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I've just gotten back into Fantasy after a good 6 years of exclusive 40k, and I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some good High Elves tactics against Empire. Lately I seem to get whomped no matter what I throw at my most common opponent.

What lists are you respectively using?

OR:

Is he using 1 STANK or 2?

x4 bolt throwers make a hell of a mess of a steam tank.

If you are having problems with Steam Tanks, then Repeater Bolt Throwers and Teclis (with Lore of Metal for IF Spirit of the Forge) will be your best counters to them.

Repeater Bolt Throwers are also pretty good against Empire Knights. His Knights will also have a problem against Swordmasters or White Lions, due to ASF and high enough Strength to reduce his Armour Saves.

If he is fielding a gunline army, then you are going to want to bring Great Eagles for Warmachine hunting. Teclis casting The Howler Wind (Lore of Life) will also cause this army problems.

A Prince on a Star Dragon is almost always a bad choice against Empire. Not only does the Empire have easy access to Great Cannons (which will bring the Star Dragon down when in LoS), they also have a Magic Item called Van Horstmann's Speculum, which will cause the Prince problems.

I have found howler wind to be a complete waste usually, as they just dispel it in their magic phase, even if they have a caddy (3 dice) it is really worth it. It does sometimes steal pd from them which is nice, but i just have not had much success with it. If you do go with life i would possibly suggest Rainlord to drastically slow their shooting, as well as Master of Stone, on a cannon you have a chance to kill some of the crew or hurt the cannon at s6. 3 castings should kill all the crew on average, 4 to kill the machine. Or you can target handgunners and the like, killing 3 a cast and causing panic on units with less than 12 models. If you do that then maybe try 4 dice at each of them and 2 dice howling wind.

Metal usually works well against them with teclis, you have a lot of options, SotF stanks and Knights, 2d6 things to cause panic. Or cause problems to the popemobile and their warmachines.

Death can be fun, doom and darkness is great, when combined with walking death on a unit of phoenix guard its even better. Drain life if knights are too close. Steal soul to gain back wounds.

Those would be my Teclis magic suggestions, and i guess it works with just any magic as well (teclis is better though )

He actually uses no steam tanks. I don't take Teclis usually because we usually do 1500 point battles. My army currently consists of:

-Dragon Mage
-Mage on foot
-one unit of archers
-2 units of spearmen
-10 phoenix guard
-one unit of silver helms
-5 dragon princes
-2 repeater bolt throwers

I switch out units to fit my point values

Do you know what he's bringing?

My advice is to remember that Empire armies generally have large blocks of troops/knights backed by usually Cannons and Mortars.

I suggest adding more Pheonix Guard, as not only will their 4+ Ward be handy, they also cause fear.

How big are the Spear units? If they are small (<15), it's best to combine them into a single big unit (21 is a good number).

As mentioned about Dragons - against Empire with Cannons, it becomes a very vulnerable and killable target. While I find that the DM usually dishes out a lot of pain at low points games, you have to play them extra carefully when facing off against cannons.

I would drop the Silver Helms in favor of more PG if you could.

Silver Helms are basically never a good choice to field. Dragon Princes just outclass them in the heavy Cavalry role.

The Dragon Mage is usually a decent choice in smaller games, but the Empire have Great Cannons, which are very good against Dragons.

High Elves usually only take the minimum amount of Core choices (which is 1 in a 1500 points game). A unit of Archers (10 of them) is probably the best option as it costs the least amount of points to be useful. If you opt for a Spearmen unit, then the unit should be bigger, as Spearmen rely on SCR to win combats. Both units of 20 (5x4) and 21 (7x3) are decent.

If you are going to take two Mages in a small game, then I would suggest including the Banner of Sorcery as well. This will give you a pretty powerful Magic Phase. Especially when you give one of the Mages The Seerstaff of Saphery, and the other the Ring of Fury.

Phoenix Guard can be a decent protection unit for your Mages, while Dragon Princes and Swordmasters can fight your combats.