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I picked up the High Elf army book last night, and going through I
found that I really liked the models and a lot of the various units,
but didn't really walk away with any kind of theme that I might
enjoy collecting.

Part of it is that I don't quite know what's effective and what's usually
included for flavor. I like to mix things up if only to preserve my
painting sanity. There are SO many special choices that I'm not
sure where to begin. I imagine you mostly theme your High Elf
army based on the Special choices you choose. I'm not so much
interested in the baddest army I can field (like the Swordmaster
melee killy killy posted by Angron), but an effective balanced force
that is both fun to collect and play.

Any ideas what are good builds for the army are?

I find a sea guad themed army is popular, and cheep. you just have two units of seaguard and a few bolt throwers. add in some sword masters and silverhelms with a mage and that is a nice army. you can also go with a caledorian army. get a Lord on a dragon, a Dragon mage, and Dragon princes. Get a unit of Archers and a unit of spearmen to fill the core, and there you go. Also, I always thought of making a Chracian Army. White Lions, White Lions and...Wait for it.... WHITE LIONS. You can put Korhil in with a moage and heack, you can also use the Lion Chariot. I think I'm going to do that.

Yeah, while I like the White Lions I don't think I'd be too
interested in an entire army of White Lions. Sea Guard is
intriguing, as is the Caledorian one.

Are there other types?

there are alot of themes you could do with the high elves. the biggest problem they have is that they only have spearmen, archers and sea guard as core. But thrir background says that all kingdoms in ulthuan train spearmen and arches, so that isn't hard to work into a theme. You could do a Nagatythe theme using Alith Anar as your general and a few units of spearmen as core, then fill the rest out with shadow warriors, and some silver helms for a hard hitting unit. i don't think this would be too effective, but it would be cool to collect and fun to play. Also you could run a magic heavy army from saphery. use archers, two units of sword masters, spearmen, and all mages for your heros. put the banner of sorcery with your sword masters to give you more casting dice and give your Arch mage the book of hoeth, great magic item and fits thematically.

What I've noticed about the current high elves:
1) Take at least 1 unit of dragon princes as they are fast and relatively hitty knights which don't cost too much for what they can do. As silver helms went special, there's very little reason to wield them altough they are a little less expensive than the princes.
2) A mix of Repeater Bolt throwers and eagles are nice . If you think of 2k lists, a pair of both would be a good starting point. It's good to have some heavy duty shooting and the eagles make excellent throaway units or act as diverters/warmachine hunters.
3) For the compulsory core, the seaguard are unfortunately expensive and high elf lists are particulary tight on points. You'll do fine to use a mix of spears and archers for starters I think. Archers work best at minimun size units and they sure aren't no glade guard. It's usually wise to take at least 15 spears (with optional command) so they'll use their available 3-ranks attacks.
4) One big choice of the army building will be what characters to take. The most common stuff I've seen is either Prince on a star dragon and couple mages to support, or archmage and mix of mages and nobles as lower heroes. The former leads to more aggressive list and the latter is naturally a more defensive sort.

For variety:
1: Lord on dragon (why the hell not, and allows you to start a 2000 point army quicker as you need to buy fewer models. You can always get rid of him later when
2: BSB hero. Just do it
3: 1-2 mages
4: 1-2 units archers- to allow shooting.
5: BIG unit of spears. Go with 24, 6 wide. Anyone dumb enough to charge you faces 19 attacks.
6: 2 eagles Do it, best redirecter in the army
7: 2 repeater bolt throwers- super reliable.
8: 5 Dragon princes- Great cav.
9: Lion chariot- brutal.
10: White lion unit- primarly to run through forests.

That should easily get you over 2000 points for a start off of about 70 models.

That looks like a good mix, WG. For you 70 models is a
single week, no?

I'm going to start with a 1k list first, I think, and then
expand to 2k later on. So with that in mind (a mix of
models I'm interested in painting/fielding)

1. 10 Archers
2. 15 Spearmen with full command
3. Noble with BSB
4. Level 2 Mage with 50 pts of magic whatever
5. 5 Dragon Princes with Banner of Ellyrion
6. Swordmasters

About 40 models should get me through Summer. Then
next step is Dragon of some kind

Not sure if i would take a bsb for 100k, especially with only one unit that cares about it

So start out with the mage hero and add a few more troops hre

Don't you already play Wood Elves Malfred? You know what they say about a guy with two Elf armies...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias wrote:Don't you already play Wood Elves Malfred? You know what they say about a guy with two Elf armies...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I don't really like the other armies for WHFB, though.

They already say it about guys who play one Elf army, so might as well go for broke.

In fact, I might just go for a trifecta...

malfred wrote:That looks like a good mix, WG. For you 70 models is a
single week, no?

I'm going to start with a 1k list first, I think, and then
expand to 2k later on. So with that in mind (a mix of
models I'm interested in painting/fielding)

1. 10 Archers
2. 15 Spearmen with full command
3. Noble with BSB
4. Level 2 Mage with 50 pts of magic whatever
5. 5 Dragon Princes with Banner of Ellyrion
6. Swordmasters

About 40 models should get me through Summer. Then
next step is Dragon of some kind

I would pass on the sword masters for Phoenix Guard. The 4+ ward means they will actually live therough some shooting and can srvive in combat longer.

From what I have seen the new High Elves are almost the same as the old, the aklways hit first rule is nice but not as powerful as you might think so the players tend to magic/shoot armies then pick a time to engage. I have seen some people try to play them like a Chaos Mortal list but they get pasted every time.

yea, it's almost the same as before, but now we don't have to worry about being charged as we will strike first anyways. also I like the upgrade of the sword masers getting 2 attacks each. that makes them really sweet.

I considered High Elves for a minute, but the people at my FLGS told me they (and Dark Elves) were bottom tier unless you used special characters. Sounds like you all don't agree with that?

I guess they're also a bit more expensive to collect...

Ozymandias wrote:Don't you already play Wood Elves Malfred? You know what they say about a guy with two Elf armies...

What do they say? Or am I just outside an inside joke?

Mnemoch wrote:I considered High Elves for a minute, but the people at my FLGS told me they (and Dark Elves) were bottom tier unless you used special characters. Sounds like you all don't agree with that?

I guess they're also a bit more expensive to collect...

Ozymandias wrote:Don't you already play Wood Elves Malfred? You know what they say about a guy with two Elf armies...

What do they say? Or am I just outside an inside joke?

Ignorance is bliss...

High elves are definitely top tier now.

They are hugely popular on the WHFB tourney scene here in Oz and you can always be guaranteed a long grind.

I find they tend to run out of 'puff' in 5th and 6th turns as you pick off their low numbers of models, they just can't do as well with half sized units....

OT comment removed.

So here's a question.

Is the High Elves Army Box a good deal?

The batallion... yes.

You still need 2 core choices at 2000 points.
The repeater bolt thrower is a 'must have'.

The silver helms have been eclipsed somewhat by other selections. Its not that they are worse in the new book, its that other stuff is so much better.

It wasn't the battalion box. I believe it was the full
army box I saw (the one's that cost somewhere around
200?)