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So I've been playing a few games against my mates Empire army, which has a lot of mortars in it (3 I think is the maximum) and even a Helstrom Battery every now and then. I've done alright against him, but instead of the massive unit of spearmen I usually take a smaller unit of 20 and a unit of 20 Lothern Seaguard. Now imo, the Seaguard are not worth the points you pay for them, so I scratched them from the army in favour of a bigger unit of Spearmen. And also, instead of the Phoenix Guard I've been running Elryian Reavers, who are pretty useless tbh lol.

What I would do is spam Shield of Saphery on the Spearmen and Swordmasters to give them some kind of protection against the mortars and I'll hopefully roll some good offensive magic to take out some of his massive blocks of infantry that he always takes.

Let me know what you guys think of it

Prince
Heavy Armour
Shield
Vambraces of Defense
The White Sword

Mage
Level 2
Silver Wand

Mage
Level 2

40 Spearmen
Sentinel
Standard

18 Swordmasters
Bladelord
Standard

18 Phoenix Guard
Keeper of the Flame
Standard

Interesting take on it. Wondering though if you're better off dropping a few PG and making that 40 strong spear block into 2 lots of 20... Not sure if it's a better choice or not though. Just means you're spread out a little more and gives me some different targets.

Curious.. Will the PG and SM be run 6 x 3 or have you just left spots open for characters?

Speaking of characters that's something different you've done with your prince. T3 and only a 5+/4+ save. Survivability doesn't look as good as before. That said you do get a re-roll on the armour save so that does make it better. Could choose Temakador's Gauntlets though for a 4+/5+ (If you keep the HA) and save 25 points to get something else. Maybe The Amulet of Light? Chuck him in with some spears and then laugh =P

I hadn't thought about how I would run the Swordmasters or Phoenix Guard tbh. I wrote this list at uni pretty quickly. And my Lord on foot was to save points and hopefully save him a little bit.
And I dunno, I like the massive unit of Spearmen, good surviveability there.

Check out The Amulet of Light idea. Might prove useful, but I'm not sure what the exact rules of magical attacks are in 8ed.

Another idea is drop a couple of SM and PG to fit in the points for an eagle and see if that works for hunting warmachines.

I was thinking that, but you had woeful luck our last game with shooting lol.

This is true but I was using the mortars wrong. Much easier to hit now, no guess range. Have to double check this but I'm pretty sure you can just chuck the template wherever you want then roll for scatter =D

Jake Bake A Cake wrote:This is true but I was using the mortars wrong. Much easier to hit now, no guess range. Have to double check this but I'm pretty sure you can just chuck the template wherever you want then roll for scatter =D

Yup, just drop template within range and then roll for scatter.

Jin wrote:

Jake Bake A Cake wrote:This is true but I was using the mortars wrong. Much easier to hit now, no guess range. Have to double check this but I'm pretty sure you can just chuck the template wherever you want then roll for scatter =D

Yup, just drop template within range and then roll for scatter.

Neglected to read up on the FAQ document before playing

Thanks for that clarification.

a high elves army without archers? weird...

Solbo wrote:a high elves army without archers? weird...

Archers aren't that great in 8th.

Especially for the points you pay for them with High Elves. And can I ask why a Swedish peson has a picture of an Australian Aboriginal as there avatar?

Oh and that just makes mortars absolutely ridiculous. Why the heck would they make them so good in 8th edition??

With my skills at guessing ranges it doesn't matter much. And it's not just mortars, it's all 'lob' weapons like catapults etc.

The closest I've seen to any archers in a HE army list so far is Sea Guard. You pay the each 1 (2 for shields) point per model and you get something that has multiple uses.

Definitely go 2 units of 20 on the spearmen, 2 smaller blocks means less damage from warmachines and especially offensive magic, imagine what purple sun or dwellers would do to that 40 man block. The PG seem out of place in this list, that is alot of points to spend on protecting lvl2 mages, for teclis sure but spearmen are fine for hiding the cheap mages. I would drop the PG and spend the points on dragon princes instead. Two 5 man squads of DP's to rush up a flank protected by shield should make short work of mortars.

Really, DP? Would you be better off getting a couple of eagles to do the same job for 1/3 of the price?

But PG have a good ward save which would really help against those mortars.

Yeah DP as they will actually make it there, eagles are t4 3 wounds and no armor hell a single volley of arrows can put them down.

Yes the PG have the ward save to protect against the mortars but simply surviving rarely wins the battle you need killing power and PG don't excel at that.

They do excel over common Empire swordsmen. S4 attacks which will always strike first and I have rerolls? Come onnnn you can't go passed that surely?

Are DP really cost effective though? Sure they can get in CC much faster then PG but at TWICE the point cost I don't see the real benefit.

All that extra 15pts gets you is an extra attack and a better armour save. Not really worth it in my opinion at 1500 points when it is more about bodies on the field.

For this list as an example. Say you were to drop the 18 PG for a unit of DP, you'd be getting rid of 18 men and replacing them with 8 (W/ Full command). And what are those 8 models going to do exactly, run ahead of the army, get shoot/magic'd to hell then get out numbered in CC.