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Friends and I regularly play 40k and one mentioned recently getting into Warhammer, he said he was considering skaven and since High Elves have always seemed kind of cool I said if he wanted to get into it, I'd go halves on the starter set with him.
But it's been about 10 years since I was into Warhammer so I have no idea how it goes down these days.
I see warhammer is in 8th edition but as far as I could tell (please correct me if i'm wrong) none of the army books are in 8th yet, would it be worth waiting for a couple of them to come out?
How do High Elves compete? Are they still powerful magically?
I always preferred fielding multiple units of spearmen, because they look badass, with just a couple of squads of swordmasters or whatever. Would playing like that nerf me?
Thanks dakka.

Welcome back to Fantasy

As far as your questions, let's see...

Nah, most of the codexes with a few exceptions (Wood Elves) are still quite fine in 8th edition. When 8th came out, all of the races got a pretty extensive FAQ to modernize them until a new codex for each race was made. You'll be fine there.

High Elves are still an excellent army. They have a great mixture of melee power (Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard) and magic. And yes, they have very strong magic still, arguably the best in 8th, or certainly up there in terms of magical strength and flexibility.

Nope. Spearmen blocks work fine still, though for durability you will want to have deeper units, rather than wider. Ranked infantry are exceptionally powerful in 8th edition as well, so you'll be very well served by a couple blocks of spearmen, supported by magic or elite combat units.

High Elves have an 8th edition AB.

thenoobbomb wrote:High Elves have an 8th edition AB.

They most certainly do not. Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, and Ogre Kingdoms are the only 8th edition army books so far.

Aerethan wrote:

thenoobbomb wrote:High Elves have an 8th edition AB.

They most certainly do not. Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, and Ogre Kingdoms are the only 8th edition army books so far.

...And VC's getting their new book in January.

Skaven can be quite gross in 8th if you start looking specifically for the . (hey, they're rats - it's their job, right?!!) They got the second last book of 7th ed, and were (rummored) to have been at least partially designed with 8th ed in mind. (think of them like the GK's book which has a few 6th ed clues in it.) I honestly find that the rat-things are the most diverse book in fantasy in terms of list composition with lots of viable options;
- large blocks reliable troops (who sometimes charge in the opposite direction)
- couragous leaders (from the back ranks)
- (catastrophicly) successful wonder-weapons
- killer magic phase (for everyone!)
- indescriminent shooting into combat
- when in doubt, send more slaves...



High Elves have a steeper curve than skaven, but they're just as decent and can also reliably reek of well-aged cheddar when the need arises. (*cough*teclis*cough*)
Spearmen can be well supported with the right magic lores - beasts to turn them into lightly armoured chaos warriors, or shadows to hex your opponents or perhaps give your unit S8 attacks!!! As mentioned, elf infantry works better for the most part though with smaller frontage because even their leaders are T3... (think of them like ninjas!)

Phoenix Guard are resiliant as hell though as they come with a solid ward save and they'll tarpit anything outside of the most hienous deathstar unit. Their drawback however is that they won't kill much with only S4... Against other core units or lightly armoured units they'll do the job, but units with 3+ or better saves are their bane!
White Lions hit like a truck and are more resiliant to enemy shooting thanks to their lion cloaks. Swordmasters on the other hand throw out more attacks at only a slightly lower strength. (S5 for swordmasters compared to S6 for white lions) Thus, these guys will be your main hammer units as magic-buffing isn't to be relied upon as a grand stratagy since it can fail badly at times.

High Elf cavalry is over-costed overall, but Dragon Princes can put the hurt on smaller units on an opponent's flank, or else be used as hammer to say an anvil of pheonix guard or large spear block... They can take some nifty banners such as one that lets them ignore terrain penalites, or else give them flaming attacks (and thus turn them into regen killers!). Oh, and their special dragon armour makes them almost immune to any attacks with the 'flaming attacks' attribute...

High Elf magic is deadly. Your wizards can take any of the rulebook lores, (including the broken #6 'uber spells), plus you've got a nifty array of magic items to help boost your magic phase;
- a cheap magic wand that gets you an addtional spell. (so a Lv2 for example would have 3 spells, while a Lv4 could have 5!)
- a magic staff that lets you pick a wizards spells instead of rolling for them (so you can double-up on some spells)
- a crystal that steals an opponent's power dice and turns it into a dispel dice
- a banner that adds power dice to your casting pool
- an enchanted item with a bound spell that does 2D6/S4 hits. (VERY annoying as it'll only cost you 1 power dice to cast wheras most armies need 2-3PD for a similar spell!)
- an enchanted item that turns a fighty character into a Lv1 wizard! (imagine your dragon princes containing a hero who can buff them with +1S/+1T!)
And this doesn't even scratch what Teclis can do... (though most opponentent will hate you if you start fielding a list based around him as he's one of the most broken things in the game right now...)



Hope this helps!

Loving all the replies guys, very informative. I shall re-visit this thread when I start making an army list.

Rumour has it that they will be getting an AB soon...

There are at least 3 armies before HE would even get a chance at a new book: VC, Empire, Dwarves iirc.

HE are fine the way they are save the uselessness of bolt throwers and Silver Helms not being a core choice.

Aerethan wrote:There are at least 3 armies before HE would even get a chance at a new book: VC, Empire, Dwarves iirc.

HE are fine the way they are save the uselessness of bolt throwers and Silver Helms not being a core choice.

What about my beloved WE?

rockerbikie wrote:

Aerethan wrote:There are at least 3 armies before HE would even get a chance at a new book: VC, Empire, Dwarves iirc.

HE are fine the way they are save the uselessness of bolt throwers and Silver Helms not being a core choice.

What about my beloved WE?

From what I understand they are around 2+ years away at the earliest, which is unfortunate. Not sure if Bretonnians are before or after them sadly.

I don't pretend to understand the order in which GW does things.

Most Bret players I talk to are happy with our book and just want it left alone....

But on to the subject. HE have a steep learning curve but once you get it they're scary

Aerethan wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Aerethan wrote:There are at least 3 armies before HE would even get a chance at a new book: VC, Empire, Dwarves iirc.

HE are fine the way they are save the uselessness of bolt throwers and Silver Helms not being a core choice.

What about my beloved WE?

From what I understand they are around 2+ years away at the earliest, which is unfortunate. Not sure if Bretonnians are before or after them sadly.

I don't pretend to understand the order in which GW does things.

I'm starting to believe that Games Workshop hates WE and Mat Ward uses WE codexes as Toilet paper.

@rockerbikie
I think it's more that GW has no idea how to make Wood Elves work in the current edition without significantly changing the intended playstyle. This is probably why many people believe that Wood Elves won't get a new Armybook before 9th edition is released.

Airmaniac wrote:@rockerbikie
I think it's more that GW has no idea how to make Wood Elves work in the current edition without significantly changing the intended playstyle. This is probably why many people believe that Wood Elves won't get a new Armybook before 9th edition is released.

That sucks then... Looks like I won't win much games intil then.

In my local scene (around 35 players) wood elves are in the top 5 every tourny. Just sayin...

Johnny-Crass wrote:In my local scene (around 35 players) wood elves are in the top 5 every tourny. Just sayin...

They must be like Rommel and Napoleon all rolled into one.

That being said WEs still have a few viable builds in the form of treekin spam and they still have access to some of the main rulebook lores so that helps them out alot.

Yah there is only like one non forest spirit unit in their army.

Johnny-Crass wrote:Yah there is only like one non forest spirit unit in their army.

Highborn
Spellweaver
Noble
Spellsinger
Glade Guard
Glade Riders
Eternal Guard
Wardancers
Warhawk Riders
Waywatchers
Great Eagles

To name all the standard non-forest spirits.

I mean in the list that places in the top 5 every tourny.... I know there is alot of non spirit units in the book

You might want to be a little more specific with your posts in future then

*grumbles something about reading the post above mine* Ok!

I don't want to get into a lengthy argument, but 'their army' in reference to a post about WE can easily be interpretted as meaning 'Wood Elves', especially since Jubear's post mentioned builds and your response was singular.

Anyway back to topic High Elves are competitive and if they get a new book all the better but you will not be disappointed in the least bit.