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Hi Dakka,
I have never played Warhammer Fantasy or 40K before and after looking at forums and the GW site I have decided I would like to play either High Elves or Dark Elves. Which are better on the tabletop? Any replies will be greatly appreciated

Both are pretty good on the table, once you get over the learning curve. In the end, both are magic-dependent with lots of T3, low save units. If you're not careful in your maneuver they can easily be beaten. (They're not as bad as Bretonnia, which utterly depends on the Knights getting their charge in, but it can be tough.)

I favor Dark Elves, but that's mainly for aesthetic reasons. DE also have better shooting - repeater crossbows may only be range 24 (vs range 30 for bows) but AP and 2-shot multifire makes it MUCH more effective over the range it has. However, since it's just S3 shooting and only slightly more effective than firing nerf arrows at someone, you cannot depend on it to win the game for you.

Both armies favor a strong movement phase to bring a devastating close-combat unit (or units) into play at the moment of decision. Neither army like prolonged combats, and prefer to break their target on the charge to minimize return attacks on fairly fragile, fairly expensive troops.

Well said Vulcan. I'll add in that each army is quite capable of fielding a multitude of perfectly viable armies, each with distinct distinct characteristics.

Where Dark Elves edge out the High Elves is, indeed, in shooting and sheer number of low strength attacks. Their racial ability tends to benefit them more often\better than the High Elf one.

High Elves, by contrast, can field a better classic mounted army, and tend to edge out their dark brethren in the magic phase a bit too.

Everything else is just flavor really. Huge monsters for both, characters of all types and capabilities, amazing elite units, and quite a few unique features you won't find in any other army. Neither of them should be deemed "easy" to play, they definitely have to be handled properly, but the learning curve isn't too steep. A couple games should make it plenty clear what elves can and cannot do.

Thanks for all your help Vulcan and Aipoch, I have settled on High Elves because I really like the idea of the Phoenix Guard. :-)

ElfHound wrote:
Thanks for all your help Vulcan and Aipoch, I have settled on High Elves because I really like the idea of the Phoenix Guard. :-)

White lions are the only true men in that army.

I agree axes are awesome.

First off, I'm not a HE player, but as a DE player I've gathered a bit of useful intel on the ( ) traitors to the rightful King of all Elves, Lord Malekith.

Phoenix Guard are the anvil - 5+/4++ makes them pretty durable, and using High Magic to take that up to a 2++ (when you can pull it off) the unit can get nasty hard to get wounds off of. However, 1 S4 attack tends to falter a bit in killing things.

So you'll want some sort of hammer unit. Swordmasters have 2 S5 attacks, White Lions only get 1 S6 attack, but have a better armor save.

Trick is, all three are special. That limits the number of points you can have in them. Core troops are decent, but there are no 'gimme' choices like the DE Witches. Archers are okay shooting, but will get whomped in close combat. Spearmen are okay, and a big block of 50 in horde formation can drop a hefty amount of (sadly S3) attacks on someone. Sea Guard are expensive spearmen that shoot less effectively than archers.

Silver Helms are good heavy cav, but if they fail to get the charge they will falter. For that matter, if they don't break their target on the charge, they're S3 in subsequent rounds and again tend to falter. 2+ armor is good, but they're pretty expensive and the unit probably won't be THAT big to soak a lot of casualties. Dragon Princes hit even harder on the charge with two attacks, but again tend to falter with S3 in subsequent rounds.

Ellryian Reavers are decent fast cav. I've heard they're overpriced so no one here uses them, but fast cav is very useful in the maneuver battle.

Giant Eagles are golden. Cheap, expendable, and highly maneuverable, their only real problem is that they're rare and you can't have very many of them. (They also die to massed RXB fire, so make sure DE don't get a good shot at them...)

Shadow Warriors are Scouts, which is nice.... but expensive, which is not. Again, they are rarely taken, but they could be quite valuable if used properly.

I've heard the Flame Phoenix is a waste, go for the Frost version instead to give your opponents ASL.

I have decided on Empire, thanks for your help :-)

 namiel wrote:


White lions are the only true men in that army.

True men in an Elf army?

As Sigvatr says .... they wear damn skirts (not the tartan-badass ones), perfume and have daisies on their bases !
Even the horses have mini-skirt barding ...

And yet in about 90% of cases they completely outfight burly men with beards. What a strange world.

Both can be nasty armies. Not sure either is "easy" for a beginner, but they're a little forgiving. Once you start working out the tricks and shenanigans you can pull, though? Freaking brutal.

For example, with High Elves:

- Stick a High Magic caster in the Phoenix Guard, even a level 1. Try to get off some innocuous spell with him in the unit each turn, raising their ward save to 3+.

- Swordmasters, 10 wide, at least four deep (so 40+), if you have the points in a match. Give them Razor Standard and a Battle Standard Bearer with Banner of the World Dragon. The unit now has a 2+ against any kind of magic, which include spells, ethereal creatures, magic weapons, daemons, and even Dwarf artillery with runes. Being a horde formation, it gets an extra rank of attacks, on top of the extra rank for being High Elves, so if you can get them all in base-to-base, you have 40 Swordmasters attacking, for something like 51 attacks (with a champion). They have WS6, high Initiative, and great weapons striking at that Initiative, so S5, but the Razor Standard makes them -3 armor save. That unit will chew through damn near anything, including Chaos Warriors and Knights. (Oh, and ensorcelled blades on Chaos units? Yeah, those are magic, too.)

You want to make sure the people you're playing are good-humored, though. Once you start pulling out the nastier tricks, you might find yourself curbstomping people.

If you play them well, they are both devastating.

 ErikSetzer wrote:

- Swordmasters, 10 wide, at least four deep (so 40+), if you have the points in a match. Give them Razor Standard and a Battle Standard Bearer with Banner of the World Dragon. The unit now has a 2+ against any kind of magic, which include spells, ethereal creatures, magic weapons, daemons, and even Dwarf artillery with runes. Being a horde formation, it gets an extra rank of attacks, on top of the extra rank for being High Elves, so if you can get them all in base-to-base, you have 40 Swordmasters attacking, for something like 51 attacks (with a champion). They have WS6, high Initiative, and great weapons striking at that Initiative, so S5, but the Razor Standard makes them -3 armor save. That unit will chew through damn near anything, including Chaos Warriors and Knights. (Oh, and ensorcelled blades on Chaos units? Yeah, those are magic, too.)

This trick is way more effective with White Lions than Swordmasters. S4 base means there is no need for the razor banner, so you don't need a BSB to carry the BoTWD. This not only saves points, but it also means the banner cannot be picked off by death-snipes, test-or-die spells, challenges or a lucky cannonball. Swordmasters pay a premium for 2A's but can't make any use of them after the first rank whilst the Lion's extra strength is a factor on every model in the unit. White Lions are also more resilient to non-magic shooting and stubborn.

I'd probably go for Dark elves as a beginner, no bias here, as they have no bad units, and they don't have any crutches that they rely on to do well.

@Vulcan

The max high magic can give a unit a phoenix guard a max of 3++.

And flamespyre has its uses, its just that Frostheart tends to have more. Fire still can be useful and definitely not a waste.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 namiel wrote:


White lions are the only true men in that army.

True men in an Elf army?

the only men in and elf army

They're pretty similar armies, that have similar styles of play, so I'd go with the one whose models you like the best. If you can't decide on that, I'd recommend Dark Elves, since they have slightly more viable units, and can do shooting a bit better (should you want to use that playstyle).