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i haven't played WHFB and I started collecting HE stuff and researching on High Elf. I notice in different videos and articles screening always pops up and the way they discribe it sounds like its a a tactic. and by doing it, wont it offend your opponent(e.g. rule abusing/cheese)?

Screening means to hide a strong unit behind a less expensive unit giving it cover from shooting, its not cheese and every army can do it, and some high damage low survivability units actually need a good screen to reach combat unscaved.
Also properly screening a unit can end up with the screen unit wiped out by the enemy in CC thus giving the screened unit the charge, it used to be a bigger deal in 7th where chargers got to hit 1st but even now getting that extra 1 in CR might be very important.

Its completely valid in my view. Beastmen especially need it to compensate for their lack of saves. It really helps keep the important units intact enough to be still effective in close combat.

Oh and using a tactic that's a long standing tratition in real life warfare isn't rules abuse/cheese its common sense.

hahaha thanks for clearing that out. is regular spearmen for High elves good for screening? or any unit you could suggest for High elves for screening

Elyrian Reavers.


in general you want screening units to be Cheap(most important) and Fast(not needed, but they should be at least as fast as everyone else)



Spearmen are your RnF unit. the Anvil upon which you will break the enemy.

One version of screening was frowned on in the last version of the rules, when a player would deploy a single line of skirmishers right across his army and protect everything else from shooting. They would defend this by pointing out skirmishers were used to screen rank and file troops behind them in real life, ignoring the point that this was never done by deploying a single thin line right across the army and was just taking a generous rule to a goofy conclusion.

Fortunately the new LOS rules make that strategy impossible now. A large block of skirmishers can still screen one or more other units, if they remain deep enough, and regular rank and file units can still screen I don't think there's a rules exploit possible under the new rules, so I don't think people facing screening can really complain about anything.

Well the thin line of skirmishers can still give hard cover to units behind it, but these would be so close that overruining into them would be possible. Therefore that trick would only work for the 1st turn or so as the skirmishers will then have to start reforming to avoid actually helping the enemy reach their allies faster.