Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I see a lot of people using the frostheart phoenix and I'm not entirely sure why. It's better defensively then the flamespyre but lacks the fly over and cause damage ability of the flamespyre.
I'm curious on what peoples opinions are and which one of these is more preferable to take for a shooting army.

On the one side I have a strong combat presence with the frostheart but no melee units to take advantage of its aura. And on the other side the flamespyre would essentially add to their ranged
damage by repeat running over the enemies units.

There is no comparison. The Frost is much better.

s6, 4 attacks, tough 6 and much harder to kill.

The flame just doesn't do damage. The fly over is much weaker than it seems.

Imagine this:

You have a unit of spearmen fighting chaos warriors. Your getting trounced but don't run away. Your phoenix enters the frey via a flank charge. Now the chaos warriors lose 1S since the are in contact with the phoenix and not are wounding your elves on 4+ not 3+. Cast wildform and boom, you are destroying the chaos.

His ability to influence your army is much more relevant than his stats. The fact that his stats are simply better is a bonus.

My concern though was that upon taking a very shooty list, or using it in a phoenix king list with wood elves the benefits of the frost's aura would be wasted on them, and sending a lone phoenix into combat doesn't seem like the best idea.

Well obviously you wouldn't use it in a list it doesn't benefit.

It's also great at killing enemy warmachines and harnessing smaller units.

Rare: Frostheart 100%.

Mount: Frostheart 90%.

It does depend on what army you're using, but, yes, most of the time the Frostheart is better.

It's much more durable, much better in combat and have a frankly awesome -1S debuff, which is especially useful for the flimsy elves, not to mention the fact that the ASL bonus is pretty hand vs fellow Elves. Simply put, the Frostheart is more useful in more situations. It sticks around for longer (and so can hold things up as well as hang around outside combat with more impunity), hits harder in combat, and is much more useful for support.

That said, the Flamespyre does have its uses. Unlike the Frostheart, it's pretty good at dealing with hordes of enemies, especially ones like skavenslaves who typically like to bog things down, and so is a decent addition to any army which struggles with such things (such as a full cavalry army). Furthermore, the revival shenanigans are all the more awesome when you have an expensive character on the back of it so if you're set on using a phoenix as a mount for an Anointed, I'd recommend you go with the Flamespyre.

At the end of the day, it is personal preference but, generally speaking, you'll get a lot more mileage out of the Frostheart.

Hope this helps!

Flame phoenix really shines when taken as multiples.
2 Phoenixes as rares, 2 dragon mages (level 2's) and a phoenix rider lord, 2 eagles as rares, and 30 fast cav as core (with bows), leaves you some points a bit of gear at 2500.
It's 5 flying monsters.
Yeah, they are all "only" S5 T5, but with 2 breathes and 3 fly overs, you can do some decent damage. Having 2 casters both come with flaming sword is good too, it makes those fly-over attacks do a lot more with +1 to wound.
For a lone phoenix I'd go frost every time, for multiples, I'd go fire. Getting back even 1 phoenix from the ashes is awesome.

Well the idea is to use them as an addition to my wood elves for higher pointed games. My biggest problem currently is dealing with hordes. My shooting is good, and it kills rather easily but I have nowhere near the volume of shots to say, bring down a huge zombie bunker or en'masse of skaven slaves.

That said I understand that my full cavalry wood elf list (that isnt spamming wild riders) has to focus on point denial and go for easy kills I still want something that will help me break down larger units.

An example of my local meta. There is a skaven player that runs a block of 73? 76? skaven stormvermin with the anti magic banner + characters.

The skaven's cannons, doomwheel / hellpit are all relatively easy targets for me to claim points I still don't want my opponent to feel 'safe' stacking everything together.

In 2500pts I was thinking of running 2 of the flame phoenix and have them spend the whole game simply doing fly overs. Because I will have additional d3 forests on the board I should be able to do it with relative safety.

(I also know that waywatchers I could snipe the characters out of that storm vermin unit,)

 Sasa0mg wrote:
Well the idea is to use them as an addition to my wood elves for higher pointed games. My biggest problem currently is dealing with hordes. My shooting is good, and it kills rather easily but I have nowhere near the volume of shots to say, bring down a huge zombie bunker or en'masse of skaven slaves.

That said I understand that my full cavalry wood elf list (that isnt spamming wild riders) has to focus on point denial and go for easy kills I still want something that will help me break down larger units.

An example of my local meta. There is a skaven player that runs a block of 73? 76? skaven stormvermin with the anti magic banner + characters.

The skaven's cannons, doomwheel / hellpit are all relatively easy targets for me to claim points I still don't want my opponent to feel 'safe' stacking everything together.

In 2500pts I was thinking of running 2 of the flame phoenix and have them spend the whole game simply doing fly overs. Because I will have additional d3 forests on the board I should be able to do it with relative safety.

(I also know that waywatchers I could snipe the characters out of that storm vermin unit,)

Flame pyre then if you need something to deal with hordes

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Getting back even 1 phoenix from the ashes is awesome.

Oh, I get it, it's awesome when Elves do it, but cheesey when Skaven do it!

Buncha WHFB racists in here.

Just to echo everyone else, my personal experience pretty much mimics the general opinion on the two Phoenixes; both are good, however Frosthearts are definitely the superior one. Frosthearts are better in combat, harder to kill and provide ridiculous support "buffs" for Elf armies. Slam a Frostheart into a flank when that unit is already occupied to the front by an Elven combat block and you usually are guaranteed a victorious combat. The Flamespyre is a great horde-killer and a more "trolly" choice with the death marker, I definitely feel it is worth its points and would be pretty common if the Frostheart didn't exist, however the Frostheart is just too good to pass up on.