on a griffon).
3. It depends if you want to play defense or offence. PG for defense, SM for offense.

Cerebrium is of course 100% correct, but what he said can easily be taken out of context for a new player, so let me help clarify his points.

1. Armies are often ranked into three categories, top, average, and poor. This doesn't mean that a poor army can't compete with a top army, it's just a difficulty curve. Playing a poor tier army is like playing with a handicap, it's not a weight division. Regardless, the difference is minimal, and they're trends you'll only identify over a long stretch of games. Generalship, composition and luck still win the day.

2. Since you can only spend a maximum of 25% of your total points on your Lords, the Lord on a Griffon (minimum of 350 points) is illegal in an army under ~1500 points (1400 points isn't a common game size). You'd be lucky to squeeze ~600 points of High Elves out of the IoB set, so the box is a good start, but not a ready to play army.

3. There are no weak High Elf units. They're all at the higher end of quality. Some units are more popular than others though. Particularly Sword Masters and Phoenix Guard. It's also beneficial to have multiple mages as they offer you a great deal of anti-magic.