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 about to start high elves and need to know how best to use them.

Any advice on good Tactics, Units or Combinations?

Some general High Elf observations:

-Core choices aren't very good for their points. The minimum amount of points spent on Core choices is often also considered the maximum amount.

-High Elf cavalry are really only good on the charge, which is a bad thing in 8th edition. You should probably avoid the cavalry units.

-All three elite infantry units (Phoenix Guard, Swordmasters and White Lions) are decent combat units.

-Bolt throwers aren't what they were in 7th edition. I wouldn't advise taking them.

-Great Eagles are useful Warmachine hunters. Most High Elf players bring at least one per 1000 points.

-Teclis is a monster. If you want your army to be as competitive as possible, you will want to take Teclis. For a less competitive list, an Archmage is excellent as well.

There is a High Elf specific Warhammer Fantasy forum: www.ulthuan.net.

Ok first thing to talk about is how the High Elves play generally and the basics which you'll probably already know, but it's easier this way. High Elves are an elite army, but consequently High Elf armies are all quite small, expensive units and massively expensive characters means you'll only have a half dozen or so units on the field and this is one of the big disadvantages of the HEs. So although a High Elf unit will be well placed to beat an equivalent unit from another race, they'll have to deal with many more enemy units, because of this the HEs are best when they can win a combat quickly (ideally in the first round) and so firstly, stop from being overwhelmed by numbers. Secondly, HEs are much better attacking than being attacked, universal low toughness, not amazing leadership, the step up rule and the way the to hit table works means that they suffer in this regard; as a result of this HEs tend to lose drawn out combats. The key then is to get enemies to flee quickly, and perhaps even run them down in the process, for this the HEs have a lot of good aspects, namely they are of course better than equivalent units in other races, plus they have good shooting and magic to support them and fast, effective mobile units (from Shadow Warriors through all our cavalry options and up to Great Eagles).

So it should be pretty straightforward how we're good at magic and shooting, universally high ballistic skill, multi-functional repeater bolt throwers and our Curse of Arrow Attraction spell really help for shooting. Whereas magic wise we have some great magic items (the Banner of Sorcery which can be given to most special units adds +D3 power dice and is very useful), our special character Teclis makes a HE army practically untouchable magic wise and our High Magic isn't bad either; our biggest advantage though is in counter magic thanks to the innate +1 to dispell rolls, the Drain Magic spell and various items that all allow even relatively low level mages to hold their own against much higher level casters when trying to dispell.

Anyway, if we forget about magic and shooting for the moment and go back to HEs needing to win combats. Due to the steadfast rule, one of the best ways to fight I find is with solid infantry blocks supported by our more mobile units. Thanks to the steadfast rule you need a unit with enough ranks to stop the enemy from gaining steadfast and (most likely) staying in combat with you and slowly wearing your unit down, however you won't always be in a situation to win quickly or at all and that's where a well timed flank charge can help you out. Even without causing disruption, the +1/+2 for rear and flank charges and the +1 for a charge can be very useful, particularly when High Elf cavalry all have lances or spears to maximise their charge damage and are more hardy so that they stand less risk of suffering bothersome and combat affecting wounds themselves (cavalry have high armour, whilst chariots and monsters have decent toughness and decent saves).

For more specific stuff, Swordmasters, White Lions and Phoenix Guard are all great choices: SMs are great against hordes thanks to their mass of attacks, usually needing just a 3+ and a 2+ to kill your typical horde model, White Lions are good against tougher enemies, specifically monsters, monstrous infantry etc and their Lion Cloak is great against ranged fire, which low toughness elves suffer for usually and Phoenix Guard are a great defensive unit (often used as bodyguards for mages) thanks to fear, the ward save and high leadership they are perhaps the best unit for standing through a protracted combat. Great Eagles are also very good, great against war machines, fast cavalry or even small ranged units and are very cheap to boot. White Lion chariots are very effective when used well, with not only strength 5 impact hits but the crew and Lions usually guaranteed to make 3-4 kills by themselves. Thanks to always strikes first our characters and even some champions can usually kill an enemy character before they can strike back so take advantage of this with challenges. The lore of life is a great choice for High Elf players, with low wound characters, few models and low toughness all addressed with lore of life spells as well as good damage spells designed for horde control or to help out Elf units engaged against more than one unit. Ranged attacks can be very devastating to High Elves and the lore of life helps here, either outshoot an enemy or keep your units in the relative safety of CC. Lastly, our characters are all very good, special characters especially, even some unit champions can beat full heroes of other races and our magic items are pretty good as well; Talisman of Loec and the Lore of Life Regrowth spell are a great combination for unit champions. That's all I can think of for now, I have rambled enough, hope it helps!

HE shooting is nothing special.
All the archers are only 1-shot S3 with no armor-piercing. (Dark Elf archers get 2 shots with -1 armor save, and making enemies 3+ instead of 2+ is twice as many of them failing, and DE aren't even famed as a gunline. Empire or Dwarfs make HE shooting look garbage.)
They're very expensive and very fragile.
They can be good support, but magic is where HE do damage, not archery. I usually take some just because core is Required. If it wasn't I'd take zero.

Bolt throwers are expensive and kinda mediocre, since they only have 2 wounds for 100 points and they don't do much damage. A cannon costs around the same for S10 D6 wounds compared to our S6 D3 wounds. They actually pose some kinda threat to things far away unlike our troop archers, but they compete with points that could be spent on wizards/phoenix guard/swordmasters/white lions, etc.

2 Bolt throwers costs more than 13 WL/SM/PG. I'd consider what threat they're bought for and which of those 4 squads is more effective at it.

I've fired like 40 arrows and killed like 1 infantry trooper. Whereas I've charged in with one combat squad and killed like 14 T4 saurus warriors instantly. Archery has no chance at all of killing the actual characters standing in the squads. You'll fire volley after volley to kill a small number of fodder. Whereas with death magic I've had Teclis wave his hand in a single phase, deal 2 wounds to skink priest (killed) and 4 wounds to his ancient stegadon mount. Like 300 points neutralized instantly.

There aren't really any magic spells that'll make archery powerful the way they make combat powerful. Arrow attraction might make a lot of arrows hit, but they're S3 and no armor reduction = crap. Plus you can only cast that on one enemy unit per turn and so you'd need every archer able to shoot at it or get no buff. A fire mage using 2d6 or 3d6 fireball would do so much more damage because auto-hits and S4 with -1 armor save.

Teclis using Life/Death/Shadow/Metal/Fire can be pretty amazing and make up for mediocre core troops.
Same thing with HE special troops. No other army gets entire units of S6 great weapons that strike before anyone else does.

I don't agree that HEs aren't good at shooting, DEs are on par with HEs anyway because the two armies are so similar, but even so the DE repeaters are less accurate (when firing twice), lower range and move or fire; all of which for the same strength as HE longbows (which also get volleyfire). It's hard to compare the two of them in this manner, but I certainly don't think the DEs are so good that they can label the HEs as notably worse. The same problems apply to other races, normal crossbows and handguns are good damage, but because of how the to hit rolls work with shooting they wound just as easily as the longbows hit and it's more or less the same difference, you just trade certain advantages for others; besides which the modifiers on to hit rolls for range, movement etc should be taken into account.

That said shooting is still a support thing and you don't use it normally to wipe out units, as such you don't need as many points spent on shooting for it to have the desired effect. I almost only ever use my ranged attacks to whittle down large units, almost universally these are the sort where the low strength of the longbow isn't much of an issue and they have a decent chance to break from a panic test. This also helps a lot more in 8th edition because you can whittle them down to not being counted as a horde, lose their steadfast against generally smaller HE units or at least just to eliminate a rank bonus. In 8th whilst people will like the idea of very large units which can keep these new rules after taking casualties, there's a problem as the larger they get they become a much juicier target for the spells which hit every model in the unit, so people probably won't have too many spare models in their units after getting them qualified for these various rules. Shooting is a good way of doing something about these large but not too large units, and leaves your mages free to cast other stuff for example.

Another thing is you need to concentrate your shooting, you won't kill as many models with shooting as with close combat, this is true of any race, as such Curse of Arrow attraction is a great boon, as whilst it only affects one unit, you should be firing at only one anyway; the HE long range will help all your shooting elements be able to fire on whatever you cast it on as well. Repeater bolt throwers are great in combination with it, and the real power of RBTs is in their volley fire, not the single shot (if I ever use it, which is infrequently, it's on heavily armoured models, 1+ or 2+ saves) and the curse is almost a must when using single shot.

So to summarise, you don't need as much points spent on shooting for it to do what it's supposed to, which can be of great use if you're mainly taking a mage for dispelling (something HEs are very good at of course). It's great against the sort of units HEs struggle with, mainly massed enemies and enemy ranged units (which are painful against our low toughness if we get too close) and which are almost always lightly armoured and low toughness if they're any good. Also we have good ranged magic weapons, the Reaver Bow especially I love and it can be shot at high toughness units (not what you should be shooting at usually) effectively thanks to our characters' high BS.

Thanks for the advice I have tryed to take your advice into account to write an army list. What do you think?

Teclis

Noble, BSB, Armor of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, Great Weapon: 168pts

Mage, Lv2, Silver Wand, Talisman of Protection, Skiensilver: 155pts

Mage, Lv1, Seerstaff of Spahery: 130pts

32x Spearmen, Full Command: 313pts

16x Archers, Full Command: 201pts (Teclis Here)

14x Phoenix Guard, Gem of Courage, Full Command: 250pts (BSB Here)

15x Sword Masters, Full Command: 255pts

Great Eagle

1997pts

The Lv2 Mage will use high magic and the Lv1 will use the Lore of Life.
High magic can be used to protect my units, especially the archers and Teclis, and Lore of Life can be used for regeneratinig units, if I choose regrowth, or killing enemy units, if I choose dwellers below.

The Spearmen will advance in the center flanked by the Phoenix Guard and the Sword Masters. This would prevent Teclis, Who would be behind with the archers from getting attacked.
The Great Eagle will go warmachine hunting.

Do you think this will work or do I need to try something else?
Opinions and Suggestions please.

I'd put the BSB in the spears as he has a decent save and put Telics in the phoenix guard because he has no save at all.

With so much magic you'll want to drop 50pts for a banner of sorcery in the phoenix guard. Telics just eats power dices.

What lore is Telics taking BTW?

TheBloodGod wrote:HE shooting is nothing special.
All the archers are only 1-shot S3 with no armor-piercing. (Dark Elf archers get 2 shots with -1 armor save, and making enemies 3+ instead of 2+ is twice as many of them failing, and DE aren't even famed as a gunline. Empire or Dwarfs make HE shooting look garbage.)
They're very expensive and very fragile.
They can be good support, but magic is where HE do damage, not archery. I usually take some just because core is Required. If it wasn't I'd take zero.

Bolt throwers are expensive and kinda mediocre, since they only have 2 wounds for 100 points and they don't do much damage. A cannon costs around the same for S10 D6 wounds compared to our S6 D3 wounds. They actually pose some kinda threat to things far away unlike our troop archers, but they compete with points that could be spent on wizards/phoenix guard/swordmasters/white lions, etc.

2 Bolt throwers costs more than 13 WL/SM/PG. I'd consider what threat they're bought for and which of those 4 squads is more effective at it.

I've fired like 40 arrows and killed like 1 infantry trooper. Whereas I've charged in with one combat squad and killed like 14 T4 saurus warriors instantly. Archery has no chance at all of killing the actual characters standing in the squads. You'll fire volley after volley to kill a small number of fodder. Whereas with death magic I've had Teclis wave his hand in a single phase, deal 2 wounds to skink priest (killed) and 4 wounds to his ancient stegadon mount. Like 300 points neutralized instantly.

There aren't really any magic spells that'll make archery powerful the way they make combat powerful. Arrow attraction might make a lot of arrows hit, but they're S3 and no armor reduction = crap. Plus you can only cast that on one enemy unit per turn and so you'd need every archer able to shoot at it or get no buff. A fire mage using 2d6 or 3d6 fireball would do so much more damage because auto-hits and S4 with -1 armor save.

Teclis using Life/Death/Shadow/Metal/Fire can be pretty amazing and make up for mediocre core troops.
Same thing with HE special troops. No other army gets entire units of S6 great weapons that strike before anyone else does.

You can't just say magic is unequivacably better then shooting though, because it isn't. It has the option of being more devestating, but it also has the ability of leaving you up the creek without a paddle.

HE shooting is not the greatest, but it is not bad. Everyone who uses those bows has str 3. The differance is that ours are BS 4 and have a 30" range. Or you can use the 24" range ones that can quickly be swapped for a very pointy block of infantry that fights 4 ranks deep.

It has it's roll to play, as does magic. But you cannot rely solely on either of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RaptorsTallon wrote:Thanks for the advice I have tryed to take your advice into account to write an army list. What do you think?

Teclis: 475pts

Noble, BSB, Armor of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, Great Weapon: 168pts

Mage, Lv2, Silver Wand, Talisman of Protection, Skiensilver: 155pts

Mage, Lv1, Seerstaff of Spahery: 130pts

32x Spearmen, Full Command: 313pts

16x Archers, Full Command: 201pts (Teclis Here)

14x Phoenix Guard, Gem of Courage, Full Command: 250pts (BSB Here)

15x Sword Masters, Full Command: 255pts

Great Eagle: 50pts

1997pts

The Lv2 Mage will use high magic and the Lv1 will use the Lore of Life.
High magic can be used to protect my units, especially the archers and Teclis, and Lore of Life can be used for regeneratinig units, if I choose regrowth, or killing enemy units, if I choose dwellers below.

The Spearmen will advance in the center flanked by the Phoenix Guard and the Sword Masters. This would prevent Teclis, Who would be behind with the archers from getting attacked.
The Great Eagle will go warmachine hunting.

Do you think this will work or do I need to try something else?
Opinions and Suggestions please.

Two things. Having lower level mages with Teclis your most likely going to find them not doing much at all. Teclis will pretty much use up all the power dice in his attempt to spam as many IF's as possible.

Secondly, if you are just starting out, I would advise not using Teclis just yet. The HE army is still capable without the ace in our sleeve, and I don't think you'd be doing yourself justice with learning how the army play's by relying on that crutch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

wizard12 wrote:I'd put the BSB in the spears as he has a decent save and put Telics in the phoenix guard because he has no save at all.

With so much magic you'll want to drop 50pts for a banner of sorcery in the phoenix guard. Telics just eats power dices.

What lore is Telics taking BTW?

Teclis is capable of choosing his lore before each battle, so it's best to just leave it situational.

I have thought about not running Teclis but from talking to other people he sounds like the best way to go so what about this?

Teclis

Noble, BSB, Armor of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, Great Weapon: 168pts

Mage, Lv2, Silver Wand, Talisman of Protection, Skiensilver: 155pts

34x Sea Guard, Shields, Full Command: 467pts (BSB Here)

15x Archers, Full Command: 190pts (Lv2 Mage Here)

14x Phoenix Guard, Full Command: 240pts (Teclis Here)

15x Sword Masters, Full Command: 255pts

Great Eagle

2000pts

Sea Guard in the center, Swordmasters flanking them.
The Archers and Phoenix Guard will advance behind the battle line and the Great Eagle will hunt warmachines.

The Lv2 Mage will take High Magic and Teclis will either take Death or Life Magic.

Any Ideas on better Tactics or Lists?

Drop the archer unit, add what you need to the Sea Guard to get the 500pts, then use the spare points to get another Eagle and flesh out the Phoenix Guard.

Like mentioned before, HE cores should never got over the 25%. You take the minimum and you max out the specials.

If you insist on taking the Archers, drop the command. that is nothing but wasted points. If they get charged, they will fail, and that is a free banner your giving away. The extra points for 1 shot that has 1 higher BS is wasted as well. And there really is no need for a musician in that unit at all.

I have droped the archers. I had only included them for the extra banner and as a bodyguard for the mage.

Teclis

Noble, BSB, Armor of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, Great Weapon: 168pts

Mage, Lv2, Silver Wand, Talisman of Protection, Skiensilver: 155pts

39x Sea Guard, Shields, Full Command: 532pts (BSB Here)

19x Phoenix Guard, Full Command: 315pts (Teclis Here)

15x Sword Masters, Full Command: 255pts

Great Eagle

Great Eagle

2000pts

The Tactics are same as before.

What do you think? Anything else? Is the second eagle necessary?

That looks a lot better. The second eagle will give you insurance on War Machine hunting. One eagle would be pretty easy to drop before it hit their gunline. Two though doubles your chances. Their also great for hitting the rear or the flanks of units. At their cost, their more then worth it.

Now also, you need to remove the point values from any "unaltered" units. Teclis, and the Eagles namely. GW doesn't like it when you post that stuff.

Thanks for the advice about point costs. I didn't know anything about it. It has been edited.