8th Ed. High Elf Tyranny

[Gor-rok]

A new fantasy player has joined our league, and has quickly blow through most opposition with his High Elves. For having just started WFB, he seems to have rapidly picked up on the nastiest tricks, and it's going to fall to me to end the reign of terror.

He's claimed a Mage Tower in the campaign that gives one of his wizards Loremaster, and said lvl 4 wizard takes the Book of Hoeth and Lore of Life, and then bunkers up in a huge block of sword masters. Aside from a unit of Dragon Princes, the rest of his list appears pretty standard.

Life is nasty, but because he needs to buff his own unit, he can't take the World Dragon Banner- thus making them vulnerable to spells. I'm deeply contemplating bane head + feedback scroll, plus the statuette of spite- I think the army will fold once the wizard goes down.

Life seems like a good choice for me to take as well, but if I'm in range to cast Dwellers, so is he. This makes me wonder if the Slann should go with temple guard at all, to avoid making him more of a target than he needs to be.

With ASF against me, Light just doesn't seem to have the advantage that it usually does, though Shadows might be worthwhile. Beasts + a bunch of scar veterans might be interesting, too...

After comments like "No other race can equal the magic of the High Elves- after all, we taught it to you lesser races!", it's clear that this opponent must be destroyed utterly. Your aid in securing victory is needed, now more than ever!

 

[Coatl]

lol nice way of asking for help, love the style. whats the points range? thatll definately dictate your slann build. if its 3k, and your stuck on what lore to take, TAKE 2 SLANN!!!! i can't stress the 2 slann build enough (I'm copyrighting the term Buddy System ) having two level 4 loremasters with extra power dice, one being the bsb with the ability to say "no 6's for you" is just the bee's knees. in range of his level 4 with dwellers? who cares, no 6's makes that a challenge for the boosted version. save those dispel dice just in case. he still has to equal the casting value to get irresistible with doubles. thats tough to do with no 6's. if you feel like laughing a lot, give both slanns life. two dwellers is always, ALWAYS better than one in closing: DEATH TO THE HERETICS! p.s. sallies are game changers. you could take a slann with heavens, put him and a brick of saurus in a corner and run 10 (yes 10) sallies and watch the frustration set in. o whats that? you want to charge sallie unit X? ok, i'll just go ahead and flee. sallie units Y and Z can just dominate your flank while unit X rallies

 

[Arli]

Also remember that salamanders re-roll wounds when wounding in buildings. They will make short work of his unit with an automatic panic check.

 

[Xlcontiqu]

I would go Light against HE. Sure, it lacks Dwellers, but the buffs take away some of the main strengths of the HE army, i.e. high I and ASF. Suddenly, those PG or SM hitting on 4+ with no rerolls do not seems as deadly. Your aforementioned magic item selection could do the trick in taking out the mage. Another possibility is an ASF saurus hero, or two getting into the block to pop the mage. If he runs it without a champion the mage should be an easy kill.

 

[L1qw1d]

I thought spells were only able to be had by one caster (eg: both can HAVE life- but if Dwellers came up twice, the second caster gets to choose another)?

 

[Viarca]

If you can keep ToV off his Archmage, don't neglect to consider the utility of Cupped Hands. If the army seems to be propped up by the caster, then throw lots of dice at your spells and you'll miscast eventually (hoping for a 2-4 or 10-12) to either devastate the SM unit and possibly make the mage go away entirely, or hopefully cripple his casting ability for the game.

As Coatl mentioned, Becalming Cogitation is another very useful tool, as unlike DE and their silly dagger and no dice limit (and Slann with Rumination), losing rolls of 6 can really hurt HE. The Book of Hoeth makes things more problematic with all doubles being Irresistable Force, but it will make him allocate dice differently and may even end a few magic phases early by having him fail to meet a casting value.

 

[Arli]

I thought spells were only able to be had by one caster (eg: both can HAVE life- but if Dwellers came up twice, the second caster gets to choose another)?

The loremaster ability negates that rule. Since a loremaster does not roll for the spells, you can have two loremasters with the same lore (or a loremaster and another mage that rolls the spells).

 

[Coatl]

even if he has ToV on, cupped hands will still work and heres why:

-cast spell
-irresistable force
*throne of vines takes effect here*
-roll on the miscast table
*cupped hands takes effect here*

throne of vines lets you ignore the miscast role, cupped hands happens after your roll on the table and it says "apply the result of the miscast". so your not making them miscast (which is what ToV gives you a 2+ against), your making them suffer the result of said miscast. you still lose the power dice from your pool (FAQ). If your opponent decides to argue something crazy, first remind him of The Most Important Rule. if he persists, GW has gone to a default ruling when theres a rules conflict: The player's whose turn it is decides what goes first. So tell him ToV will go first and then cupped hands. this would essentially let you use his ToV, which is completely illegal, thus reinforcing the above determination of when things actually happen in that sequence
yea theres nothing you can really do against BoH, just hope he fails to meet the casting value.
man i love loremaster

 

[ryan88]

Oh i loathe high elves. My main opponent does this crap all the time. I've only fought him with my wood elves really but for lizzies it seems a slann is needed.

rule 1. take a slann
rule 2. be a dick and take as many salamanders as you can. I like using 6 or so.


The slann with the protecting palaquin is sweet, i make mine eth too, a power scroll, and life lore, the bonus dice.(i don't skimp) and if the palaquin dosent protect via magic take a magic res 2 item. you'll have a 2+ward to everything but magic combat and with 6 sallies you can roast whatever comes near. Roll up a 6 for winds of magic, use that scroll, crank out a dwellers and aim for the mage unit and masters half of them will die on average. the leader is no excpetion. its a 50/50 crack at it, if you dont off the mage, its panic time, and certainly less swordmasters. so you miscast big deal you have no units around to suffer and you get a 2+ ward. and since you cast a life spell you might get a wound back! Temple guard are not needed here.

Dragon princes can be annoying, so can swordmatsters. if you are feeling brave you can hit him with a steg for impact hits crushing his cav before they strike first.

not too sure what i can say that will help more, but trust me on the salamanders, tehy bring a world of hurt to any army and they ruin armour that elves rely on with wimpy T3.

 

[Coatl]

10 sallies ! only in 3k though i think your talking about divine plaque (increase the 4+ ward to 2+). its against ranged attacks, so no MR needed. ethereal would be a bit overkill since you'll have a 4+ LoS (if your crafty) and then a 2+ ward, but to each his own. youd have to caste another life spell to get that wound back, the spell takes full effect (including lore atribute_ before you roll for the miscast. burn dem elves!

 

[ryan88]

10 sallies ! only in 3k though i think your talking about divine plaque (increase the 4+ ward to 2+). its against ranged attacks, so no MR needed. ethereal would be a bit overkill since you'll have a 4+ LoS (if your crafty) and then a 2+ ward, but to each his own. youd have to caste another life spell to get that wound back, the spell takes full effect (including lore atribute_ before you roll for the miscast. burn dem elves!

Oh i know it takes effect first i meant if you'd take a wound earlier in the game.

The sallies being 6 were i think at the 2k lv but the more the merrier.

The ethereal i use because it makes almost everything inmpossible to hurt me. close combat isn't going their way one bit. they can't hurt me with flyers trying to assasinate or god forbid infantry get through, or knight, if the sallies have failed. its only 50 points but its a really great cover up since in combat you only get a 4+ ward.

 

[Gor-rok]

Thanks for all the feedback, folks. The point value that this goes down at is going to depend on how soon we get to challenge each other (escalation); we're at 1750 now.

My game for this week was against Wood Elves, so I tested Beast magic out on them tonight. My findings:

A) When it works, it really, really works. I had three sarus heroes on cold ones murdering their way through all and sundry, and the Slann jumped in, too (killed two elves in one round!). It's awfully dependent on getting your spells off, though. One terrible magic phase and it could be game over (might want to consider sacrificial priest with forbidden rod).

B) Infantry is too slow to make proper use of this lore. I had the boys in with some temple guard, and by the time we hit their line there were too few guards left to accomplish much protecting. I initially went with the cold ones for armor and for avoiding tree man thunder stomping, but now I'm almost thinking it's the way to go for the whole unit (and the -1 casting requirement doesn't hurt).

Hear me out here. Assuming a semi normal deployment scenario:

Slann takes Beasts, the usual goodies, and the movement banner. Deploys behind/near...

Cold One riders. Banner is either Sun Standard, Huanichi's, or Jaguar. With them are as many mounted scar veterans as I can fit in the list- minimal gear.

Flanking these , in escort, are my core units (in this case, my usual big skrox units, for the sake of speed), and the salamanders.

1. Point Cavalry unit at swordmaster battlestar with stupid caster.
2. Try at all costs to dispel ToV.
3. Fend off flank attacks with steadfast skrox.
4. Buff cavalry heroes.
5. Charge battlestar.
6. Win!

Or so it goes on paper. Think it's worth a shot?

 

[Leokill27]

I play a HE player regularly too, and its hard. I've never thought of beasts as an option, I prefer light too much.

I dont know how that tactic would work, HE can generate a lot of dice the D3 banner and if hes using teclis at any point *god forbid* thats another D3. So you'd be pushing to get those spells out.

I like using The Blood Statuette of Spite, T test or take a wound, rinse and repeat till you pass or die. You could easily kill him in the first magic phase you get, toss some dice at a dangerous spell. Flesh to stone or something, draw his dispel dice out. Then power level 5 spell comes out to do some damage, works for me often

Good luck!

 

[Coatl]

scar one vets on CoC?!?! ingenious addition to the scar vet deathstar. that would be very sneaky, i approve