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8th Ed. Trouble with elves

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liath

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<scared looks>Hi all</scared looks>

I'm a lizard of a month or two now and I have been taking great delight in using them in battle, usually agains High Elves. However after recieving a good kicking in our first battle my mate has started pulling out all the stops to shut the slann down. He's using a magic item which lets him steal a die each turn, a banner of saphery (3D dice per turn) and various other vicious items.

My question is simple, what can I use to regain control of the magic phase? I tend to use Lore of Life (It's all about dwellers below and flesh to stone!). In terms of skills for the slann I grab the free dice, entire law one and if I've got the points imune to non-magic attacks one. However he's simply out power dicing me...

Thanks in advance
 
Turn the tables by taking the "discard 6's" discipline. Several armies have items that really unbalance the magic phase under 8th ed rules and there isn't too much you can do about it besides not making your entire battle plan revolve around getting a good magic phase.

Trying to kill the characters with the items mentioned should also be top priority if you feel they are wrecking your game that badly.
 
Remember that becalming cogitation (discard 6s) has to be within 24 inches. Played against Teclis Saturday and he stayed outside my range the entire game.
 
Arli said:
Remember that becalming cogitation (discard 6s) has to be within 24 inches. Played against Teclis Saturday and he stayed outside my range the entire game.
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I try to make room for a Blood Statuette of Spite anytime I expect to see him. It's also handy for most other casters as well.
 
Teclis still has to meet the minimum casting value of the spell he is trying to cast in order to get irresistible on non-double 6's. Its right in the HE errata. Hes still a jerk though XD
 
Plaque of Dominion, Becalming Cogitation, Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, and the Focused Rumination. Make sure you're taking a dispell scroll too (on a different hero). Taking Focus of Mystery is good but perhaps not the best choice in this situation because with our massive amount of casting die, it's nice to have more spells to cast, but in a scenario where your magic phase is being cut short, it's less important to cast a lot of spells and more important to cast at all. Your points might be better spent on other stuff. Also, although i completely support your choice of life against high elves, death and fire both have casting buffs/extra die as the lore trait, that might help too.
 
Sun Drinker said:
Plaque of Dominion, Becalming Cogitation, Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, and the Focused Rumination. Make sure you're taking a dispell scroll too (on a different hero). Taking Focus of Mystery is good but perhaps not the best choice in this situation because with our massive amount of casting die, it's nice to have more spells to cast, but in a scenario where your magic phase is being cut short, it's less important to cast a lot of spells and more important to cast at all. Your points might be better spent on other stuff. Also, although i completely support your choice of life against high elves, death and fire both have casting buffs/extra die as the lore trait, that might help too.
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Actually, knowing all of life might be a good thing in addition to rumination. (and cogitation as well, the discarded 6's has ended many a wizards casting turn for me when they don't reach a casting value).

The more spells you cast the better rumination gets, so on an average turn you'll have 7 powerdice and he'll have 4 dispell dice as base. If he takes the annulian crystal (which eats up an arcane item slot meaning he'll have to spend points on a second wizard to bring a dispel scroll or other arcane item) it will change to 6 and 5.

The majority of life spells can be cast using one power die and the one free die from rumination-- so cast ToV (1+1), Earth blood(1+1), awakening of the wood (1+1) and flesh to stone (1+1), and you'll still have 2+1 to throw at regrowth or shield of thorns (if you feel brave then 1+1 at each)--- in effect you've turned 6 powerdice into 11 (or 12). In order to dispell anything he'll have to at least match you in dice and will run out faster than you do. Don't forget that if he fails to dispell your casting he can't use that wizard to dispell for the rest of the turn, so usually he'll want to throw an extra die just to be safe.

What winning the magic phase comes down to is outbluffing your opponent into dispelling the spells you don't care about while letting the ones you do want go through. I like to toss a powered up dwellers below in the first turn in order to eat up dispell scrolls and freak the enemy out a bit-- you'd be amazed at how often people will let the real game winners (tov, eb, f2s) through when you're holding 4-5 extra dice in you hand and mumble things like "well, they're strength 3, so I should wipe out half of them..." I never really expect dwellers to go through, I just consider it a nice bonus if it does and plan my fights accordingly. Lizzies win on the strength of our infantry, so buffing them is the path to victory.

When it comes to fighting high elves test the waters with an awakening of the wood at the unit their BSB is in to find out if he's carrying the immune to spell effects banner (If he is then toss a large block of Saurus at them, he can't buff that unit with the banner there but you can buff the Saurus!). The banner of sorcery only gives him power dice, not dispell dice (I couldn't tell if he was doing that from the sound of your post).

Oh, and bring along salamanders, they find elves of all flavors very tasty.
 
Am I right that salamanders count as war machines so aren't limited by the once per fame breath wePon rules?
 
Salamanders aren't counted as war machines, however there weapon isn't counted as a breath weapon, it justs uses the flame template and many of the breath weapon rules, so you can use it as many times you want in a game.
 
Sallies are counted as war beasts.
 
I just played against High Elves in a 1,750 point game last night and he wiped the floor with me. He took his level 4 mage with shadow and Book of Hoeth, of course he got pit of shades. He was telling me that taking Book of Hoeth on an Archmage negated the rule that you still had to hit the casting cost of the spell in addition to getting doubles. He killed 5 TG turn 1 with a PoS IF, killed the Slann and a couple more TG turn 2 with another PoS IF, and it was over by then. The rest of the game he rolled for Okham's against me and kept getting IF EVERY damn spell he threw. RAGE. :shamefullyembarrased:

So, a couple questions I guess.

1. Does the Book of Hoeth work the same on both Teclis and Archmages? My thoughts are yes and the FAQ says the same, as far as I read it. I can't remember if he would have made the rolls anyway, and we didn't have the FAQ in front of us.

2. Mindrazor - Do you use the modified strength value to modify armor saves? I read somewhere on here you didn't but I'm not sure why you wouldn't.

3. Hoeth seems incredibly broken under these circumstances, am I wrong in feeling that way?

4. Other than that, what the hell can I do against Pit of Shades, Pendulum, or Purple Sun?

I know the last one has probably been answered a hundred times, but it flabbergasts me still.
 
Yea my last batle was against a similar list, except he also ha tecelis :P
To counter actr all the Pos and Purple suns I fugured I would get hit by
I had opted for the Lore of Light.... Sadly I was wardly able to get any spells off
and allmost all of his spelll went off.... (stupid mind razor)...
meaning my troops died horibly to blocks of 50 AFS rerolling ST 8 and 4 ranks attack.
my block of 25 saurus wariors where reduced to 2 after the first round...
also my temple guard and stann where hit by 3 Pos leaving me at 1/2
strenght and then I miscast on light speed failed rolling on cuped hands
and blow up all but 2 temple guard.

I am not liking High Elves in 8th....
 
Pwidget said:
I just played against High Elves in a 1,750 point game last night and he wiped the floor with me. He took his level 4 mage with shadow and Book of Hoeth, of course he got pit of shades. He was telling me that taking Book of Hoeth on an Archmage negated the rule that you still had to hit the casting cost of the spell in addition to getting doubles. He killed 5 TG turn 1 with a PoS IF, killed the Slann and a couple more TG turn 2 with another PoS IF, and it was over by then. The rest of the game he rolled for Okham's against me and kept getting IF EVERY damn spell he threw. RAGE. :shamefullyembarrased:

So, a couple questions I guess.

1. Does the Book of Hoeth work the same on both Teclis and Archmages? My thoughts are yes and the FAQ says the same, as far as I read it. I can't remember if he would have made the rolls anyway, and we didn't have the FAQ in front of us.

2. Mindrazor - Do you use the modified strength value to modify armor saves? I read somewhere on here you didn't but I'm not sure why you wouldn't.

3. Hoeth seems incredibly broken under these circumstances, am I wrong in feeling that way?

4. Other than that, what the hell can I do against Pit of Shades, Pendulum, or Purple Sun?

I know the last one has probably been answered a hundred times, but it flabbergasts me still.
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1. He still has to reach the casting cost "will be cast with IF on any successful casting roll..." Successful means he has to hit the casting cost with the dice.

2. I was just recently wrong about this-- by the BRB alone it's only to wound, but the FAQ removes that restriction. So Mindrazor is as powerful as a top spell should be.

3. It is, but we have quite a few broken things too, so don't complain to people outside of our forum. :D

4. You've got a few options. Kill the mage as fast as you can; if he's taking the book he doesn't have room to put any kind of ward save on the mage-- so blood statuette of spite, lore of death sniper spells or dwellers below, charging terradons/chameleon skinks... you get the idea. Squeeze in becalming cogitation, hard to do at 1750 but discarding 6's means it will be harder for him to get reach his casting costs and if he fails to cast a spell he can't cast with that wizard for the rest of the turn. Take the cube of darkness and hope you can shut down his magic phase-- which is not the best option but it might help.
 
Thanks for all the help. I know we are pretty OP and Slann is game-breaking, it was just really frustrating that there was absolutely nothing I could do, and I haven't been slaughtered that badly before. That part was more just venting. I'll make sure I pay the pretty little fairies back in spades the next time we play.
 
how many salamanders did you have in your list against him? they just love big blocks of T3 elves :)
 
I had 2, and they did well. However we had the one where you deploy diagonally and the terrain really limited my deployment, which limited their effectiveness for the first few turns.
 
One trick I came across when I had difficulty getting my own magic through was to equip my slann with the bane head and the tricksters shard.
The effects of which are that when you declare the use of the shard, on a successful dispel the opponents mage will suffer two wounds no armour saves. Doing so really put the pressure on my opponent, does he have his archmage dispel a lot of the spells and potentially die? or does he let his lesser mages try and suffer a single wound? either way if there is only one mage if had better be an archmage with three wounds cause the slann can get a lot of spells cast and he's going to want to try and dispel the big spell.
I am aware of most of the counter arguments to this sneaky little trick but it was still fun to pull out and against players that aren't prepared for the combination it can really make them panic.
 
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