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Having played my first few games of WHFB, I've been thinking about how to counter dwarven siege engines as High Elves. Eagles don't cut it, they just become fodder. Small units of cavalry won't do much either, except get shot. Tips?

Why don't Great Eagles cut it? They can survive fairly well with some LoS blocking terrain and they're certainly better than Fast Cav, which is harder to hide and usually more expensive.

Have you tried Shadow Warriors? Skirmishing makes all the warmachines except an Organ Gun do almost nothing, as well as Thunderers. Unless they're rocking an Anvil, you'll probably live with a unit of 10 and Elven Leadership. They aren't amazing in combat but re-rolling to hit against a T4 6+ save will win eventually, worst case you're stopping them from shooting in the mean time.

The Prince of Excess wrote:Why don't Great Eagles cut it? They can survive fairly well with some LoS blocking terrain and they're certainly better than Fast Cav, which is harder to hide and usually more expensive.

Have you tried Shadow Warriors? Skirmishing makes all the warmachines except an Organ Gun do almost nothing, as well as Thunderers. Unless they're rocking an Anvil, you'll probably live with a unit of 10 and Elven Leadership. They aren't amazing in combat but re-rolling to hit against a T4 6+ save will win eventually, worst case you're stopping them from shooting in the mean time.

From your post I gather that we're not playing with enough LoS blocking terrain, because I usually don't have enough places to hide an eagle in, and eagles in the open vs. anything is pointless.

Possibly, I think many stores old Fantasy terrain isn't suited to 8th. You need more 40k style terrain, larger buildings and larger structures for the various impassable terrain. Otherwise, an Eagle would die almost immediately, yes.

Teclis with Pha's Protection rolling 6 dice at it every turn with a few units of Pheonex guard and Swordmasters around should run clean through

zeekill wrote:Teclis with Pha's Protection rolling 6 dice at it every turn with a few units of Pheonex guard and Swordmasters around should run clean through

This is a good tactic, if you dont know about Pha's Protection it is a Light spell that buffs all friendly units within 12" so that its -1 to hit against (shooting and melee) and shooters that do not use BS need to roll a 4+ or cant shoot. Pretty close to the Skaven Storm Banner effect if you have heard of that. I gotta admit I dont much like great eagles either, just not my style.

Sorry if this is threadjacking, but my high elf playing friend is having a hard time surviving first turn dwarven artillery barages: before he gets a chance to cast defensive magic or hunt the things down they have wiped out his major combat units (usually flame cannons or grudge throwers doing the damage). Do you have any tips for maybe list composition against dwarves?

No but i have a question:
How are the flame cannons in range turn 1?

If the high elves deploy near the line the flame cannon can deploy directly across, place the template at the max 12" and hope for a lucky 8-10 on the bounce to place the wide end of the template on a unit. Also, some of the new scenarios allow units to deploy closer than the standard 24".

Yea but the Dwarf FAQ says flame cannons use the fire thrower rules in the BRB rather than the ones in the army book, thus making you'r method illegal.

Ah, I just glazed over the FAQ and assumed that that part just took out the long paragraph about moving the flame template (I assumed that the 12" range was also present somewhere else, since they mention that some fire throwers have different ranges in the BRB). My mistake then, my friend will be relieved to hear and I will be rewriting some lists.

My question still stands though: is there anything that can be done against a first turn barrage by a template heavy army (ie. 3 mortars or 3 grudge throwers etc.)?

grobbicull wrote:My question still stands though: is there anything that can be done against a first turn barrage by a template heavy army (ie. 3 mortars or 3 grudge throwers etc.)?

Hope and luck I'd say. Ironcurse Icon helps a bit, and it's a 5pts item my armies never leave out.

Also it might be a good idea to have a lot of targets for the enemy to shoot at, well that also means scattering shots will be more likely to hit something.
Just having hardcore infantry could also do the trick (good saves and T).

Or an artillery hill of your own for a counter fire threat.

Also just having some fast cav/flying/scouts/otherwise nasty fast units to keep the pressure on the enemy could help in later turns... there's not really a lot you can do on the first turn.

A bit OTT, but saw a really devastating game today, empire gunline vs. woody wood elves. I think the WE player gave up on turn 4 with something like his lvl4 wizard still on the table. Artillery seems really nasty this ed.