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I'm still on the HE side of the fence. So long as they play for the solid and don't engage the elite infantry blocks I believe the HE can prevail. Their mobile units (cav/Dragon) are better than the DE equivalent. If they use them to pick off VPs from the DE I think they can win.

As I said, if you can manage to remove assassins from the equation by whatever means possible, the scale will quickly tip in favor of the High Elves.

True, but if you remove HE dragons from the equation, it tips rather violently to the DE side. What's your point?

Only if you burn through the majority of your points using dragons. One of the best HE players I've encountered won't field a single one until 3000 pts. Dragons have a massive impact in the game, true.. But they are also very expensive. Assassins can clear whole ranks if given the chance and win combat against any unit easily, having a similar effect but for a ton less points. Check this out:
kitted up Star Dragon lord:
Costs: 650'ish
Advantages: High volume of mid-high strength attacks at high weapon skill.
Good opportunities for good armor and ward saves.
Mobility due to being a flyer.
Strength 4 flame template
T6 W7 mount with 3+ scaly skin save.
Terror
Can crunch chariots
Rider has ASF, potentially with the star lance.
Disadvantages: Large target makes it easier to hit via shooting.
Can't hide behind screening units.
Can only contribute in one area
Expensive
Can be one-hitted by the DE Venom Blade or LM Blade of Realities or similar weapons
Will go after DE Assassins in close combat
Occupies a Lord and a Hero slot

Dark Elf Assassin with various gifts of Khaine:
Cost: 170'ish
Advantage:
Can be taken as multiples (takes no slots and leaves room for potent magic phase)
Cheap, just about 1/4-1/3 the cost of a Star Dragon Lord
Can be given the Venom Blade to kill damned near ANYTHING
Access to Killing Blow
Having multiple assassins allow them to contribute in multiple places across the table.
Can hide within units, psychologically contribute across the whole table, as your opponent has no clue where he is.
High volume of up to strength 6 attacks
Initiative 10 and ASF means he will go before all but 1% of the units in WHFB
Disadvantages:
Once exposed, the assassin and it's unit will become your opponent's new favorite pincushion as EVERYTHING shoots at it.
Also, once exposed, assassins are vulnerable to impact hits, which could possibly kill them before they can contribute their attacks.
Unless they accompany an army with a powerful magic phase and they take the cloak of twilight, they are somewhat limited by M5.
If you can ever manage to hit them, they go squish due to little or no saves and being T3 W2
Compared to a Star Dragon, they do not have a breath weapon or cause Terror.

A Star Dragon != auto-win, in fact, it means he will almost ALWAYS be outnumbered, both in models and units. A more intelligent choice if an HE player were playing a DE player would be a few minimized units of spearmen with 0 command upgrades backed by chariots. Let the spearmen march to their doom to ferret out the assassins. Then once an assassin pops up and slaughters them, they lose HUGE in combat resolution, break and the Dark Elf unit pursues. That's when you smash them with a character on a chariot and challenge the unit. Either the assassin will accept, get smashed and die, the champion will accept, get smashed and die or they will decline and you'll send the assassin to the rear and rack up massive combat resolution through Overkill if you had a challenge or straight up kills from impact hits+mount attacks+hero attacks. At which point, it will be all but impossible for any non-stubborn/unbreakable unit to hold, due to Dark Elves' typically low static combat resolution. Once the assassins were gone, then it would be a matter of falling back on heroes and small units of Swordmasters exploiting ASF.

Very well said. I take it you hate my assassins that much to deticate so much time in dealing with them. I must say im flattered

nieto666 wrote:Very well said. I take it you hate my assassins that much to deticate so much time in dealing with them. I must say im flattered

Well, I will say they are game changers when playing you, but there are very few ways to get around them without taking massive casualties...

I don't think impact hits and challenges work together the way you think they do.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you can't do that with chariots. Impact hits go before anything else happens and are into the unit. You don't randomize on the assassin unless there's only like 5 models left in the unit.

Still, the Assassin is likely packing either +D3 Attacks or Rending Stars; either one will have Manbane running along side it.

You're HE, you've got T3, the Assassin will hit you with S4, which should bounce off your characters armor. Or even Dragon Prince armor.

That's probably your best bet for getting rid of those guys.

Its called killing blow with runes of Khaine. Works everytime. Also DE have the banner of murder which gives armour piercing on top of that. Im sorry but no one since Ive been playing DE have been able to counter my assassins, of course i dont play HE very often. There is no need to take a killy hero or lord choice when you can have two decked out assassins running amock and winning combats for u.

As said impact hits go then you accept/issue challenges
And if that guy doesnt have killing blow the high elf will kill him with dragon princes. Hell even if he does he will probably go down to dragon princes. The lord will also kill him handily (if you swing at the dragon you will do something but swinging at the lord does nothing).
The assassin cant have everything.

hrm, I could have sworn I read impact hits go only on the challenger when a chariot charges somewhere. I must be thinking something different. Either way, you're still adding combat resolution with wounds caused by it, if I'm not mistaken. And that's just as useful. Killing Blow is the main reason for taking the chariot as it boosts the hero's unit strength high enough he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. You still have to be lucky enough to survive the barrage of attacks the assassins can dish out.

killing blow works on chars mounted on chariots. Much the same as chars mounted on monsters. As long as the char is US 1 normally he is fair game.
Killing blow is pretty good.
But yes impact hits add to combat res.

themandudeperson wrote:hrm, I could have sworn I read impact hits go only on the challenger when a chariot charges somewhere. I must be thinking something different. Either way, you're still adding combat resolution with wounds caused by it, if I'm not mistaken. And that's just as useful. Killing Blow is the main reason for taking the chariot as it boosts the hero's unit strength high enough he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. You still have to be lucky enough to survive the barrage of attacks the assassins can dish out.

What? Sure the chariot can't have killing blow apply, but the character is still unit strength 1 and can. I assume the the assassin will attack the character in the challenge. If it was a normal chariot killing blow would not work, but then the chariot wouldn't be in a challenge either.

wouldn't the charcter+chariot count as one model for the purposes of resolving attacks? I only have Skaven and Lizardmen, so I'll concede that I'm not 100% on chariot rules as neither army has them in any true form.

You swing at them seperatly in combat as they have different stat lines.
Also in shooting but there you randomize, you cant target individual parts.

In that case regular chariots would be better against units containing the assassins than hero mounted chariots. At least they'd be able to contribute kills before getting picked off like any other unit in the HE army. The one upside for the HE is that the DE player can only have one venom blade. If you think you can spot and kill that one specific assassin, then a star dragon lord would whompa stomp the rest of the DE player's army... assuming he hasn't had a bolt thrower transform him into a shish kabob.
Looking at that situation, I think HE have easy access to way too much shooting and DE have way too many soft targets to even worry about close combat against them. Just shoot and magic the hell out of them and call it a day. Of course, DE have strong shooting as well, so that tactic may be a wash.

1. High Elves are more dependent on static resolution than their dark cousins. Hence ASF, to help gain a few more kills for resolution.

Your point doesn't make sense. Static resoltion does not include kills.

In general, the Dark Elves have a few answers to the high elves, notably the ASF banner and the Assassin, which can both completely switch a one-sided combat in favour of the Dark Elves.

In general I see ASF as a superior advantage to Hatred, as it doesn't have inherent disadvantages like compulsory pursuing. Hatred can be taken advantage of, so things like reavers, eagles and shadow warriors can pull dark elf units out of position. At the same time, however, the dark elves have such good anti-support missile fire & magic that this is harder to pull off than it has ever been.

The Hydra is just too good for its points, it's as simple as that. The High Elves, like every other army, will have trouble dealing with it.