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I (HE) played my roommate (Skaven) recently and got wiped out. Now granted we were both severe noobs, so we accidentally skipped over/forgot some rules so I know that, now knowing them, the battle will be different in the future. But the biggest problem for me are slaves. If I go into close combat with them, and the slaves break, they blow up. Now, I know it does damage to his units too, but it does waaaay more damage to me as I have less models in my units, and my main melee guys are Lothern Sea Guard and Swordmasters. If I keep long distance from his slaves they just use their slings, and with ranks 5x5, counting the front two rows slinging with multiple shot (2), that’s 20 dice he’s rolling every shooting phase. Regardless of any (-1) modifiers, he still hits on a 6 no matter what (as I understand it). With two or three groups slinging at me, I just can’t figure out what to do against them. Not to mention that his warplock engineer warplightninged all 5 of my reavers in one go, and his warpfire thrower and poisoned wind mortar were harassing me from afar. He didn’t even have to bring his rat ogres, giant rats, clan rats, and storm vermin into the fray. Just sat back with his stupid slave rats and weapons teams and harassed me from range. Me! ELVES! Now that I have Teclis and an extra mage (totaling three mages now) I should be able to do more damage during the magic phase (my mage died bottom of the 1st against slinger slaves), but how do I get rid of slaves otherwise and/or combat the other problems (using what I have)?

What I got:

1 Teclis
2 Mages
Prince Althran on Sharpclaw (or Prince on Griffon)

16 Archers – Full Command
16 Spearmen (or Lothern Sea Guard) – Full Command
10 LSG – Full Command
10 LSG – Full Command

8 Silver Helms – Full Command
10 Swordmasters of Hoeth – Full Command
10 Swordmasters of Hoeth – Full Command
10 Swordmasters of Hoeth – Full Command
5 Reavers of Ellyrion – Champion only
5 Reavers of Ellyrion – Champion only
1 Lion Chariot

1 Repeater Bolt Thrower

Thanks in advance!

PS. If I wanted (just as an example, not that I’d ever really do this) 30 swordmasters all in one block with full command, can I just ‘pretend’ that the other two sets of command are just regular rank and file swordmasters? Or do I have to take those out and thus only have 24 eligible swordmasters for one unit? Assume the question is referring to both formal and informal games, if its just frowned upon, illegal, whatever.

PPS. Also playing in a more formal setting (like at your flgs) are they pretty strict about the models being completely painted?

Well my first advice would be to make your units bigger, and dropp the 10 man squads, But since4 I dont play HE I cant give you too much adivice on your list however, but moddify the spare command figures and your good to go, and more spearmen me thinks.

I would say a 50 60 spear man unit.

15 ish sword masters a unit.

Try white lions thats always good times.

The cav really isnt that good.

Archers only good thing they do is take up core points.

Also bolt throwers are kind of pointless especially against skaven.

Eagles beat warmachines.

wisetiger7 wrote:If I keep long distance from his slaves they just use their slings, and with ranks 5x5, counting the front two rows slinging with multiple shot (2), that’s 20 dice he’s rolling every shooting phase. Regardless of any (-1) modifiers, he still hits on a 6 no matter what (as I understand it).

Slaves are BS2, so only moving and multiple shots will already put him at 6+/4+ to hit. This means that those 20 shots should result in about 1.666 hits, which (against your T3, Sv5+ infantry) equals 0.5533 unsaved wounds. Not really something to worry about. If he is over 9" away, he will also be at long range, making it 6+/5+ to hit, reducing the expected casualties even further.

wisetiger7 wrote:Not to mention that his warplock engineer warplightninged all 5 of my reavers in one go

As someone else already mentioned, Ellyrian Reavers are terrible. Great Eagles do everything they do (hunt warmachines, hunt lone mages, block charges), but they do it a lot cheaper.

wisetiger7 wrote:and his warpfire thrower and poisoned wind mortar were harassing me from afar.

These things actually do a lot of damage if they hit your fragile units. Hunt them down with the above mentioned Great Eagles.

wisetiger7 wrote:Just sat back with his stupid slave rats and weapons teams and harassed me from range. Me! ELVES!

You seem to think that High Elves have a powerful shooting phase. They don't. Pretty much all High Elves shooting isn't worth fielding, simply because it barely does any damage.

wisetiger7 wrote:Now that I have Teclis and an extra mage (totaling three mages now) I should be able to do more damage during the magic phase (my mage died bottom of the 1st against slinger slaves)

The magic phase indeed is something the High Elves can excell at. Teclis is probably the most powerful caster in the game at the moment. Taking the Banner of Sorcery should help you build an even stronger magic phase. As for fielding multiple Mages, I'd advise against that. Fielding multiple Mages will cost a lot of points just to get some more spells (it won't enable you to cast more spells per magic phase, as you still have the same amount of Power Dice). Additionally, if you are fielding Teclis, he will mostly be casting on IF, meaning that anything cast by another caster will almost always get dispelled by the opponent. Then there is the Mage died against slinger slaves issue. The answer is, join your Mage to a unit. This way he won't get killed by ranged attacks unless the ranged attack has a specific rule that allows it to select your Character as a target.

wisetiger7 wrote:but how do I get rid of slaves otherwise and/or combat the other problems (using what I have)?

The key to dealing with Skavenslaves (and most of the Skaven army in general) is to take out the Skaven General and / or Battle Standard Bearer first. With them nearby, steadfast Skavenslaves will be taking their break test on Ld10 with re-roll. Without them nearby, Skavenslaves will be taking the same break test on Ld5. Clanrats are similar (though they will probably have Ld8, so you will need to reduce their Strength in Numbers bonus, or hope they fail their break test on Ld8).

Just a quick note, but in your first few games don't be afraid to go REALLY slow and check on all the rules. It may make the first few games slower, but it does help learn the rules a bit easier.

1. '6's don't always hit on shooting, check the rule book. With BS2, he's already on 5's to hit. With multiple shots, that's 6's. If he moves, he needs to roll a 6, and then a 4+ to hit. "Rolling a 7".

2. Weapon teams are fairly fragile, and all on their own once the game starts. Warpfire Throwers are especially vulnerable as they have to be up close. Shoot them. Sure, you may only get a few hits, but you only need to cause 1 wound for them to die. I lost all of my weapon team but 1 to plain old HE archers (the one that they didn't shoot ended up blowing itself up...). Great Eagles are fine for taking out the Poison Wind Mortars lurking in the back of a unit block, but they're better off heading for the war machines (Plague Claw Catapults or much more dangerous Warp Lightning Cannons).

3. As Airmaniac said, the key to beating skaven is destroying their LD. Drop some spells / shooting into the blocks that bunker his characters, and then charge in with a hard hitting unit.

4. Flesh out your blocks. 8th edition made big blocks of infantry important, and it looks like your biggest block weighs in at only 16 models. With skaven slaves easily being pushed to blocks of 50 models, you're going to be stuck in for awhile. To answer your first PS question, in a friendly game whatever your opponent agrees to goes. I certainly wouldn't care if a few spare command models were being used to fill in a block. If it's a serious issue, put them in the back row of the block so that they're the first casualties to be removed from the unit. In a more strict tournament setting you're not likely to get away with it, but that's a ways off it seems.

5. To your PPS, it depends on the tournament. Ask your TO, but I understand that 'Ard Boyz doesn't care much. It's all about winning.

6. You said your mage died to slings early on: make sure you keep your characters in a unit block. Skaven have a number of tools for dealing with single characters roaming about, but with a bunch of spearmen or LSG or what have you to suck up the sling stones for him, your mage is considerably more protected.

Hope that helps!

Also -1 for long range a majority of the time (his slaves shouldn't immediately be within 9" of anything valuable.)
BS2 5+
Two Shots 6+
Moving 6+/4+
Range 6+/5+
1/6 * 1/3 * 1/2 * 2/3 = 1/54 chance to kill per shot.

A 5-wide unit would inflict 0.37 wounds on elf spearmen. A 10-wide horde inflicts 1.1 wounds on elf spearmen per turn.
You should have units of 20-60 elf spearmen, losing 1 model to his slave shooting shouldn't do much.

Against fancy war machines and things, use Teclis amazing magic (I've had him murder an entire stegadon and carnosaur in the same turn. He also has a choice of any lore, there are lores to counter whatever the skaven player is doing.