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I have been involved with WHFB for almost a year now, and have always used High Elves. The problem is I have never won a fair battle. (I did win one but my opponent was 300pts down due to a miscalculation in his list)
I have tried many different builds, but I haven't managed to find one which works.

I did think about Teclis, but I didn't want to take him for several reasons:
1) People don't like him and get annoyed with players who use him
2) He is very easy to kill
3) I usualy play 1000-1500pts, so he wouldn't be legal anyway.

I have been thinking about it for a very long time, but I still can't decide what to do.

Is there a way to make High Elves work without Teclis?
Should I just change armies?

What do you think?

Persevere, and earn my respect damn you!

I would do, but I am kind of fed up with losing every time.

You have gained my respect, well done.
Also, if you really like high elves, I'm sure there are many ways for them to win.
But, if you wan't to, there are other elves out their, like WE or DE, or go for some thing like: empire, skaven, VC and TK, horde armies are the opposite of elite army's like elves

One easy way to make them competitive is a big unit of 20-30 Swordmasters. There are other ways as well.

One big group of sword masters supported by the rest of the entire army is a devastating thing to see at play. You need to either use magic to support your swordmasters or further weaken your opponents opposing blocks. I usually fill up my core with spear men to act as flank guards for the sword master, while my mages debuff and nuke opposing threats my sword masters can't reach.

I think at the end of the day, you should play whichever army appeals most for whatever reason to you. If you really love the high elf imagery and they inspire you to want to play, stick with them and have a think about why you're losing.
If (like me) your losses in games comes down to choosing models which look good sacrifice a few for those which would help in the winning side more. Though that said, most of the high elf range does look nice...
Another thing is to bear in mind the age of the army book, how popular the army is and therefore advice on how to beat them is available. Failing all that, could always let us know what you have, what stuff you would like to use and see what ideas others have

Thanks for all the advice guys.
How old is the book?

I have:
2x Mage
1x Prince/Noble on Barded Steed, Lance, Shield
1x BSB
1x Archmage/Dragon Mage/Prince, Sword, Shield on a Dragon.
1x IOB Griffon Prince
16x Spearmen
16x Spearmen (Unbuilt)
20x Sword Masters
20x Sea Guard
10x Ellyrian Reavers
10x Phoenix Guard (Unbuilt)


What do you think of that?
How would you build an army around that?
Are there any other units I need?

Questions for you:

What armies do you normally face?

What lists do you normally take?

From here, it's easier to provide more pointed advice.

Jin wrote:Questions for you:

What armies do you normally face?

What lists do you normally take?

From here, it's easier to provide more pointed advice.

My list varies a lot, as I said I keep losing so I keep changing it. It usualy had all the sword masters and sea guard, usualy with a mage and other things to fill extra points.

I usualy face:
Dwarves (Gunline)
Deamons (Mixed, but no Nurgle)
Beastmen (Lots of Gores)
Empire (Artillery, but not gunline)
Warriors Of Chaos (Lots of warriors + Trolls sometimes)

Oof. That's a rough line-up to have to go up against.

Advice:
Use spearelves in favor over the LSG. Given that you're facing a lot of shooting and core infantry that is >> HE Core, you want to go with numbers over versatility. While I personally enjoy having a unit of LSG on the table, you'd be better served running a large block of Spearelves to get more numbers running across the table for cheap(er).

A lvl4 Archmage will probably be a good starting point. Life is a good Lore for protection, though High Magic should probably be pretty solid as well.

30x Spearelves in a block another.

You're up against a lot of shooting and artillery: take a unit of Phoenix guard for better survivability (if you can snag another 5, I think you'll be good, especially at 1-1.5k points).

Swordmasters are good, but given the amount of shooting you're seeing, they're gonna need a lot of protection. A Bladelord with the Ironcurse Icon will help a lot for cheap. A lvl2 Mage throwing out Shield of Saphery will help a lot too.

You NEED fast warmachine-hunters/redirectors that are expendable. 2 Great Eagles would do wonders for you for a relatively low points cost (they're pretty pricey monetarily, though). With what you have, a small unit of 5 Reavers could help out (keep them cheap, no upgrades, just spears).

I have found your problem, your list isn't ranged/fast enough to hinder gunline armies, nor is it beef enough to deal with the melée centric armies you face.
This is THE hindrence of HE.
There are a two main methods of army building, build to a list (set a points value to meet, and make the most competative army within that restriction) or build an army (collect the units you want/think a propped army would have, then pick and choose from your arsenal depending on the opponent).
You strike me as the latter kind of a player, and that is good in the long run, because you can expand your army to fill gaps in it's effeciency.
I like to make an compairison to the card game WAR, where you rank each unit you have compaired to a card (so your swordmasters would be your ace, with some decent support (queens?) in the 32 man spear unit and the 20 man seaguard. Then you do the same to your oppoenents and set yourself up to make sure your units engage in the best situation (your ace engages their king, your queens team up on an ace, or take out jacks; etc etc...) however you can't be assured to have an advantage in every combat across the field, and for every positive encounter you concoct you will have a weak area elsewhere along the line.
The second aspect of this methodology is to try to lose as little as possible in the weak areas of the battle... Harkening back the the war example: it is better to lose a Jack to your opponents ace, than to lose a queen or king. This mentality is hard with HE because they are inherently a small elite force, with few bodys that are disproportionatly expensive compaired to what the engage.
Now then, the metagame is put of the way, on to tangible advice:
I would invest in 2 eagles. They are an expendable (less than jacks) component that you can use to engage warmachines quickly, so they don't weaken your more crucial units before you can get across the field. You can also place them in front of your melée opponents 'aces' and redirect them away from crucial combats, or just park them in a fashion that they waste their charge slaughtering the poor bird and overrunning into your line, then flank charge in your turn and quickly isolate and eliminate strong units.
Chariots are similarly useful, harder hitting to take out small units but are more of an investment 150ish; ergo more to lose when put in suicidal situations.
A small unit of dragon princes with no upgrades would be the next step past chariots, as they can sweep through skirmishers/fast cav/ flyers...but at the cost of 220ish they need to engage lesser things/ be one of the flankers in an isolation setup.
Personally I think the eagles are a crucial piece in your tactics, as HE have such a small room for error, they can't afford to sacrifice many units.
I would go
Mage with wand of extra spell (or dragon Mage when not vs artillary) (queen)
swordmasters (ace)
full spears or seaguard (queen)
eagles (numbercard)
20 pg (king)
fill with what you want.
This gives you a hard hitting unit, an anvil, a midgrade, plently of magic for your points, and some expendable to keep their expensive units busy... These are sometimes tricky to master, but the crucial part is generally the facing of the bird for redirection... I find it's better for beginners to tell their opponent as they place the bird, "I want to make sure he is going to block X unit's charge, do you agree that this placement will, or do I need to move it to another location to achieve my desired effect": no opponent wants their battleship of wasting it's time chasing a useless pt boat, and some less scrupulous players will try to weasel their way out of it by claiming thier wheel move takes them around the diversion. The more games you play, the better you will become with redirection and charge manipulation... Eagles are the first step!
Hope it helps! And always remember, you can find victory in defeat as long as a lesson is learned, and strategy modified.
Kiwidru

I'd agree on the eagles, and also about the drawback of getting them being the cost in money. But all is not lost, have a word with your regular opponents and just say "Wouldn't a tame griffon be cooler than eagles as a model for them?" and when they agree use the IoB price as a proxy for them? They're not too expensive on ebay and if any of your friends have any spare even better and possibly cheaper.
Other advice already given seems to have filled in a lot of what I'd say to help, lore of life especially.
Another thing to consider is the reavers perhaps? Fast cav just to go and at least tie up ranged units for a turn (hopefuly) or artillery?

I have had great success by just taking two units of 30-40 swordmasters or whitelions backed up by biggish blocks of spearmen,great eagles and lead by a level 4 mage with life.

My strat is fairly simple run straight at the enemy and keep throwing all my dice at dwellers or rezzing the elites units when they get low.

Even if the enemy castles up It still does not take longer then 3 turns to get to the enemys line and when I do my elites finish off whats left after 2 turns of dwellers spam.

I would work to collecting as many boxes of grossly overpriced HE elites as you can. Staying away from dodgy under perfroming heavy cav or chariots.

You should really concider some white lions. Strength 6 elves rock The lion cloaks give them a decent armour save and a near by mage can give them a ward save.