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So, I've been using my typical Empire army (HUGE block of halberds, and Hoard of Great Swords) with the typical priest support, and a few token pieces of artillery and getting my butt kicked on all fronts by elves.

Once in combat, I manage to grind them decently, however I lose all my buffs all too often. And empire troops with out a buff, are just T3 weak sauce.

I have to admit this has been making me reconsider bringing a mortar, just in case I run into some high elves.

Advice for empire taking on High Elves in combat?

 Castitas wrote:
So, I've been using my typical Empire army (HUGE block of halberds, and Hoard of Great Swords) with the typical priest support, and a few token pieces of artillery and getting my butt kicked on all fronts by elves.

Once in combat, I manage to grind them decently, however I lose all my buffs all too often. And empire troops with out a buff, are just T3 weak sauce.

I have to admit this has been making me reconsider bringing a mortar, just in case I run into some high elves.

Advice for empire taking on High Elves in combat?

Point for point, you should be outnumbering them 2:1. If not, check to see where you are spending all your points.

What kind of HE list are you up against? what are his lords/heroes usually like? is he running just one High magic LvL 4, or is there some shadow out there too?

my empire army is pretty small, so I cant offer much help, but I do advise always keeping specific threats in mind when the game starts, a lot of planing ahead, and good timing with your dispel scroll. you can also use your own mages to keep nasty debuffs on his units, giving him things to cast drain magic on that aren't your units.

A horde of great swords is really not the way to go if you're looking to build a strong list.

As to taking them in combat... don't. You're trying to play them at their own game. Empire armies work best when they sit back a bit and use their magic and shooting to whittle down the enemy and then engage with the Demigryphs to mop up. You may well have fewer deployments then so you'll likely get the first turn, but be sure to protect your cannons in deployment and use them to kill his bolt throwers. This will help the survivability of your armour massively.

From there, use your Helblaster and magic to knock chunks out of his White Lions, and then be sure to get the engagement in your own turn so that you can get your buffs off- this should be easy enough, give that Demis have a much greater movement than elves.

All in all, play the standard Empire game- sit back and take out his threats at range and force him to come to you, then mop up where necessary.

War machines, war machines, war machines. They are T3 and barely have saves vs. war machine hits. You do not want him in your face quickly with their ASF and Martial Prowess, let them come to you and try to thin them out beforehand.

...and use those steadfast detachments!

I, as a Goblin, sure as hell won't move a single inch on my own. I even consider no longer taking Mangler Squigs due to the hefty buff the archers received.

I will have a game this weekend and will post the Battle Report up here on Dakka so everyone can pick it apart.

Trouble is I need to start swinging towards the empires strengths, cannon and demigryphs.
Up until the advent of Elves, I've actually be pretty successful with a dual combat block (with wizard wagon support) ramming it down the throat of my opponent. I typically field only two pieces of artillery (one cannon and one helblaster). Through the use of lots of priests and casters i can usually buff/debuff the enemy into a protracted combat they can't win. (Grinding vampires, chaos warriors, and once or twice Ogres in combat!) True i usually use magic to lower their numbers. I stopped using a lot of ranged support units as empires low bs, move or fire restrictions, and constant -1 to shoots (long range or stand and shoot, cover etc) meant that my ranged weapons were rarely pulling their weight.
Typically the biggest threat to my army has been breath weapon templates, (and big time magma cannons!) and boom spells (dwellers etc).

Elves I've been facing usually include these, and builds out from there
Lvl 4 with book
Large block of spears/sear guard
Dragon Princes & Reavers
Two bolt throwers
Ice Phoenix

The greatest challenge i think my army is facing is that I usually held the big stick in the magic phase. (+1 power dice, then usually 4 or 5 channel rolls). And now i'm facing an opponent who shuts down my ability to buff and debuff with ease, and face a remains in play nasty spell.

First thought: (switch out hurricanum for a luminark, and a load stone to one unit, and a witch hunter to the other) and second thought, ad a mortar or two, as S2 large blasts may actually cause some damage.

High elves have waking nightmares about Empire artillery, they lose a lot to handgunners and crossbowmen too.

Always take two cannon, or at least threaten to take two cannon so the dragon is left at home.

The Helblaster is awesome for elf killing.

For get augments, you wont keep them, go for damage spells and hit soft targets.

Do not horde. Empire infantry dont have great attacks, high elves do, making a wider formation means have to face more of them. You need about three good infantry blocks and even then expect to do the real damage before the enemy arrives. Detachments are good.

Alternate to this (though you still take cannon) is to take a knight list 1+ saves everywhere gives high elves a problem.
Demi-griffs also have their fans. Though you will need to reserve artillery for smashing bolt throwers.

Hmm, lots of superficial advice...switching the odd unit in or out is not going to help you all that much. The trick to defeat HE or anyone else is rather to outplay them. Perhaps with WoC you can *sometimes* play on autopilot for a second and rely on units. With Empire, not so much.

What you want to do is to get flanks. I realize that's easier said than done but it will turn combats around. 30 White Lions in the front will kill your big block of Halberds and then do the same to Greatswords. 30 White Lions caught by a flank charge means the attack ratio goes from 30:30 to 3:15 in your favour, and no rank bonus. Now WL are stubborn, so that's a problem, but with half a dozen dead on the way in and 10 more from round 1, they're suddenly a lot less scary.

Of course each unit has its own tricks to consider. Spearelves have longer flanks for more attacks, albeit not all that many. Swordmasters will probably be fielded in smaller units which should simply dissolve against any block; they also get more attacks to the side than their compatriots. A Phoenix is rather hard to flank, given its great mobility.

Specifics apart, that's still the plan. Yes, you will want to shoot as many down early on and a Helblaster + Engineer is the best solution for this but it can and will die at one point or the other. In order to get those flank charges, you need units that can divert the opposing units, with which you can dictate when and where to fight, and stall units you're not ready to take on right now. It doesn't matter what you use; many like archer detachments, some prefer regular knights or Pistoliers, others throw a Witchhunter or Captasus in the way and so on. Take what models you have or can afford and like. An alternative would be not to divert but to tarpit, say with a stubborn detachment or a STank, which incidentally also brings a cannon AND a Steam Gun. One good shot from this can solve a lot of problems.

Also, try to get rid of that Ice Phoenix asap. It's fast, it threatens half the board, it's excellent in combat, and you don't want for example Greatswords wounding on 6's (ASL is not so much a concern, obviously). Cannon, Helblaster, magic, whatever it takes.

You don't need a Stank, nor Knights, nor Demis, nor three blocks of Infantry. That's all besides the point. You can just as well use Ouriders/Pistoliers to shoot Elves, or run rings around them, threaten Reavers and bolters alike and so on. Excellent unit. Or Reiksguard, to better flank and simply stall stuff. Also, if his debuff spell hurts you the most, make it a dispell priority and take the rest on the chin.

Crossbow detachments in front of halberd hordes work pretty well. You'll want ~50 halberds to get the full hitting power.
Then warmachine his heavy cav and monsters.

I had my first game against new high elves and wrecked their face with fire magic. 2x fire wizards and ruby ring was all it took. They can't get ward saves vs fire everywhere, and elves don't like S4 hits. Lore of fire dishes out a lot of S4 hits.

Tactically, thin the units with shooting and magic, mop up with melee.

-Matt

So, I know I said I'd post my report here from the game last weekend, but I got rocked so hard it was frankly embarrassing.

Basic summary: I got hit every turn by book of hoethed flaming doom and dispel magics. My halberd hoard was reduced from 50 to 18 by turn two, admittedly I lost two cannons turn 1 to misfireds which didn't help. The frost Phoenix easily survived to get close, and won combat against my halberd hoard with arch lector and bsb in it. Most of my army was picked off my magic, or whittled down with bs 7 arrows to the point where I had not models left to strike back after their charge.

Notable exceptions: empire militia detachments made a very good show for them selves.

I'll be trying out another game this weekend, hoping to try my luck with some more armored soldiers. Great swords with militia detachments. And more crossbows in core

Losing Cannons turn one can be pretty bad. You'd have to be on your game to come back from that.

My brother plays empire and I play HE... seriously.. his artillery gives me fits.
Load up on it.

People often say the answer against High Elves is to concede combat and focus elsewhere, but I've found the opposite is true. Sure, 50 halberdiers is a bad match up for a 30 strong white lion horde, but he's got about double the points you've got in his unit. Even the points up and you'll see all those pricey Str 6 attacks are wasted grinding through your low toughness, cheap halberdiers, but at the same time your mass of halberd attacks is very well suited for killing those White Lions.

Now, the problem, of course, is that it isn't all that practical to plonk 70 odd halberdiers down on the board, but that's okay. Instead take your 50 halberdiers, and supplement them with a helblaster. Two rounds from the helblaster, one at long range and one at short, will average about 19 hits, and that should score you about 13 kills. Put your 50 halberdiers up against the remaining 13 White Lions and you'll win.

The other tip I'd give when playing High is to leave the Warrior Priests at home. Against any other list they're the first unit I pick, but against High Elves, with all those high Str attacks targeting them I've found it is just to unlikely that my Warrior Priests will be alive after the first turn. And with Toughness 3 and a low model count, I don't miss Hatred or rerolling to wound that badly - I'm still confident I'll be able to hack through them in time. Instead put those points in to mortars (against High Elves they still work great) and helblasters (more helblasters is always the answer) and maybe in to some nuisance, redirecting troops to ensure you get the maximum time possible to shoot him before combat.

And heavily armoured knights are great, as long as you control who they fight (take on spear elves and Phoenix Guard, and stay well away from White Lions and Swordmasters), and control the battle line well enough that you don't get flank charged by wrong units. But that's a big hit or miss option, especially if you're taking up a defensive stance.

 Castitas wrote:

I'll be trying out another game this weekend, hoping to try my luck with some more armored soldiers. Great swords with militia detachments. And more crossbows in core

That's not the solution. :-) Of course you might have more luck in regard to the dice but that has little to do with the different units. Greatswords die just as fast and have less models. They'll also wound a Frost Phoenix on 6's...I think you need to take a step back and sort your priorities: Define target priorities for your units, who can tackle whom, who needs what support, what's plan B and what's the next step? Where can you concentrate forces, and where do you need to give? How long will unit A last? Is that enough? How can you enhance its chances and so on. Be more like water.

 sebster wrote:

Sure, 50 halberdiers is a bad match up for a 30 strong white lion horde, but he's got about double the points you've got in his unit.

The WL horde is only 90 points more. Following the equal point model, it will be difficult to outfight him in combat. Not that I think the use of a Volley Gun isn't focussing elsewhere, not on combat to start with but I don't want to mince words.

So I play HEs and this is what always gives me problems.
1. Heavens magic- comet is death to my units, ice shard blizzard is amazing against HEs, the one that allows you to re-roll 1s on your knights and demigryphs is superb.
2. Knights and Demigryphs are impossible for us to handle when used in conjunction with heavens. You have the mobility to get the match ups you want, and with empire, you should be able to out deploy me and easily get the match ups you want, IE not against WLs.
3. Cannons kill our monsters with impunity if they have an engineer nearby. Look into getting one so that you can reliably kill at least one monster a turn.
4. You need a hurricanum so you are hitting my elves on 3s with your halberdier bus and wounding on 3s. Not to mention its hard for my shooting to hurt it since its T5 and it gives you extra PD.
5. Warrior Priests are a must. hatred combined with the hurricanum equals dead elves every time.
6. Level 1 wizard in an archer detachment with fireball and scroll. just start melting my redirectors and peeling ranks off my units.

I play High Elves too. Here are a few of my thoughts.

1. Empire Artillery is extremely rough on High Elves. The Hellblaster is extremely frightening.

2. The Steam Tank presents a unique challenge to High Elf lists. The Random Movement rule negates a good bit of our movement shenanigans and our only sure fire methods of dealing with it are searing doom or bolt throwers - which are not as common as you might think.

3. Other than a few units, High Elf armies are t3 5+. Massed shooting is tough for us to handle. Even our rock hard units will go down quick if you force enough saves on us. The shooting doesn't even have to be high quality. Enough bows will do the trick.

4. Do not try to get in a straight up infantry fight with a competent HE General. The key to playing the HE book is to control when combat happens and bring overwhelming force. We more than have the mobility to make that happen. You will get combo charged and destroyed fairly quickly.

So to sum it up!

1. Bring a Steam Tank and artillery.
2. Lots of shooting is good!
3. Use your infantry blocks to babysit your artillery.
4. Do not be aggressive with your combat units. They will get redirected and combo charged. Sit them back with your shooters, whittle the Elf units down, and then take advantage of opportunities as they come!

Totally forgot about the steam tank. Yeah, take that thing. Man I hate that unit.

 Mike der Ritter wrote:
The WL horde is only 90 points more. Following the equal point model, it will be difficult to outfight him in combat. Not that I think the use of a Volley Gun isn't focussing elsewhere, not on combat to start with but I don't want to mince words.

White Lions dropped to 13 points each, huh? I thought they dropped just one point, and having played against a new horde I thought that was reasonable (losing the rerolls to hit is a big deal), but I didn't know it was 2 points per model. Hmm, that does make it a little different.

And yeah, fair point on the helblaster, it can be seen as putting points elsewhere. I should clarify my original point - too much advice in threads like this simply look at the damage that White Lions can put out, and give up using troops to kill them. They miss the point that cheap troops with a decent Str 4 attack are actually a pretty solid match up for White Lions, who are basically, expensive, fragile troops with very high Str attacks. Add in another good match up like helblaster and you should be pretty solid.

The horde is not such a problem since I find it easier to avoid, divert or occupy with something (like the Stank). I'd be more cautious with smaller units. I realize they are even more fragile but if they ever combo-charge it's pretty much over. And your own horde can of course only ever hunt one of them.

My rule of thumb: Better go for flanks.

 Mike der Ritter wrote:
The horde is not such a problem since I find it easier to avoid, divert or occupy with something (like the Stank). I'd be more cautious with smaller units. I realize they are even more fragile but if they ever combo-charge it's pretty much over. And your own horde can of course only ever hunt one of them.

My rule of thumb: Better go for flanks.

Odd, I see high elves trying to get white lions in on steam tanks. 12 S6 attacks is exactly what they want against a tank. ~2 game turns should see the tank die.

-Matt

Thats actually exactly what happened this weekend.

White lions charged through a forest (which turned out to be a venom thicket) into the stank. it went down in just one round of combat...
The rest of my army was magicked down in two rounds.

Game ended with my hell-blaster taking down 2 dragon princes (opponent made an ungodly # of 5+/6++ saves) and the rest of my army managing to take down a few sea helms... and that's it.

Getting hit by a fiery convocation, and the large blast that only scatters d6 every turn, on top of BS7 shooting... My infantry Empire is just dead in the water. I do get that Empire foot is not the best way to go, however that is the army I own. Short of purchasing a whole new army just to compete what can be done? (I don't own any knights or demigyphs yet, as I can't stand either models aesthetics) My foot empire do well enough against every other army I face, win some, lose some, but generally don't get plastered with out giving a good punch or two in return. Is this something I am going to have to accept? Is it simply that the new elves are the "paper" to my empire's "rock" and an Empire infantry army will always be wiped out in a turn or two against them? I have had three games with the new elves, and each game, I have been tabled within a turn or two, and typically without ever getting to combat. Given that of the 6 other local players, 3 are sporting the new High Elves, i don't project my army being much fun to play over the next couple weeks.

Short of purchasing a whole new army (which I hate to say at current cost, i can't afford to do any time soon) I am not sure what to do to continue to enjoy my hobby.

Don't play High Elves then

I'm sure there are more, different armies around so rather play with them instead of High Elves.

I hate to say this but you have to turtle and you have to hit this guy with all your artillery. It makes the game less fun but at least you can pound him until he reaches you. Take a corner of the board and let your cannons and blasters fire away.

My empire list consist of the following.

2 steam tanks
1 canon
1 demigriph unit
all core point into 1 unit of inner circle knights, no more than 5 wide and you will be stubborn.

1 mage w/ life magic dwellers below them to death.

1 lord
1 bsb
1 priest

Spend the rest of the points into anything else you like.

All units have a 1 up armor save and elves are usually only strength 3, but this does leave you open to lore of metal.

Now I understand you might not have the models to play this list, but see if your opponent will allow you to proxy the models so you can try this list out before you spend any money. Then if you like it you should bardertown or ebay them for cheap.

Play like a dwarf but with magic! Castle Castle Castle.
An interesting choice might also be some pistolliers stuck way out on the flanks to chaff hunt, speed bump, just delay the combat as long as possible and shoot shoot shoot.
He will target your artillery and shooting and you will be nailing all his good cc units.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Odd, I see high elves trying to get white lions in on steam tanks. 12 S6 attacks is exactly what they want against a tank. ~2 game turns should see the tank die.

That's certainly true, and I can see the merit of other approaches (Puckle Gun, 50 Halberdiers...) but a) it doesn't prevent you form shooting prior to enganging them, b) the STank is reliable in that it is unbreakable, so I know what I get, c) between impact hits and the steam gun, how many of those 30 Elves will be left standing? A unit of 10 or so isn't *that* scary and can be handled by a wide range of units. If I trade the 250 point Stank for guaranteed safety (barring appallingly screwed dice rolls) and 390 points of WL, that's an okay deal. If I should actually manage to park a STank in front of them and hose them with the Steam Gun first, and they then charge in, I'm not betting on the WL.

But of course you can use whatever other unit you have and deem more appropriate (I gather not everyone even own a STank!).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Castitas wrote:

White lions charged through a forest (which turned out to be a venom thicket) into the stank. it went down in just one round of combat...

That's simply bad luck. 12 WL do pretty much exactly two wounds on average after saves, not 10. Of course it might have been wounded already and poison somewhat skews the picture in their favour but still.

Getting hit by a fiery convocation, and the large blast that only scatters d6 every turn, on top of BS7 shooting... My infantry Empire is just dead in the water. I do get that Empire foot is not the best way to go, however that is the army I own.

FC is pretty bad but it's quite possible to return that favour. Running inf isn't per se worse than cav, it's different. Sure, some knights bring an element of mobility and armour into play, which is useful but you certainly don't need to purchase a whole new army. I'm not quite sure what people think who suggest that after you mention you cannot and are not willing to get knights.

Did you have Engineer support? That prevents misfires. Do you have a Luminark? That helps a bit against direct damage and such and provides a valuable hard to get DD. It also stacks with MR, so you can have a 4++ against all spells that actually cause wounds. Did he take a Loremaster? Try to turn it into a frog, it's just an L2. Did you have any diverters? Archers are as good as a Stank or Greatswords. Winning the chaff game can mean that he doesn't reach a crippled unit and subsequently cannot finish them off.

There's a whole bunch of stuff you can do, although there is little you can do about bad luck. I also happen to think that castling is a funny advice that you should not heed. If he kills your army in one turn without combat, that approach would appear to play into his hands. In combat, a horde of 50 Halberdiers will kill 30 WL. A Steam Gun as mentioned will do a number on anything bar 3++ units. If he has small units, focus on one after the other and pick them off, you're taking away several options with every unit. If he plays bigger ones, divert, divert, divert. Try to use every phase, look for good matchups right from the start during deployment. Don't give up the movement phase and just leave the game to him, run interference with those 30 point archer units!