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7th Ed. Help needed against High Elves

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madmike

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I am hoping some of you, with wisdom from the old ones, can give me some armylist and tactic advice against high elf armies. I have been playing a friend who fields a HE list with swordmasters, dragon prices, bolt throwers and a decent amount of magic, with some warriors (a unit of spears and and a unit of bows) an eagle and some reavers to round out the list.

I have been using a 4th gen slaan surrounded by temple guard, a block of saurus, two units of kroxigors, three salamanders, two units of skinks (one as scouts), three terradons and a unit of 5 cav. (2000 pts)

I find that his units in general tend to be faster, have higher weapon skill, and with always strike first, a charge against them feels like being charged. (My Saurus Cav charged his units of swordmasters and were wiped out before they could even roll a die!). Getting combined charges off is really tough and I have been thinking perhaps I should try to combine my cav and kroxigor units to hopefully break a unit, but again, I can't seem to get the krox units on the dragon princes since they hang outside of their charge range. *sigh*

I was also wondering if I should add a skink priest or two to try to get a more powerful magic phase as he was able to completely shut down the Slaan for most of the games. I shut his magic phase down also, but he can out shoot and out maneuver me so perhaps I need to out-magic him?

I am trying to prepare for a tournament in a few weeks as well so while I would like to know how to better control high elf units, general structure is also important to me.

Any help that can be offered is much appreciated.
 
I've only fought high elves once with little success, though I imagine a flank attack could hurt them pretty good, that way they only get a few attacks on you. You could also try a JSoD to defeat the casters. I found the units you spoke of very intimidating.
 
This thread should provide you with some basic advice on dealing with ASF.

http://lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=48&sid=7fb64b7c22e7dbc8d705f76018782700

As to your specific situation, you should first take a deep breath, such high elf lists are common these days and far from unbeatable. My first question relates to what kind of magic he takes, because this will largely shape how you yourself should respond. If your opponent takes a Archmage and 2 mages, then I would suggest boosting your magic to try to outmatch him. However, if he is fielding 2 mages with a couple bound items in tow, I would suggest a different approach. In essense magic is like an arms race. The only problem is that high elves can reach a high output for comparitively fewer points. Although Lizardmen magic can be superior, the point at which Lizardmen can dominate the magic phase will come at a higher cost to you then it will be to him to match it. In this way, he will have more points to invest in troops, which because of ASF are your main concern.

If you are concerned with their magic, a cheaper way to mitigate their magic phase is to upgrade your slann to the third generation (as opposed to investing in a skink priest w/anti-magic goodness). A drain magic spell will prevent the most damaging spells, mitigating the need for the dispel scrolls that a skink priest carries. The trade-off for this is the lack of an additional dispel dice, although a tepok blessing adds a dice but with added resiliency.

And in complete opposition to what I just suggested, you can take a different approach entirely. If you take a second generation slann and put him behind a large terrain piece, the High Elf missiles and dd magic should not be able to reach him. This way, you can safely drop the Temple guard and the presumed plaque of protection, which gives you plenty of points to work with. This way, you can actually dominate the magic phase for cheaper than a traditional lizardmen list would. With skink priests acting as your slann's eyes, you can blast away with dd spells while still having spent less points then you would have with the temple guard. Asur, even with the ASF rule, are still the fragile elves they used to be. Cheap 5+ spells like fireballs and the such can make a much greater impact than they would against a horde army. Also, it is difficult for a high elf mage to drain magic something which he cannot see.

As far as dealing with ASF high elves go, you need to play off the strengths in the Lizardmen list.

(a) Impact hits still go before ASF troops. This means that a stegadon, with its d6+1 impact hits, can go toe to toe with most infantry and cavalry units. The high toughness of the stegadon means that he can also allow himself to be charged by spearmen with little worry that he wont be there when the smoke clears. Although Strength 5 swordmasters are a big concern, the impact hits should do you well.

(b) Even with the ASF rule, only the units in b2b can actually attack you. Consider the benefits of a JSOD, who can charge the flank of a single ranked unit such as Dragon Princes. He will only be attacked twice before he lays in with his great weapon. The beautiful thing is that you can place your JSOD on a flank in such a way that if any unit on your battle line flees and causes the DP to have a failed charge, the JSOD's 18" charge would ensure contact.

(c) Lizardmen have expendable troops in the form of skinks. High elves do not. Do not be afraid to place your skinks so that your opponent has no choice but to charge them (but enough to the side that if they charge the skinks they will be drawn in a direction away from the main battle). He can either choose to ignore the skinks and take a turn or two to reform, or go after the skinks. By placing hard hitting/shooting units (such as sallies, krox, etc.) flanking the charge path, you force your opponent hand. Although the high elves have units with greater movement values, he has no expendable units which he can screen his troops with, meaning that you can force him to go after chicken feed or go after nothing.

There are several other tips Ive gotten over the past year or so but this post is getting rather long :oops:
 
Thank you for your reply. You have given me much to consider and I have been rethinking Slaans. I noticed that a 2nd gen Slaan is about the same points as a 4th gen with a plaq of Tepok and Dominion but is much more powerful. If I remove the temple guard as you suggest and add a level 2 priest my magic phase looks much better. Adding a diamdem of power allows me to to attempt to shut down his magic phase with a powerful drain magic and then pool the unused dispel dice to make the next magic phase even more powerful.

In the past I have used my saurus blocks to move up the center and flank with the krox and cav units. What I have noticed is that this doesn't allow for a lot of combined charges so I am thinking of reversing that and having the krox and cav spearhead up the center to form an arc so my Slaan can get within 24" of most units to cast at shooting units and with the priest off to the side, still have a good view of table.

I noticed that the Beast lore has a shut cav/warmachine down spell and that would be very helpful against dragonprinces.

I was worried about the slaan not being in a unit but with 2 extra wounds for a 2nd gen and the bear spell, he should survive a round or two from just about any charge. I was wondering, can a Slaan issue a challenge? That would reduce the number of attacks against him wouldn't it in most situations? He would be returning 4 str 5 attacks assuming I get off the Bear spell... Sounds formidable.
 
He can issue a challange but he cannot use the bear's anger spell as it only works on unit strength 1 heros or lords, the slann is unit Strength 5 I believe
 
Oh, right. Forgot about the Unit Str. restriction. Thanks.
 
However, the flaming sword of rhuin can still be cast by the slann on himself (no US restriction for the spell). As long as you have a nice terrain piece that you can hide behind and a good blocking formation in front of the slann, using the plaque of tepok to add the flaming sword of rhuin for insurance is normally sufficient.
 
Hmm, I like the flaming sword, but it won't do any good against those Dragon Princes and their fire proof armor. I expect to get charged by them since my opponent has been fielding two units, one on each side of the board.
 
Hopefully, if you hide your Slann behind a nice piece of terrain, you will be able to slay the DP before they get close enough. Dont be afraid to position Kroxies along the charge routes to significantly slow the DP.
 
Here are some tips which should help you. I refer you specifically to number 3 on the list, it is very useful for making those dumb dragon princes go where you want them and setting up flank charges (which are really the only relatively safe way to charge ASF elves...)

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=204&hilit=skink+ploys

Good luck!
 
Thanks for these ideas. I did end up getting charged by the Dragon Princes and they held the Slaan in place until a unit of White Lions arrived to break the combat and overrun him. :( I realized just a little too late that I had used all of my skinks to redirect charges up field and had no one near the Slaan to help him out late in the game. Will make sure to correct that next game. :)

A question came up during the game when I wanted to cast cleansing flare in a close combat that involved the
Slaan, a unit of sarus and a unit of Dragon Princes. When the spell is cast, it says all enemy units are affected and that the hits are distributed like shooting. If this spell is used in cc are the hits randomized between friendly units and enemy units (such as when Skaven shoot into cc)? And if the Slaan is in the combat as well, can he be hit by his own spell?
 
The Skaven randomization of hits is a race-specific rule. For the rest of us, we work upon a different mechanic. Unless I am mistaken, there should be a line in the BRB that will tell you that some magic spells can damage units even when they are in combat. Since I dont have the book in front of me, I cannot confirm this. But, I would assume that either the spell says it can damage ALL units (including combat) or there should be a descriptor deliniating between magic missiles and general spells.

I probably should have mentioned this before, but if you field a lone slann it really helps to hold back your army a little bit. The slanns magic should be devestating enough to make the enemy come to you.
 
That sounds like the way I interpret it also. The magic section has specifics for magic missles and template spells but not area of effect (ie all enemy with in 12" of caster) so that was why I wanted to check. Under the shooting section under Shooting and Combat it does talk about spells but seems to be indicated those which use a template and so also doesn't cover it. I read the spell as saying all 'enemy' and so this precludes friendly units but my opponent had another possible interpretation and I always try to give the benefit of the doubt if there is no crystal clear ruling.

Oh, and will take your advice on snugging up the units a bit to help protect the Slaan. I found them starting to drift away from him however as they scrambled to redirect charges and possibly set up flank charges. I also need to send out some warmachine bashers to get rid of those bolt throwers the high elves use. They scored 4 wounds on my Slaan before I could eliminate them.
 
If you want, you could post your current army list in the army list forum.

Otherwise, speaking generally I would say that a FSoD would be your best war machine hunter in this situation (although a JSoD might be better if you are using the cloak on a priest). A FSoD, with a sword of might and BSoS, should be able to take out a bolt thrower crew in one turn. Not only that, but the sword of might will allow him to charge the lone mage even if he has gone ethereal.
 
terradons are solid warmachine hunters with their st.4 attacks. should be able to take care of a bolt thrower crew. a little tip though: it may not be best to hit and run in that situation because if you don't kill or break them in one turn and then you run away, they will have another turn to shoot you. if the crew are still in combat they obviously can't shoot. Also it is a good idea to set it up so you're charging from the side. that way you can pursue from bolt thrower to bolt thrower and don't have to worry about chasing off the board edge. also if you don't catch the running crew they could cause panic tests in other warmachine crew or other units that have hung back like archers etc.
 
My only concern is that Terradons might be overkill against high elf bolt-throwers. With only 2 T 3 crewmen, even a unit of 3 terradons seems to be overkill.
 
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