Witch elves...ultimate chaff clearers?

[Gidean]

You know for under 51 points, those 3 poison attacks and being stubborn around our cauldrons just might make Witch elves the best anti-chaff unit. Chaff is usually low in toughness and has no armor (hounds, wolves, bats, rat darts, etc.). Even the tougher sabertusks should fall to most witch assaults.

Field the witches in 5 lady units for under 51 points. Cheaper than harpies. More staying power too if they loose. Only down side is they cause our nearby troops to panic if they are destroyed or broken. But what I am thinking is that they hit the chaff, destroy it and make for the border to avoid giving away their points.

Food for thought.

[Omnichron]

Yes, they are great at taking out chaff as long as they manage to charge those units (Which are faster than the witch elves). The lack of movement makes the harpies a much better choice imo.

They are perfect for the role as a shield for an aggressive list where you don't want your opponent to get the charge on your other units in their round (As you might need magic or CoB support to win the combat over a unit). Placing the Witch Elves in front of the next unit, means that any charges against the unit has to go into the witch elves first. Since they have high Initiative, there's a good chance they might take down something before they die, and if the opponent overrun into your next unit, you can countercharge and buff/debuff as much as you want/can.

[Daeron]

Deploy them 3 wide, 2 deep.. suicide charge a bunker carrying a low armor mage. 21 poison attacks on 4+ (or 3+) with a reroll. Joy. That said.. I have yet to try it myself!

[Omnichron]

And with the chance of a mindrazor on them, you can cut through knightbuses, monsters and all kind of things. The 5 witch elves are awesome in certain situations, but they are easy to kill.

[Calisson]

One good point about this unit is to be ITP thanks to frenzy.
Take two of such chaff units.
If the opponent ignores them, you're happy to prove him wrong.
If the opponent decides to take care of them at distance, he needs to kill them to the last man, er, woman, er, elfin or whatever.
That's because they will never panic on losing even 80% of them, or having the other unit destroyed nearby.
It forces the opponent to commit disproportiate amount of shooting/MM to kill just one small unit to the last model (yeah, they sure qualify as model, even top models).

[Gidean]

Yes, they are great at taking out chaff as long as they manage to charge those units (Which are faster than the witch elves). The lack of movement makes the harpies a much better choice imo.

What I am thinking is that when your opponent send HIS/HER chaff up to stall you, you send in the witch elves to take care of it. Their 17 inch charge potential should be able to make contact with the chaff he has sent forward. If he runs, all the better. Now he is out of the way of the unit he intended to block.

Like everything in the game some finesse is required.

[Ehakir]

That's because they will never panic on losing even 80% of them, or having the other unit destroyed nearby.

In the previous edition, this was even more fun. Especially when an enemy wizard was within charge distance, but out of LOS of your witch elf unit. When just one was still left after the rest was killed, it suddenly gained 360 degrees LOS --> CHARGE THE WIZARD!!!

[Omnichron]

What I am thinking is that when your opponent send HIS/HER chaff up to stall you, you send in the witch elves to take care of it.

Yes, I see the point, although if it's a good player you might just end up having your witch elves block yourself. If he blocks your killer unit you have with chaff and you charge with witch elves to clear it out, he might just flee with more distance and get out of the way, and you end up in front of your own unit. If he doesn't flee, you might win and overrun... and a low roll there and you end up blocking the unit the next turn again. With harpies and other units, you will end up getting a reform.

It's situational of course, and the witch elves can work out very well as small units, but I still think that we have better options for handling chaff.

[Paricidas]

Compared to the chaff, the "potential" charge range of 17 is rather slughish. A dwarfen ironbreaker has 15 potential" charge range.
Most chaff also has some kind of special rule for the movement phase, and "frenzyy" really is not the kind of ability that works well for chaff-hunting.

Not to say that MSU witch lists do not have their mererits, but an army that can field RXBs in combination with estimated 200 MMs and produces PDs like stiltskin on LSD should probably not worry too much about chaff. (To proof myself wrong in the minute I spoke it out, my 20 RXBs and the 2 fire mages did not kill a single chaff-model in my game yesterday...)

[L1qw1d]

Or you can put the +1" M Banner on them if you have a fire mage. Not saying it's a great idea, but it changes a lot of their ranges and then coordinate with the harpies.

[Daemon of khaine]

yesterday I tried a unit of 5 against WoC
I gave them KB from the Cauldron and charged them into 5 hounds, and then into the 5 Knights right behind them
I added Word of Pain as well, and he didn't understand when I told him his Knights were all dead

[Daeron]

That's a nice score. If you had a champ in that WE unit, you had about 11% chance to kill them all. That's hardly a reliable outcome, but certainly less "far off" than some might believe. Without the poison, their odds would have been marginally better.

Surprising actually.. They can really damage that unit by the looks of it. But then, rolling 6's as a strategy is always a risk

[Omnichron]

Yeah, my 21 witch elves hit the flank of a knights units once some time ago, and ended up getting decimated the next rounds.... it usually goes the bad way for our deadly ladies. That's why I like shadow lore.

[Red...]

In the previous edition, this was even more fun. Especially when an enemy wizard was within charge distance, but out of LOS of your witch elf unit. When just one was still left after the rest was killed, it suddenly gained 360 degrees LOS --> CHARGE THE WIZARD!!!

I remember something similar happening to my unit of Chaos Marauders once - spent the entire game getting whittled down by some irksome skinks who kept slinking just out of charge arc, but on the final turn of the game he shot down all but one and he got to charge them with his 360' line of sight, beat them and ran them down - Khorne for the win! XD

[Trax]

Calisson summed up pretty much what's so great about small WE units: There's no easy way to get rid of them.

Even 5 of them are perfectly capable of slicing a unit of... anything (especially knights) to pieces if a Mindrazor finds their way or, in case of infantry, almost any other buff spell is more than enough.

You can't charge them with your own chaff and magic missiles or small amounts of BS fire will almost always fail to kill a 6 or 8 elves strong unit and the remains are still quite hurtful.

[Daemon of khaine]

That's a nice score. If you had a champ in that WE unit, you had about 11% chance to kill them all.

oh yeah, on paper the odds are way against the witch elves, but here's the kicker:
- 5 witch elves: 50 points
vs
- 5 chaos hounds: 30 points
- 5 knights with full command, enscroled weapons, maybe a magic banner: 245+ points

so with a bit of luck (four 6's on 11 dice isn't that unlikely, it's like a 50% chance) I killed 275+ points with 50 points, that's a 5 to 1 ratio. hell a single knight would have almost earned their points back

and the fun thing against Chaos is that he can't charge them with his hounds because I'll butcher them, he can't charge them with Knights because I'll hurt them and then counter attack, he doesn't have shooting... all he really has against them is magic and he won't be happy to waste it on them when I have a Hydra and what not

plus now he'll fear them, I can use them to counter his flanking Knights, to keep them off the rest of my army. even if he gets the charge, it won't matter anything

[Gidean]

This was the kind of thinking I had in mind for my original post. Killing hounds. sabertucks and direwolves. Even against skinks. Yes. They can stand and shoot but they better pray that two ladies are not left to deal with them.

The 5 being David vs. Goliath is just an added bonus.

[Setomidor]

Problem is you can't waste the CoB blessing on having KB on your 5 witches unless they're actually charging something useful. In turns where they do not, you'll have to leave them vanilla and just hope they don't get overrun.

That said, I do think that some armies can struggle with removing a pair of 5-women WE units. Using them as cheap torpedoes with Mindrazor support can be potentially very powerful against some armies that we normally struggle with, such as Ogres. Interesting, might have to try it.