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I've been thinking about what other rarely-seen armies might have competitive lists and came up with two High Elf focused lists that seem like they would be pretty hard. I suspect most opponents would consider these to be cheesy lists, although they don't really reach the gimmick level of skryrefyre or kunnin' rukk imo.

List 1:

Leaders -

Lothern Sea-Helm w/ banner (100)
Teclis (200)
Loremaster of Hoeth (100)
Caradryan on Frostheart Phoenix (260)
Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (260)
Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (260)

Troops-

3 x 10 High Elf Spearmen (240)
30 High Elf Archers (300)
either 20 High Elf Archers (200) and 2x Gryph Hound (80) OR 2x Repeater Bolt Thrower (240) and 1x Gryph Hound (40)


List 2:

Leaders-

Lothern Sea-Helm w/ banner (100)
Teclis (200)
Loremaster of Hoeth (100)
Caradryan on Frostheart Phoenix (260)
Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (260)
Celestial Battlemage on Celestial Hurricanum (320)

Troops-

3x10 High Elf Spearmen
30 High Elf Archers
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Great Eagle
Gryph Hound

Alternately, you can swap the Great Eagle for a second Gryph Hound and change the second Phoenix to a Flamespyre.



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The idea behind both of these lists is similar. There are basically two threats in each army -- the shooting core and the double/triple phoenix. You position the Sea-helm with your shooters, giving them the +1 to wound from the banner and likely using his command ability to buff the 30 man archer squad (particularly on the turn that you double volley). Your spearmen are mostly there to contest objectives and provide bubble wrap for your ranged units. In most cases you will have more shooting than the enemy, thus forcing your enemy to come to you. In this case, the phoenixes provide an incredibly strong counterpunch. If your opponent actually can outshoot you, you will need to go on offense with the phoenixes, possibly leaving one behind to protect your shooters. The -1 to hit aura should give you a substantial advantage here and give you plenty of opportunity to damage and distract the enemy while your shooters do their thing.

You also have a relatively strong magic phase. You can cast 4-5 spells per turn depending on which version you use, which gives you the opportunity to stack your phoenixes' armor through the roof. If you can keep them close to your casters they should be incredibly tanky. The loremaster spell will give one phoenix a massive buff (reroll hit/wound/save), and Teclis' tempest spell will be fantastic at reducing the enemy's mobility.

The Gryph Hounds are there to give you a counter to lists like Skryrefyre or Skyborne Slayers which would otherwise be quite problematic.


One thing that I really like about the list is that it has a lot of synergy, but there is no one real lynchpin. There are a lot of targets for sniping - Teclis, the Loremaster, the Sea-Helm, the Hurricanum. Killing any of those will weaken you but not really break you, and it should legitimately be difficult for your opponent to choose what to target. It definitely gives your opponent plenty of chances to make mistakes.

I really don't know whether list 1 or list 2 is stronger. I think the damage on list 2 is higher as long as the Hurricanum stays alive, but it will drop once it goes down. That said, the Hurricanum should have a huge bullseye on it, which means your other support will likely live longer.

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So overall, I'm curious what you guys think about list 1 vs list 2, and I'm wondering whether either would be a competitive tournament level list or merely a "hard casual" kind of list.

Blizzard aura is -1 to wound, but still a great debuff.

Caradryan on a phoenix is a legacy scroll so you'll have to clear that up with your opponent, but otherwise he's still an anointed on a phoenix anyway.

I think your list pretty hard, but not unbeatable. Your phoenixes will have to do most of the heavy lifting, as they are pretty much the only hard hitting units there.

I think your first list is more aggressive, as you will want your 3 phoenixes to get stuck in combat fast, spreading out their blizzard aura to minimize damage to you, as your archers attack safely from a distance. This would be a great list for the three places of power scenario.

My bad, yeah I meant -1 to wound. The difference between Caradryan and Anointed is pretty slim, but yeah. I don't have the Grand Alliance: Order book so I wasn't aware that he was removed from that Warscroll.

I certainly agree that it's not unbeatable (I don't think any list is unbeatable).

I'm not sure that it's fair to say that the phoenixes are the only hard hitting unit though. The 30 archers put out more wounds than a phoenix, albeit at rend 0 instead of rend 1. A regular volley with the Sea-Helm abilities deals nearly 24 wounds on average, and you can double that once per game. The double volley is pretty comparable to a turn of shooting from Kunnin' Rukk. That's without the hurricanum, fwiw.

30 archers plus 2 RBT is ~24 rend 0 wounds and 10 rend 1 wounds, while 30 archers plus 20 archers is about 32.75 rend 0 wounds, doubling up once per game.

It's not going to do much against 2+ rerollables, but that's still a lot of wounds against almost anything else.

The archers do have some potential. I've just played them a lot, mostly against destruction (mix of ironjawz, bonesplitterz and grot artillery). I always found the shooting to be lacklustre. Probably a combination of bad rolls, tough opponents and too many wounds. And my opponent can pretty much just rush into combat, or hold back and bombard me with his artillery (rock lobbers and doom divers).

My Wife is starting high elves, and I have been pondering the jump to 2k myself. Her 1k list is;

High Elf Prince on Griffin
10 Sisters of Avelorn
5 Ellyrean Reavers
5 Ellyrean Reavers
10 High elf archers
Repeater bolt thrower
Total: 1,000

From there I was thinking of going;

High Elf Prince on Griffin
Frostheart Phoenix w/ annointed
Flamespyre Phoenix w/ annointed
Sea Helm w/ banner
10 Sisters of Avelorn
5 Ellyrean Reavers
5 Ellyrean Reavers
5 Ellyrean Reavers
30 High elf archers
Repeater bolt thrower
Total: 2,000

Lots of shooting, which the Sea Helm makes better. They soften things up for the monsters to slam into. Reavers are nice mobile objective grabbers/ harassers. My wife loves the Sisters models, so they are in. They would make nice bubble wrap for the bolt thrower, as they can fire into charging units. She will have one of each Phoenix, so we need to use them.

A part of me though wants to add more characters. Alarielle for healing, which combined with the healing artifact should make your general pretty darn resilient. I also like the loremaster for further buffing. I could fit them, but I would then have to drop the archers. It may be worthwhile to do so, but I'm on the fence about it. They would definitely be added on the jump to 2,500.