Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am starting a High Elves army and plan on running teclis (probably with lore of life) but I'm not sure how to protect him.

Can anyone make a suggestion on a good bodyguard unit.

(I was thinking archers my self as it would keep him out of combat)

The best protection is lore of shadow with another wizard he can trade places with.

Pheonix guard are a great unit to start him in tho.

Archers drop like flies to any decent shooting, and if they do get in combat they just die.

Phoenix guard with Caradryan.
Gives teclis a 4+ ward to magic which is going to be one of the only things that can hurt him. aswell as the entire unit having a 1+ ward to magic anyway.

Caradryan is a Monster in combat, Stupidly cheap and if your opponents uber hero/lord kills him in a challenge, he pretty much kills himself >.<

my friend takes teclis with caradaryn in a horde of 50 phoenix guard with the D3 dice banner.
So far its been unbeatable. Especially with lore of life.

Phoenix guard make the best choice.

Pheonix guard. The 4++ ward save help when he is shot at by war machines, etc.

Roughly how many points is that unit? Seems like around a quarter of a 3000 point army pre-Teclis.

Its definately more than a quarter of the army total in a 3k match. That being said, a block of PG that big with Horde, 3 ranks of attacks, ASF, potential rerolls, a huge ward save, and steadfast....

You will tend to see big blocks of PG in many HE games. As others have said, PG are far and away the best unit to protect Teclis especially if you have Caradryan.

Lehnsherr wrote:Its definately more than a quarter of the army total in a 3k match. That being said, a block of PG that big with Horde, 3 ranks of attacks, ASF, potential rerolls, a huge ward save, and steadfast....

You will tend to see big blocks of PG in many HE games. As others have said, PG are far and away the best unit to protect Teclis especially if you have Caradryan.

Until someone casts a spell like dwellers below on it and you lose (literally) 800ish points in models (teclis passing a Str test is pretty low).

I'm not detracting from it, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. It does seem to have all the bases covered. The ward save makes Bolt Throwers largely irrelevant, and cannons not too bad. Mortars, Stone Throwers and Breath weapons will pound through the ward save much slower than normal troops. Any of the "no save of any kind allowed" spells would do some damage I suppose. Do the PG have a native ward save, or does it all come from Caradryan?

Its a native 4+, the only problem is spells like dweller below, purple sun, pit of shades, Final transmutation...

All of these have the potential to wipe out a very large chunk of the unit ( and against dwellers and transmutation they dont get a LoS).

I could honestly see dwellers below killing half the unit along with teclis (who would fail on a 3+) in one cast.

You want hordes to be cheap to prevent this kind of massacre.

50x PG, Caradryan and Teclis is 1480pts... Seriously this is one heck of an expensive unit. But amazing in combat. I might even use it myself.

Until someone casts a spell like dwellers below on it and you lose (literally) 800ish points in models (teclis passing a Str test is pretty low).

I got off dwellers below on it and killed 20 PG and teclis.

the remaining 30 wiped out my entire army but theres not much wood elves can do against it other armies might have more of a chance.

the horde of 50 with caradryan and teclis is Monsterous, but you can still just take a smaller block, Your paying almost 500points for teclis and he has probably the worst defensive statline in the game. It makes it worth it to pay alot to keep him alive.

But then dweller would kill teclis regardless of what unit he was in. And so would transmutation as it will auto kill on a 6.
But if you dont cast these with IF he can dispell them and on a LD Roll-off. he can make you forget the spell, so it wont kill them, He is LD 10, most wizards are 8 lords being 9. (elves anyway)

And IF'ing is bad :( i rolled multiple Wizard explosions so far, not good

With or without Teclis, The PG themselves are just dirty good :(

No doubt Shivan... Thats why you have to be very selective in what you dispel. I would also run a 2nd mage with High magic, making sure to cast Drain magic each turn. Wanna make sure that no one is really casting too much at you, while you can use the Lore of Life on Teclis to really buff yourself up.

All of that though is mostly irrelevant in that you are absolutely correct in regards to Purple Sun / Dwellers and other such spells. Your only hope is to dispel what you can using Teclis who is probably the best caster in the game right now. You might have to take other spells making sure you save what you can for the big one. Remember Teclis adds D3 to your PD/DD each turn.

If you are really lucky, when you burn the scroll of Hoeth on Lurkers or Purple sun hopefully the mage opposing you loses the spell. That would be the best situation.

With a scroll caddy lvl2 (only 1 scroll but other toys that can help) andf the number of Dispel dice High elves could obtain unless your opponent gets a double 6 you are going to be able to stop the big bad spell.

30 PG should be able to hold off a lot of stuff and Cadryman can challenga and kill anything even with his death throws if neccessary. Give them mindrazor and now they have strength 9 or is it 10?

Consider that 20 PG cost lest then a greater daemon and have a better ward save then most of them and 2-4 times more wounds you really got to wonder.

You could also do the poormans version of that unit with spearmen instead of PG, this is what i have found anyway

If you're worried about the "super" unit being target for all these new nasty spells.. take a battle standard bearer with the "Banner of the world dragon". . In case you don't remember what it does it makes the unit completely immune to all spell effects, friendly and hostile alike. Just think about it

I am now probably going to use 19 phoenix guard with Teclis. Is this a good idea?

Isn't there a banner in the high elf army that makes a unit totally immune to all spells?

Just give them that and put Teclis in there. No more Lore of death worries, dwellers below, etc. etc.

I'm almost certain that the banner will affect outgoing magic as well so teclis would be useless. I think it Nulls all magic...

No the banner doesn't, affect outgoing magic but it doesn't matter because pheonix guard are limited to a banner of up to 50 points and the World Dragon banner costs 60.

Aftersong wrote:No the banner doesn't, affect outgoing magic but it doesn't matter because pheonix guard are limited to a banner of up to 50 points and the World Dragon banner costs 60.

So you give it to the standard bearer and put him in the unit. Although that'd be sinking even more points into this super unit...

Teclis is amazing at dispelling anyway so i think that a BSB with the banner of the world dragon is a waste of points. 19x phoenix guard would probably do fine on their own.

Your safetst bet is to run a unit of 20 PG, with full command, Caradryan, and a Noble with GW. Run it 5 wide, and pop Teclis in the 2nd rank. It'll take one hell of a monster to force him up to the 1st rank with that.

Thanks for the advice I will have to rework my list to fit it in.