8th Ed. Battle coming up vs high elfs. need advice quick!

[mixer86]

Ok, so my first battle in fantasy for about 12 years is against my mates high elfs at 1000 points.

I was hoping u guys could give me some tips on my list please. Firstly this is the list of elves i'll be facing:

Mage lvl 1 silver wand high lore
Korhil

20 sea guard
10 sword masters
10 White lions
Chariot
Repeater bolt thrower

And My List so far:

Scar veteran
Lvl 2 Skink Preist

24 saurus- spears, musician and standard bearer
16 skinks- full command
2 Kroxigor- join skink regiment

8 Chameleon Skinks

1 Salamander- 4 handlers

Total so far- 877

Now, this leaves me with 123 points, minus say 20 to give the scar vet weapon and shield, so about 100 points left.

Please help guys in the way of advice for what items/banners to use or what unit could maybe be added to be more successful against high elves.

Thanks

Edited. Do NOT post individual points values for units/items. Thank you.

 

[Xul]

this is what I had against a similar HE force and it wiped their pointy ears:
Saurus Oldblood 1 sw of hornet, glit.scales, dawnstone,shield
Saurus Warriors 29 stdb, musician
Skink Priest 1 L2, plaque of tepok
Salamander hunting pack 1 +1 handler
Salamander hunting pack 1 +1 handler
Skink skirmishers 11
Chameleon skinks 7

 

[mixer86]

Ok thanks for that. I was thinking of adding another sally.

I'm not sure on what tactics to employ. i was thinking:

-scar vet joins saurus and is the centre piece of the army
-skrox unit supports saurus unit as between them they take the elves head on, this will also hopefully lure the majority of the elves to form up and meet me head on.
-chameleons tackle the chariot then go hunting the bolt thrower and his mage
-2 sallys, one on each flank, act as the pincers and try and surround the bulk of the elf force and flame them back to the stoneage
-Skink priest remains a stand alone hidden behind the main force of saurus and skrox, meaning he can get close enough to utilise his magic, yet won't be in the direct line of fire.

Anyone see any flaws in this?

 

[Haemoglobin]

I would use the chameleons to take out his bolt thrower first, then anything else. At lower points, a bolt thrower can really hurt. The chariots main danger is the impact hits. Try to charge him first with something so he gets locked down in combat. (preferrably in his flanks).
Sword masters and White lions are the most powerful things in his army, but they are picked off easily because of their low numbers. You only need to take out one and he loses his rank bonus. The seaguard will probably be used to shoot at you, but are fairly squishy aswell. Maybe drop the skink cohorts for skink skirmishers so you can harass and shoot at the sword masters mainly. Beware of the White Lions though, they have a +2 armor save vs shooting.
I would try to cook the white lions and swordmasters with a salamander.

Personally I'm not a fan of Skrox units, but that is a personal prefference I play High elves regularly so ill give you some tips:

ASF on elves hurts. Thats why the swordmasters and White lions are dangerous. str6/5 hits with rerolls? Id rather not take those

They are squishy as hell. Using a large saurus block can easily kill them, but again, be careful with the swordmasters and white lions. A combined charge of those to on your saurus block will kick their asses.

Salamanders will eat elves alive. If you have two, try focusing on one block at a time. Fire all your shots at the enemy that looks most dangerous. Try to focus fire on them.

And about equipping the Scar-veteran: I would give him a great weapon. U will hit last all of the time anyways, might aswell give him str 7. Works like a charm against those squishy elves Try giving him an item that benefits his unit instead of personal defense. For instance: a GW, Crown of command (the saurus unit is Stubborn) and a Luckstone perhanps.

So yeah i hope this is of help to you

Good luck!

 

[mixer86]

Thanks, that is really helpful!

My thoery is cloud his mind with choice. I've played my friend many times in 40k, he's marines, at first i was tau, usually ended 50/50, i then switched to my all time fav 40k army, tyranids. I thing my friend deffiantely doesn't do well is prioritise targets, hence with nid numbers he took little chuunks out of many units rather than tackle one until it was gone, meaning he usually gets tabled due to being overwelmed. Therefore having the threat of krox's, a big saurus unit and sallys, based on experiance, he will split all his fire power and try to take them all down at once. this i hope will keep most of my stuff in relatively good nick by the time CC comes calling.

As i said i think if i deploy my skrox and saurus in the centre of the battlefield, i am pretty sure he'll feel obligated to face them head on with his white lions, swordmasters. He'll then probably try and use the chariot in cohesion to flank attack while charging with his hard hitters. then look to use his bolt thrower to take out either sallys or the kroxigors. And use his mage to weaken my big units before the charge.

So i agree with you, i deploy my skirmishers to immediately target his bolt thrower, getting shot of this allows my sallys to move into position unharmed and flamey flamey!

the skirmishers can then go after the mage, which could even result in his charge being altered or even halted, depending on where he deploys his mage.

At this point its a case of piling in to eliminate the rest of them.

Ha! sounds so simple doesn't it. Of course nothing ever goes completely to plan.

Keep your thoughts/ opinions coming guys, thanks so far!

 

[vapor]

Personally, I'd run something like:

Scar-vet-- light armor, shield, ironcurse icon
Scar-Vet-- BSB, light armor, shield

22+2 Skrox, FC
22 Saurus, Spears, FC

7 Chameleon Skinks

Salamander + crew
Salamander + crew


I dropped the Skink Priest for two reasons-- lore of heavens sucks, and a lvl one with high magic also sucks. As an added bonus, drain magic has no effect on you now.

With this list you have a general and a bsb who are both going to wound on 2's and nullify any armor saves on their natural strength, they also have a 3+ AS with parry.

You also have two solid blocks of infantry (and your tougher block has a 6+ ward save vs his bolt thrower). The Chameleon Skinks hunt down the bolt thrower first, then dance around and soften everything else up. The two Sally's should be your real killers though, get them around for flank shots and watch his elves melt! Since he is taking such small blocks and no bsb I think it would be worth it to try for multiple targets and try to panic them.

 

[Xul]

I have to say, that the priest proved very useful to me several times. I wouldn't say that heavens sucks in a 1K games. in bigger games, of course it is better to bring the frog with life/death/light. even if he was L1, the signature spell is very nice against shooting armies. concerning skrox, they didn't work for me well against HE. they are just too squishy and low WS. they die by dozen against missile fire and WS4 ASF with reroll and are often unable to kill anything (OK, the krox kill something from time to time).
concerning heroes, I agree scar vet is good as unit boost, but against characters, he will go down most of the time. the oldblood I listed is well able to kill a HE character (even named ones) in 1st round. HE players are quite surprised, when they find out we strike at the same time and they don't get to reroll.

 

[vapor]

I have to say, that the priest proved very useful to me several times. I wouldn't say that heavens sucks in a 1K games. in bigger games, of course it is better to bring the frog with life/death/light. even if he was L1, the signature spell is very nice against shooting armies. concerning skrox, they didn't work for me well against HE. they are just too squishy and low WS. they die by dozen against missile fire and WS4 ASF with reroll and are often unable to kill anything (OK, the krox kill something from time to time).
concerning heroes, I agree scar vet is good as unit boost, but against characters, he will go down most of the time. the oldblood I listed is well able to kill a HE character (even named ones) in 1st round. HE players are quite surprised, when they find out we strike at the same time and they don't get to reroll.

If the HE list he posted at the top is what he sees my list will demolish it.

Chameleon Skinks take out the BT and start chipping away at anything but the WL (preferably the sword masters).

Sallies burn out anything they come across, they're the real killers in the list. Main targets should be Korhils unit and the Sea Guard (assuming he's not in there).

Skrox move up, toss a few poison shots then stand and shoot whatever charges them or goes for a flank attack on whatever the the Saurus attack. If he shoots them or hits them with the chariot all the better, they can take both and come out fine. They're not really the mainline assault force in this list, their job is to mop up what the sallies don't kill or panic off.

By the time actual combat rolls around you have two scar vets and a champion in the Saurus unit to take out Korhil, if he challenges the champ accepts and the scar vets eat up his unit, if he doesn't you lose one of the scar vets but the others kill Korhil on the return attacks-- at the end of the day he's still T3 2 wounds with a 4+ AS (6+ vs scar vets).

 

[Haemoglobin]

I try to put in at least one wizar. Might as well use those power dice you are generating every turn.

 

[Larinus]

Now this thread has got me wondering. Yes, its all very well to know what your opponent is using and what tactics he might try and use on you. But what you're doing here is basically writing a whole battle report before you've actually played.

There's nothing wrong with that, most of the things that you predict to happen will probably happen, but don't you find its a bit boring? Knowing what's going to happen and when. Of course there's some randomness in dice rolls, and you're never going to know exactly what he's doing, but being able to - and, more to the point doing so - predict what will happen takes the fun out of this game of Warhammer.

It reminds me of one of those old Fifa games which you know really well, and you know that if you stand in front of the keeper when he's got the ball, then it will bounce of you and go in. Or there's a specific point on the pitch where you always score from. It gets BORING.

Personally, I'd want to create an army list where I don't know what my opponent has. Being able to win with one army against all other armies - that's a true sign of a good general. Using tactics in the game, acting and reacting to everything going on around you. That is, I feel, what this game is about, not planning for anything and everything that your opponent might or might not do.

 

[maffro]

i would replace the skink chief and scar vet with a old blood with enchanted shield, sigil sword , armour of destiny which gives you 0+ save 4+ ward and i10 in close combat

 

[Chahlie]

i would replace the skink chief and scar vet with a old blood with enchanted shield, sigil sword , armour of destiny which gives you 0+ save 4+ ward and i10 in close combat

You can't get a 0+ armor save anymore. It's capped at 1+

 

[maffro]

Change the third paragraph to “Note that a save of any kind
can never be better than 1+. This does not prevent a model
having items or special rules that would take the save even
lower, it simply caps the saving throw at 1+.

warhammer faq means that it can go lower