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Just a summary of my findings from playing around with my High Elves so far in 8th Edition.

Spear Elves in a 6x5 formation is nice. Re-rolls are really making these units from crap to viable. A bit on the pricey side, but it's still quite a dangerous prospect for most units to charge into. Steadfast and BSB rerolls can make these guys really stick around.
Also, I got to remember that I have the Warbanner in the damn unit.

Lothern Sea Guard - I'm of the mind that these guys are best suited for people with more defensive play-styles. While a lot of people seem to be talking up the Horde formation for the LSG, it's a lot of points to take advantage of volley fire and you can't move if you want to use that option. I think that if you're looking to play more aggressively, an equivalently sized unit of spears + a unit of archers may be tactically more flexible (and get some more bodies on the field). If you need to hold a flank, however, they're by no means a bad choice once they dig in. LSG inside of a building are just mean.

Magic - definitely nice to have the magic buffs. I think Lore of Life will be the standard Lore for my main mage/archmages henceforth. Book of Hoeth Archmages with Throne of Vines active is awesome-sauce. Ring of Fury uses up a PD now, but spending that 1-2 Dispel Dice on it is a much harder choice given the nastiness of the main Lores. I'm pretty happy with my lvl2 w/ Silver Wand, Ring of Fury so far.

BSB - NEVER leave home without this guy. Haven't tried out configurations with magic banners yet, though.

A block of 10 Dragon Princes, while pricey, hit hard. Even if they don't negate the rank bonus, they should be able to knock down moderate sized units if they hit from the flanks.

20 Swordmasters = tasty. I've changed my opinion that they should be taken in smaller sized units. They need the ablative wounds.

Eagles, while not nearly as good at redirecting/march-blocking as before, are fantastic at killing off warmachines.

RBTs - haven't gotten too much time with these yet as I've been opting for 2 Eagles. They seem to be pretty much as before, if a little more vulnerable to death.

Phoenix Guard - haven't seen them do too stellarly yet, but a lot of that is owing to me failing a crap-ton of 4+ Ward Saves. On paper, they should be awesome.


Gonna need to play some more games to get a good feel for everything else.

Things left to test out:
White Lions, Chariots (both flavors), Combat Princes, Dragon Rider Princes, Reavers (REALLY curious about these guys), Shadow Warriors (technically, I played with them....but kept forgetting I had them....need to try to remember them some more).

If anyone else has input/observations, I'd love to hear it.

I kinda agree with your observations, I came to some of the same conclusions but heres my take on it. Note: I'm not new to wargaming scene but I am new to fantasy.

I think LSG will be the best option for HE core. I think the ability to go both range and melee and with the fact that with a musician you can reform before a charge stand and shoot on charge reactions and still get four ranks of spears. 13pts is a bit steep but with 8th rules they are viable.

Magic for HE is huge this edition especially with Teclis who is in my opinion the best mage in the game. Magic definitely covers the faults in our t3 core.

BSB I agree with

10 dragon princes I dunno I guess they would work I'd have to try them out.

Swordmasters are a monster in CC but don't like to get hit. I think they are better this edition but eh I don't know if its enough to make me take them.

Eagles yea I came to the same conclusion I think they are great for busting war machines.

I think phoenix guard are the perfect anvil unit, ward save and if you take Life they are tougher.

I think lion chariots are gonna be beastly a little on the expensive side but I think they will be worth it.

White lions took a hit in my opinion I think they aren't as good this edition. They are a mix of swordmasters and phoenix guard but don't mesh well.

Reavers are still gonna be a good option I always liked fast cavalry and these guys are one of the best around.

Thanks for this thread Jin... i was doing a lot of high elf experimentation and then a good friend of mine decided he wanted to start them, so rather than have him not play fantasy, I punted. Now I'll still be paying attention to high elves, if only to help him get a good list together.

Mind if I add some particulars to this thread?

I have been prepping an empire army for 8th edition. And against a lot of people its actually been pretty ridiculously devastating. I think empire, due to their popularity and the huge boost their war machines got are going to be something everyone is going to need to prepare for.

And the good news is that so far, high elves have given me more problems than demons, ogre kingdoms, brets and warriors of chaos.

Its really about the shadow warriors and ellyrion reavers.

My empire lists rely pretty heavily on pistolier charge baiting and knights... both of those units serve to buy the warmachines as much time as possible to fire.

shadow warriors scout up to 12" of my pistoliers, thereby completely shutting down my vanguard move. I can't even reform to move around the 12" bubble because the reform will take me within 12" of them. After the shadow warriors scout, the reavers have a clear lane to vanguard forward, they end up getting hard cover from the reavers. And both units are in easy gun range right away for war machine harassment.

I end up having to dump an entire magic phase into the shadow warriors, so that something can shoot at the reavers. If I don't get first turn, then I end up losing tons of crossbowmen that I use to guard my war machines. Even worse if there is a forest in front of where they want to be. Now my knights get bogged down by shadow warriors after having to take a bunch of dangerous terrain tests.

So that was a long winded way of saying that in order to get shooting phase superiority, you need to put pressure on war machines. shadow warriors do that very well, and they can clear a nice path and support reavers really well up a flank.

One of the things i've been hearing, but haven't tried myself, is how well chariots support infantry. One of the intricacies of the charging rules is how units are required to share frontages when possible when they charge the same unit. That might cost you some swordmaster attacks if you are already engaged, or planning to engage with spearmen. The chariots just need a little sliver of base to maximize their attacks, and so they can take a corner while your spearmen take the middle. Spearmen providing ranks to disallow steadfast, and chariots providing active combat res to win fights has been a working combo for high and dark elves that i have heard about... I haven't done it myself, but it doesn't sound that hard to set up. Lion chariots are worth the points, but if you don't have the points, regular chariots do the same thing, but on a smaller scale. i would imagine they'd both be the 'decider' in a block versus block fight.

I'm not sure about the special choice infantry. Spearmen and archers are an inevitable for lists due to the core requirements, and it seems to me that a combination of spears and chariots will win through almost all of the fights you need to win. Obviously you have to factor in RBT and archer softening.

Its good to hear about eagles. Another really huge factor in surviving war machine spam, they are cheap and there is no limit to how many you can have. Thats great.

I agree on the dragon princes hitting hard. Elves might work a little better with a shootier, slightly slower main force, since they have such good supporting chariots and since their spear elves hold rather well. But I could see a unit of dragon princes, strictly for flamer of tzeentch hunting. Or just any other weakened unit coming at you that you wouldn't mind exploding. I'd love to hear about you trying a dragon princes and "dragon prince" all out rush army. I think that would be the best place for a big dragon prince unit. Use reavers to clear lanes for the dragons and cav, plenty of spear elves to break steadfast, and mass eagles for ASAP cannon hunting.

So, my unit ratings from mostly playing the other side of the table....

archmage- wow, hes good, book of hoeth is gross.
prince- don't know. Although Im pretty usre he can't beat the archmage in effectiveness

noble- with the bsb i like him alright, but in the lists i've been thinking of, its unlikely that it'll come up too much. Dying chariots will cause panic, as will losing a few spear elves here and there. So it's probably worth the investment.
mage- arch mages are orders of magnitude better than level 2s. but a level 2 in support of an arch mage could be great
dragon mage- Don't know. Maybe in a full on aggro dragon/prince rush.

spear elves- fully agree with Jin. Not amazing, but its the only 'ranked' unit the elves have. (Getting lots of ranks in special is cost prohibitive to the point of insanity.) And ranks are what is needed to break certain armies.
archers- of course. Fast cav, skirmishers, and hordes of lightly armored infantry are all quite good and very important to many armies game plans. As always, this is your answer.
sea guard- Jin hit it pretty well. If you are going to be shooting and magic-ing very well, and can draw your enemies in, they could have a great role to play. particularly if you used a ton of RBTs, because they make a great self contained guard for a battery of war machines. I agree with his assessment that one big spearmen unit to plop the archmage in, and then 2-3 supporting archer units is probably a slightly better choice, but only because you have more control over the ratio of spears to bows. You need something with a lot ranks. But you probably just need one of those. If you go LSG, you will end up with two big blocks, and a little less bow fire than I'd like. This kinda pushes you towards 3+ RBTs. Which many people won't mind.

tiranoc chariots- excellent affordable spearmen support, without a doubt.
lion chariots- Spectacular infantry support. Can really dig in and keep fighting unlike the tiranocs, but the cost is a bit eyebrow raising.
white lions/swordmasters/phoenix guard- I'm going to save some space here and also become really unpopular and say that i currently don't see a need for these guys. You are going to have a spear elf unit, its not going to be very good at sharing frontages with other infantry blocks. Chariots on the other hand are. And this army can take 11 tiranoc chariots if it wants. So its not like there is a need to fill out points. The only way i could see these working is if you spent your whole core on archers, and used a unit of phoenix guard to be your mage bunker and rank breaker. That might be a little too much archery for me. And of course, i could be dead wrong. i just think that you need less hitting power than they provide to win a combat in conjunction with spears. And its hard to maximize their attacks unless they are taking units on all by themsevles.... and then their T3 and weak armor will be really telling.
shadow warriors- excellent utility and harassment. Definitely at least 2 units in every army I'd make.
ellyrion reavers- Not quite as vital as shadow warriors, but the feigned flight rule keeps fast cavalry in their rightful place of the ultimate slower downer of an enemy advance. Their spears should mae war machine charging no problem should they slip past enemy units.

RBT- Overpriced now that they've lost a wound, but still irreplaceable for the high elves. With just bows, knights and monstrous infantry are a real problem for them.
Eagle- Seems like a good deal. 50 points each for as many flyers as you want. Great for war machine hunting but not much else. So you could probably take too many, but i think 3 would be great to have in your pocket as a base line number. The more succeptable your army is to war machines, the more I'd take. Probably two for every dragon or knight block.


Thats what i've got so far, I'd like to hear it if people are agreeing or disagreeing with me for the most part. And sorry to Jin if this is turning into a highjack.

With regard to LSG, I really think their efficacy will depend on peoples' personal play styles. They're definitely a viable choice for Core, even at 13 points, it's just that you just get more mileage out of the 13 points if you park them somewhere instead of pushing forward with them. If you play more aggressively, I would recommend Spears over LSG. The Pocket Watchtower + a unit of SeaGuard could be quite an interesting combo.

I personally eschew the named characters myself but all signs do point to him being one of the best casters in the game still. I wish that it weren't quite as necessary to have magic in the list, but it definitely helps mitigate the weaknesses of the High Elves (T3, low armor saves).

I think the thing with Swordmasters is to take them with the understanding that you'll likely lose half before they hit the enemy. Furthermore, you want to hit enemy units in the flanks to reduce hit backs (and avoid HW&S parry bonuses) unless you consider them to be weak enough to take head-on.

I'm personally still a bit uncertain of Reavers, but am interested in running them, though I don't think anybody ever considered them to be a good fast cav choice relative to Glade Riders, Dark Riders and Pistoliers.

Jin wrote:I wish that it weren't quite as necessary to have magic in the list, but it definitely helps mitigate the weaknesses of the High Elves (T3, low armor saves).

i don't think high elves 'have' to be magic heavy. But only if they build a list that is pure violence of action. Magic buffing, hexing, and shooting is powerful but its a slower game... weaken units with shooting, wait for that opening to slip the hex on the enemy or the important buff on yourself, then take advantage...

If you just built a list that didn't need to be buffed or for the enemy to be hexed, and you planned to hit HARD on turn 2, then enemy magic won't have time to develop. i don't know if this will work against everyone... but something like this would have my light wizard lord scratching his head.

prince on dragon
dragon mage

40 spear elves
40 spear elves

10x silver helms
5x dragon princes
6x shadow warriors
6x shadow warriors

great eagle
great eagle
great eagle
great eagle
great eagle

@Shep - totally intended as an open discussion/input thread! Please post up more of your findings!

The Shadow Warrior/Reaver Combo is interesting. I recall you'd mentioned in your Empire observations that they were causing you issues, but I was having difficulty visualizing what they could've been doing to cause you such headaches. I'm gonna have to test it out for myself .

I suspect the chariots will be pretty much as you've speculated, which is mainly to act as "combat breakers" to give a block infantry fight go your way (basically, as they worked in 7th for me). Just their ability to break whole units by themselves is now gone.

I've been seeing a lot of people use Silverhelms lately I can't understand why though for the amount of points your spending on them you might as well go Dragon princes which ignore flame attacks and have two attacks base.

@jin yea I use to hate taking named characters but if you think about it unless your named characters are terrible your only hurting yourself and not seeing other possible list builds.

Right now I'm having hard time deciding on what kind of list I want to make with my HE. I think magic will play a big hand in HE army building since were so good at it and can for the most part avoid the negative effects of miscasts. So lots of testing I want to do but it will be hard finding opponents as my community is mainly 40k and the next store is 2 hours away but I'll try to help this thread with my findings as well.

my issue with dragon princes is they are only str 5 on the charge, after that they are str 3... i perfer swordmasters or lion chariots which can continue to put out a few str 5 attacks.

I have used dragon princes a few times (w/ ellyrian standard) which helps but they never really blew my skirt up. if they don't blow through whatever they charge they get hosed. also with random charge distance if something gets lucky and charges them they are toast.

I have found units of 16 swordmasters to do really well. Especially when combined w/ lore of life. 16 is enough that there are usually some left after a round or 2 of shooting for me to Regrowth. You can also buff up a unit with +2 - +4 toughness.

swordmasters have been the all stars in my games so far... and teclis.

my problem w/ eagles and reavers is they just don't hit hard and they are not at all survivable. They are fast but i don't think that is enough. I will have to give reavers a shot to see what happens but i don't have high hopes. if they (eagles or reavers) dont have any warmachines to harrass they are going to struggle for relevancy, they can't break ranks any more and the damage they do is negligible.

Shep i think the list you posted is great against a shooting army. What would you plan to do against a combat focused army? not saying it wouldn't work i just don't know how.

Mostly what i imagine cavalry and monster based armies will do when faced with a combat focused block army is to charge them with something fast in the flanks, win the combat but not break them, and then have the spearelves charge and deny the enemy unit steadfast. Alternately they can receive charges with spearelves, lose the combat but not break, and then flank charge in their following turn.

I'm guessing you are talking about block based combat armies. i suppose you just try and line up your spearmen across from their highest model count units, and know that combination cavalry dragon charges will pull the ranks off of the smaller more elite units fast enough to not get bogged down.

If you are talking about another speedy hard hitting cav based army, then you just do your best to get the matchups you want. Dragons would be amazing here, just thrashing cavalry units and support units like chariots.

i certainly don't think that the best high elf lists will be like the one i posted. but i just think thats what you'd have to run for the most part if you were going to avoid magic. An army with weak magic defense in 8th edition better jump all over his opponent fast, or his units will just get dragged through the mud.

I have been running the following
archmage miminal gear
lvl 2 minimal gear
BSB great weapon, 2+save

2x25 seaguard full cmd
2x14 swordmasters
1x25 phenix guard, full cmd, banner of sorcery

2x bolt thrower
2x eagle

The seaguard do ok. Not sure if i like them as they make the army much more static. Though the advent of quick reform allows them to create and destroy ranks as needed to allow moving and shooting. However, 5+ to hit with str3 just isnt that good.

The swordmasters do prety well. They are able to clean through chaos warriors and other elite troops as well as put the beating on basic guys. Heavy cav tend to butcher them though as fewer go down.

The phenix guard just cut through things and with the spears for flank protection havent let me down yet.

The banner of sorcery is worth its weight in gold. I havent had a bad magic phase yet (well, aside from miscasting twice and killing my lvl2 in one turn that is). I have found the lvl4 needs a ward save as he attracts a lot of attention and ASF no longer saves you from any return attacks. T3 just doesnt cut it and that guy cannot wonder the backfield alone.

Currently I am thinking shadow and death as the two lores. The amount of assassination abilities is just awesome and shadow really makes those spearmen hit hard.

My issue with sword masters is all the damage theyve gained in 8th just doesnt add up to the punishment they take now due to stepup.. No matter how many wounds they do it simply isnt enough due to T3 with a 5+ save

Phoenix guard tho.. sure they have 1 less strength but they actually can survive which helps them WIN the combat.

I wouldn't quite agree with that observation about the Swordmasters. The fact is, their incredible WS of 6 means that almost all the units in Core, Special, and Rare will be hitting to on a 4+, which offers as much protection as Full Plate Armour and Shield.

Lellindil wrote:my issue with dragon princes is they are only str 5 on the charge, after that they are str 3... i perfer swordmasters or lion chariots which can continue to put out a few str 5 attacks.

I have used dragon princes a few times (w/ ellyrian standard) which helps but they never really blew my skirt up. if they don't blow through whatever they charge they get hosed. also with random charge distance if something gets lucky and charges them they are toast.

Those issues with the Dragon Princes have stayed the same since last edition (minus the random charge bit). I'm curious as to how you've been playing them so far and what you've been pitting them up against.

my problem w/ eagles and reavers is they just don't hit hard and they are not at all survivable. They are fast but i don't think that is enough. I will have to give reavers a shot to see what happens but i don't have high hopes. if they (eagles or reavers) dont have any warmachines to harrass they are going to struggle for relevancy, they can't break ranks any more and the damage they do is negligible.

Eagles are and have always been really easy to take down. At 50 points, though, if they can distract enemy warmachines for 1-2 turns, that means they've probably done their job. You are correct, though, that their value has dropped a bit against enemies with few warmachines, but they're still quite capable Mage killers in this edition. Also, neither eagles nor reavers were able to break ranks in 7th. I think Reavers can now (don't recall seeing anything in the fast cav parts about it, but I could be wrong).

@Guardian_Phoenix - that's not quite a valid argument (that WS6 is the equivalent of FPA+Shield), but the WS6 does make it so that most people hit them 25% less often, statistically speaking.

@cypher - I've found that about the lvl4 as well. He's died more often in combat (I stick him with my PG) than from anything else. I'm strongly considering giving him Forliath's Robe and some other offensive arcane item.

Swordmasters are there to kill small elite units such as 12 man chaos warriors or large crap units such as 25 clanrats. Anything in between such as25 dwarfs with great weapons will destroy the swordmasters not to mention the pain shooting causes them.

Guardian_Phoenix wrote:I wouldn't quite agree with that observation about the Swordmasters. The fact is, their incredible WS of 6 means that almost all the units in Core, Special, and Rare will be hitting to on a 4+, which offers as much protection as Full Plate Armour and Shield.

Except that WS of 6 doesnt do didly when i open up with a full unit of archers on your swordmasters...

They are a T3 with only a 5+ save...

They are disgusting in close combat ill give them that. But the two games i played against my friends high elves his 2 units of 12 never saw combat, they were shot to death in 2 turns.

I felt similarly about dragon princes last edition, however last edition if I hit a flank with them (which i could do pretty easily due to ellyrian banner) they would break ranks, and likely not be attacked back. thus winning combat and probably breaking the unit they hit.

now they just do wounds and dont break ranks unless they have a rank (which is expensive) and can be attacked back unless they kill the whole unit.

I used them against skaven and O&G. i really want to use them, i converted them all to be riding lions i just have not seen the results unless i am playing against Daemons and they have flamers of tzeentch.

reavers could definitly break ranks last edition as long as you had 3 left because they are unit strength 2.

eagles could struggle to kill mages unless you throw multiple of them at whatever unit the mage is in. they do not have ASF and they don't get to go first if they charge anymore so it comes down to initiative. If my memory is correct they are Init 4 so far from a guarantee to go first, they have no save and are T4. they would have to hit and wound with both their attacks and count on the mage failing both their saves (if they have one). Just not great odds.

i will probably end up taking 2 in case i do have to play a warmachine heavy army just to distract them for a turn or two, i just don't love them and if i could find something else to use instead i would. What i would give for Harpies.

Ah crap, I was confusing breaking ranks and getting a rank bonus. My bad.

I don't play elves, but I fought them frequently in 7th, and here a few thoughts I have:

Dragons. I just don't see these guys doing to much. They no longer negate ranks, and with steadfast, they will not be chewing up infantry blocks single handedly like they used to. Sure, they will pound infantry eventually, but probably not fast enough, assuming your opponent can handle Fear/Terror. They also really suffer vs Shooting. Woods no longer Auto-Block LOS, and templates (Read: Cannon Balls) now nail both mount and Rider. Add the super accuracy of war machines now, and the fact that Dwarf Cannons inflict d6 wounds standard, and they will tend to die Horribly.

Teclis
475 points

Mage – Lvl.2 + 1 power dice
150 points

10 Archers
110 points

10 Archers
110 points

25 Sea guard – full command
350 points

30 White Lions – full command, Sorcery banner
530 points

16 Swordmasters – full command
240 points

1995 points

Magic phase gets 2d6 + d3 + d3 + 1 power dice vs. d6 dispel dice for enemy. Teclis knows 7 spells of any lore plus he suffers nothing from 1st miscast every turn AND any spell he casts which has any double cannot be dispelled.
If you roll 4-4, you'd hit 12 power dice probably against 4 dispel dice. 1-1 you could get up to 9 power dice vs. 1 dispel dice.

I'd be able to guarantee 1-2 powerful spells go off without being dispelled each turn and not blow up. (Chances of getting a doubles with 4-6 dice is huge)

Spells can solve a lot of High Elves stat problems.

Imagine giving Swordmasters +4 toughness or a 4+ regeneration ward save from Lore of Life.

Or take lore of shadow. Give -d3 ballistic skill to enemy archers. Or use Okkam's to make your spearmen strength 8. Fire Pit of Shades ordinance template with a bunch of dice so it's undispellable and ignore miscast because how good Teclis is.

I might try swapping the lvl.2 with a BSB and a few swordmasters. We'll see.