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So quite honestly, after losing the 5th battle in a row with these guys I'm close to throwing in the towel and putting them up on the highest shelf in my room never to be touched again. Can anyone here convince me why I should keep battling with them? 1500pts and I'm up against an Empire artillery line, getting messed up by them every which way no matter what I try. Anyone have any suggestions?

wizards, lore of life. Ressurect the guys that die.

It helps.

kastellan wrote:So quite honestly, after losing the 5th battle in a row with these guys I'm close to throwing in the towel and putting them up on the highest shelf in my room never to be touched again. Can anyone here convince me why I should keep battling with them? 1500pts and I'm up against an Empire artillery line, getting messed up by them every which way no matter what I try. Anyone have any suggestions?

Can you give us more info like your's and your opponent's army composition

I play empire and if hes a gunline your pretty much in alot of trouble, i have never lost to high elves as mortars are just the end of weak elves. I would say lvl 4 wizard on an eagle and do a suicide purple sun down his gunline trying to hit as many warmachines as possible and also praying for misfires.

I would try to use phoenix guard/white lions, and as many great eagles as possible to try and take out his warmachines asap. Try to avoid the arc of his gunners/crossbowmen and hope his cannons miss so your eagles make it.

High Elves have quite a bit of difficulty with gunlines. As you've discovered, T3, 5+Svs don't really react nicely with mortars and cannons.

What kind of list are you running?

As suggested above, mages running Lore of Life help out a lot. Bunker them in with Phoenix Guard ( these guys are too survivable to not take, imo). 1-2 Great Eagles will take out a Warmachine a turn.

Ok so my list is pretty much this.

Prince
Some armour which give a 4+ ward save (can't remember which one it is lol)
Great Weapon
Heavy Armour
Shield

Level 2 Mage
Silver wand

Level 2 Mage

20 Spearmen
Full command

20 Spearmen
Full Command

19 Swordmasters
Full command

18 Phoenix Guard
Full Command


So I pretty much run the Prince in the Swordmasters, one of the mages in the Phoenix Guard and the other in a unit of Spearmen.

What do you have to play with? Shadow Warriors, Eagles, Reavers?

Just take a level 4 wizard i find it much better than having two lvl 2s. Swap the swordmasters for another unit of phoenix guard and try to free up some points for eagles.

As you have a wizard lord now you will have to take a noble instead of the prince but should be alot more effective.

Yeah, you definitely need something to close the ranks more quickly. Great eagles, maybe a small unit of Shadow warriors or Cavalry.

As it is, with no ranged units and no quick units, you're just playing his game, walking your infantry straight into his guns. What else would you expect to happen?

I would also personally get an Archmage, loaded with goodies (BoH or silver wand and some defensive items) instead of the two mages, and a Noble instead of the Prince at that points value. Take Life as your lore, nice buffs and healing, plus a good offensive spell.

Yeah, like Jeep said, you need some fast moving units to help silence the guns. As is, you're probably slogging 2-3 turns before you hit combat.

Suggestions:
Take an archmage instead of a prince. Give him Forliath's Robe and he'll be safe from most things (though Talisman of Preservation + Silver Wand are quite good to take as well). If you want to go more Magic-oriented, get a Lvl2 as well with Seerstaff. Lore of life on the Archmage will give you a nice array of buffs and a fairly nasty direct damage spell that forces the opponent to take Strength Tests or die. Find the points by dropping the Prince and second lvl2. If you can, try fitting in Korhil or Caradryan as a bodyguard for the Archmage.

Key advice - set up your units in shallow and wide formations at the start. It'll help you take less damage while you advance. With Ld9, your guys should be able to pull of Quick Reforms pretty easily.

Also, invest in the Ironcurse Icon for your Swordmaster Champion - 5 points for a 6+ ward save against warmachines is well worth it.

Give the mages a lesser dragon, fly and smash into the gun line , cant shoot anymore :'P while the rest of your army move in and engage in melee

kastellan wrote:Ok so my list is pretty much this.................
So I pretty much run the Prince in the Swordmasters, one of the mages in the Phoenix Guard and the other in a unit of Spearmen.

As you might have guessed by now, this is a bad list. Let us see why.

Prince
Some armour which give a 4+ ward save (can't remember which one it is lol)
Great Weapon
Heavy Armour
Shield

So you have a very expensive hero with a sharp hitty thing and armour and a ward save.

No good.

You want princes for three reasons

1. Leadership. Ld10 general is great but you pay a lot for that, Ld9 is adequate for a general.
2. Really nice magic gizmos. it looks like you have Vambraces here, reroll armour and 4+ ward. that is nice and only a Prince can have it. But it is not esserntial. the gizmos you really need are those items that support an army.
3. Opportunity to ride a big monster.

Technically you got two out of three, you got a general in an infantry line and a 55pt item a hero cannot take. However a hero has about 80% performance of a Lord, but about 50% pricetag. your Lord with Vambraces, heavy armour and great weapon comes to 233pts, thats quite cheap for an elf Prince, but also largely useless, you have wasted 45pts of item allocation and wasting item allocation on a fighting characrter is a false economy. there are plenty of items that support your army that you can use.

See what you could take instead:

Hero (85pts)
Heavy Armour (4pts)
Great weapon (8pts)
Temakadors Gauntlets (30pts)

This comes out to a much cheaper 127pts. Yes he is inferior, one less ward save, wound, attack and leadership, but more efficient. the above hero would perform better than the half value you would expect of him.

This is just a like-for-like comparison. I would be looking at dragon armour, the benefits for the extra 2pts are worthwhile, barded elf steed, yes even if he is an infantry model. Barded steeds cost lords and Heroes 24 and 16pts perpectively yet they add +2 armour save and you save 15pts on a back rank model as the steed takes up the space of two infantry. You do lose the great weapons bonus, but a halberd is now the way forward it is cheap and by the way you want to spend your points you favour protection anyway. It might be worth it taking hand weapon and shield instead.
Temakadors gauntlets can stay, the +1 save is now looking very promising if the hero is mounted and the ward save will normally apply as S3 attacks are not a big threat. Consider a support item like Amulet of light, of a Potion of Strength for a challenge. Potion of Strength and Speed of asuryan must be a nasty combo, good enough to tempt me to recommend two hand weapons.

An alternate is not to tool up the Hero much at all, armour, shield sword and Reaver Bow. Rely on your 'heavy bolter' to do the work and stay out of direct combat. Otherwise look to the army boosting items, normally found on the
Enchanted Item list like Amulet of Light, Crown of Command, Dragonhorn etc and let your item allowance to boost a unit or army rather than just a character. If you really want a Prince always save room for an enchanted item, the difference you can afford that and a protective item. Frankly though save the points to buy more elves.

Level 2 Mage
Silver wand

Is that all? Add Ring of Fury, its an extra spell per turn. at a minimum something else to draw out your opponents dispel dice. Well woerth the 40pts spent.

Level 2 Mage

No items at all! Rule #1 Thou shalt spend thy wizards allowance on an Arcane Item. Its an always thing. If nothing else take a Dispel Scroll, which appear to now take up a mages arcane item allowance unles FAQed somewhere.

20 Spearmen
Full command

20 Spearmen
Full Command

19 Swordmasters
Full command

18 Phoenix Guard
Full Command

You need artillery or fast attackers.

I recommend chariots and eagles.

Chariots are great because they can charge in with an infantry block and get their full strength into battle while only taking up- a corner of the defending unit. As mentioned by previous posters eagles stop enemy war machines. Cavalry can also be good. Pay for this by cutting down on the number of Swordmasters and phoenix Guard. Swordmasters win combat by acting as a collective grain thresher/mincing machine. Phoenix Guard dont win combats, they just dont care if they lose combats. Large blocks of spearelves are fine.

5 battles? Really that is all. I have lost 20 games in a row against the same empire army with my DE. I picked a very hard army to get used to and suffered for it. But I have never wanted to drop my army due to it.


The basic run down is Kill the cannons and knights as quick as you can then sweep the board how ever you like after that.

That is my Priority any ways. War machines, Knights, sweep the gun line and finish off the larger units with multicombat.

Thank you Orlanth, that does help. Would you recommend running an Archmage with Lore of Life?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And maybe taking Caradryan instead of the noble?

kastellan wrote:Thank you Orlanth, that does help. Would you recommend running an Archmage with Lore of Life?

Yes I would. Lore of Life is not the Lore I would choose, but that is an artistic preference, its druidic magic and I dont think it suits, besides I also have a Bretonnian army and so drown on lore of Life. This is a personaol preference only, the tactical reasons for choosing Lore of Life are very sound. I must say I like my High Magic archmages though and the ward save they generate does contribute to saving elves lives. however that's a side issue, Flames of the Phoenix and Vauls Unmaking are the real prizes.

My real answer can only be take a Lore of Life Archmage if you want, but leave room for a High Magic mage somewhere in your list.

The second point on Archmagi is to remember they have the same leadership as heroes, so an archmage makes a good general, possibly even a better one for aninfantry list as he can keep his Ld bubble near the infantry yet he is unlikely to get himself killed by being in combat.

kastellan wrote:
And maybe taking Caradryan instead of the noble?

I dont know, Caradryan costs too much IMHO, yes he starts with the 4+ ward save, but has a poor 5+ armour save so his total protection is not as good as it could be. The build with Temakadors gauntlets, armour and steed gives you better dice odds on savesd all told. That 4+ ward is a gimic on its own, its superior protection against big nasty monsters and cannon, but a good regular arour ave is what soaks up rank and file the S3/S4 massed attacks, and those are the big problems you will be facing. If you cannot defeat a truly nastyy opponent let the unit champion face him instead, your general must be heroic, not stupid.

Caradryan is at his best when he dies, you set him up to use either his death low ability or his ward save in a win/win challenge with just about anything. This is of limited value if he is general though. You could take him and an archmage general, but that is eating a lot of points; so I would leave him behind.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds as though your saying a mounted hero can join a unit of infantry? I didn't think this was allowed?

kastellan wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds as though your saying a mounted hero can join a unit of infantry? I didn't think this was allowed?

This is not allowed I think... although I may be wrong...infact I think you can, im sure I read something about model displacement.

He can join them but won't get look out sir.

Oh wow I did not know that. Thanks lol that means I will be included a barded elven steed lol.

No real point in doing that just means hes going to be hit by every cannon/morar untill you fail his ward save, look out sir is alot better.

Hm this is true.

That and look out sir is the only way for a character to have 3 saves – LoS+Armor+Ward/Regen.

I'm so beyond confused as to why anyone would argue that High Elves struggle versus an empire gun-line. Especially if the Elves know the gunline is coming.

His range is predominatnly 24 inches.

HE range is longer.

He has to move or fire

HE can move and shoot.

Gunlines don't handle battle lines that shift well.

HE'S are one of the fastest armies in the game.

If you're marching into the teeth of your opponents guns. You deserve to lose IMO.

I believe you have the wrong idea of what an imperial gunline is, it's not made of said 24" weapons you describe, its made of warmachines, and lots of 'em. Needless to say HE toughness is a great hinder there – large blasts of horror

if they struggled that badly throw in a lvl 2 mage with lore of fire and fireball his gunline.

Personally I think you are just not using your army correctly.
My friends empire army is a full gunline and the only thing that gives me hassle is his knights.

Its easy to throw in enough warrior priests and a lvl 4 wizard with rod of power in any good gunline list a lvl 2 wizard wont get anything through in my empire artillery spam list i get +3 dispel dice and then on avg 2 extra from rod of power.

I personally take crossbows as most high elves use seaguard now so in actual fact high elfs are the ones out of range and have to move to get in range.

I took a look at your list & I have to say, you're missing one of the elves best abilities - shooting. Curse of arrow attraction + bolt thrower spam can ruin any opponents day. Bunker your mages in a phoenix guard unit & use spearmen for minor blocking & silver helms for a counter charge. Fill the rest out with regular archers and enjoy.

Basically cast curse of arrow attraction on "what you want dead this turn" and let fly.

Take minimum core with sea guard and then teclis with lore of light (6 dice pha's protection every turn) and 2-3 units of pheonex guard. Then laugh as you easily walk up the field unharmed.

zeekill wrote:Take minimum core with sea guard and then teclis with lore of light (6 dice pha's protection every turn) and 2-3 units of pheonex guard. Then laugh as you easily walk up the field unharmed.

1500 point games here... And if we're playing cheap tactics here I'd be taking a LOT more then 4 warmachines in a game.

...Oh by the way I'm the one causing these problems, I own the Empire 'gunline' =P

Well dude hats off for the winning streak but gonna show him some pointers on your army or something?. He wants to give up his entire army just because he can't beat you with them.

I dont mean intentionally lose or anything. I would never suggest to do that to someone so volatile lol (who wants to give up an army after 5 games?)


EDIT:it double posted my message.