Fighting HE in 8th (Newbie)

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Dirty Mac
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Fighting HE in 8th (Newbie)

Post by Dirty Mac »

Hi, After procrastinating for too long , i have finally gotten most of my Dark Elf army put together.

I still need to get some more things, but i will be fighting HE 99% of the time. I haven't had a Game of warhammer yet, but i want to be prepared.

I have the Battalion box, with Shadowblade, a RBT, and a 2 sorc Blister pack.
Getting a Hydra next week, and some BG down the line.

Basically my friend has been telling me how awesome HE are, and i would like to be able to keep it on an even keel so to speak. I understand they get ASF and all this other crazy stuff. and their Magic is almost top tier.

I have done a fair amount of topic searching, and I understand a lot of knowledge will come from regular playing, but i have a very busy schedule. and i find it easier having a discussion topic, where i can ask specific questions. I dont know what they are just yet, but i am sure i will come up with one.

My plan is to eventually have a
lvl4 shadow sorc, lvl2 dark sorc, a block of 20 rxb, 25 spearmen, 20 corsairs, 12-14 CoK, 20 BG , a CoB , 5 shades+ Assassin. Hydra, RBT.

I keep hearing about a guy called Teclis and how his Magic is unstoppable.
Is he common? is he beatable? I also heard that HE have weakness against shooting, and i planned on casting Miasma to lower his toughness, and try to whittle his units down with ranged attacks. Probably his 20 sword masters. can our magic phase stand up to HE dispelling? he told me he has items that cancel my magic phase all together.
And he has a dragon i am worried about.

Thanks in advance
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Teclis has an ability where on ANY doubles for his castings, they count as irresistible force, meaning there is nothing you can do to stop the spell being cast.

They have a magic item that is one use only, and will instantly cancel out your magic phase just like that. Teclis is VERY weak and easily killed. The trouble is, he is usually in a very powerful unit that'll chop your assailing unit down before it gets to stab Teclis.

Shooting indeed is HE's greatest weakness imo. Their CC abilities are very good now, but they lack defense against shooting. If you concentrate fire, you can whittle a swordmaster unit down to nothing significant in one round because all they have is heavy armour, our AP will drop that to a 6+.

Magic can indeed stand up to HE, items like dagger will help give you an edge against them. But you can still make do without it if you can pressure him well with good single die rolls.

Dragons can be intimidating, but can lose to SCR quite easily if you challenge it with an insignificant champion for example.

You army list set up is a nice standard one and will perform nicely. I might chip off 2 CoK to a unit of 12 and expand on the spearmen block. 25 is ok, but if you can bump it to 30+, it'll be more sturdy.
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Geist
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Post by Geist »

First off, anyone who brings a named character like Teclis to a game for a newbie, as your calling yourself, is just being rude crude crass and doubtful they want the game to be any fun. Having said that bit here's how you deal with high elves.

Hydras, they no like em, hydras will munch just about any unit the high elves have, the best case rank and file will wound it on 3+ and that means those poor lads have got to deal with it leaving rest of your army free to do its thing.

Shooting, most high elf units are very allergic to lots of low st ap shots like repeaters so stock up. The woodsmen will be busy fighting the hydras and they are the only unit that is fairly safe from shooting.

Cold one Chariots will rock the world against most high elf units. 1 impact hits happen before any swings are made, and at st5 most of the elves will just die, 2 you rarely see cold one chariots that shock alone will rock his world. 3 at toughness 5 the chariots should survive most of the damage back. While the chariots on there own wont wint combat, with proper softening from repeaters they can kill enough to win.

Sure his magic phase is over the top, but teclis is not bullet proof and he sucks in combat. Answer send in the dread lord who just does not die with the crown of stubborn 10. Send him in by himself and just challenge away all the characters untill tecils is up to bat.

Yes they have magic items to control the magic phase, so sucker out his items, the sooner the better. Get him to use his special scroll (cant recall name ends magic phase) on turn 1. As you kill his mages you will gain control of the magic phase. Rember, he will lack bodies due to cost of models, and they are all soft targets.

If you put more shots down range he will not be able to cope with such a large loss for very long. Do not count on your magic at first to help you out much, mainly play your magic defensive till you have killed a few mages or feel that you have the upper hand in magic.

Lastly Teclis ignores the first miscast per phase, so great he gets one spell off full power, if he does it again he might very well blow his fool head off. Time is on our side not there's, play the long game play do deny and mage hunt, then when he is weak kill all he has.
Flyers for the win in 8th.

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Dirty Mac
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Post by Dirty Mac »

I forgot to mention that he is newbie too.
But besides that i will try to get lower points games in first to limit the forces he can field.
I told him that shadowblade can hide in the unit with his mage, and allocate attacks to him, so he told me he would run his mage solo. which is what i want so i can shoot him to death. i am really worried about flaming attacks on my hydra, so i guess i just have to get him in combat straight away. and i should always charge for the CR bonus right?
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Geist
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Post by Geist »

Noob or not using a named character is a douche play. Specially in a starting game. Yes you can hide shadowblade in any unit, but going that route is like Russia and US in the 80's. Mine is bigger no mine is bigger. You should both dearm and no one use named characters for a starting game.

Do not worrie overly about flaming attacks on the hydra, just don't fight that unit with the hydra, and if you must reduce the strength of the attacks by using shadow magic.

Sure getting the extra combat res from charging is great and all, but really it does not matter when you have a hydra charging by itself. The over all amount of damage you will cause will offset the charge bonus.
Flyers for the win in 8th.

DEATH FROM ABOVE DRUCIH AIR CAV!!!!

The Machine will grind you down.

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Dirty Mac
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Post by Dirty Mac »

I will run Shadowblade as a regular assassin probably with rending stars hidden in shades, i just thought that the model looked better than the other ones.
I need to get more RxBmen and i should have an army list up that you guys can pick apart soon ( I'll post it in the Army list section)
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Dante valentine
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Post by Dante valentine »

Yeah - in my experience, when fighting high elves, things can go very well, or very bad. normally, very quickly!

That said, there are a few ways to ensure that the dirty little Asur get a much deserved whooping!

Chariots are pretty awesome, I love them full stop, the idea of loads of iron clad war behemoths charging across the battlefield is just to damn sexy anyway, but against High Elves, they are worth their weight in gold.

Given the high points cost of everything in a high elf list, including core choices, you will find the enemy either has lots of little elite units or few big units. Either way, big units of troops are easily whittled down by RXB fire making them small units, who are then easily crushed by CoC charges. The sheer impact of the chariots is normally sufficient to kill enough to both reduce their ability to strike back effectively while easily winning the combat.

I also think people get a little too concerned about Phoenix guard. Yes, they are tough with their 4+ ward save, cause fear etc etc. but they still only have one, strength four attack! They are an anvil, not a hammer, so the best way i have found to deal with them is reduce their toughness to 1 with magic and shoot them to ribbons. The 4+ ward save will stop half of your wounds but then again, the unit will be so small afterwards that who really cares about ward saves!

The only unit I do seem to struggle against are white lions. Nasty str 6 attacks combined with decent shooting defence means you either have to crush them with something very hard hitting (like a big unit of COK with banner of hag graef!) bearing in mind that you must kill nearly all of them in the first combat phase before they strike back and mince your knights. Or, magic them into a stupor. I favour the second option as it removes the risk of my knights getting mauled, especially when there are so many other nice targets for them.

Overall, it will probably take you a while to get the hang of it, and facing HE as a new warhammer player can be problematic, the enemy having ASF and re-roll's to miss, but once you get the feel of your druchii forces, then nothing can stand in your way (except bad luck and drunk generals!).

Let us know how the battles go.

Regards

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Malekii
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Post by Malekii »

Teclis is ridiculously hard to kill if he's in a unit usually his 20 swordmasters as he's immune to miscasts and has this sword thing but he can easily be killed by shooting. Just concentrate fire on him until his unit dies then impale him with a RBT.
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Post by Malekii »

Teclis is ridiculously hard to kill if he's in a unit usually his 20 swordmasters as he's immune to miscasts and has this sword thing but he can easily be killed by shooting. Just concentrate fire on him until his unit dies then impale him with a RBT.
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Dirty Mac
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Post by Dirty Mac »

if teclis, or any other mage is in a unit of 20 swordmasters, and i manage to shoot and kill 6 of them, the unit has to take a panic test right?, for losing more than 25%, if they fail and flee can the mage step out of the unit? or must he flee with the rest of them?
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Dante valentine
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Post by Dante valentine »

He flees with the unit, though this is far from a sure way method of getting rid of a unit.

They have to fail the test first of all with a decent leadership (i'm not sure of Teclis' LD but im guessing its going to be 9 at least). Then they will probably be in range of the army BSB, making the chances of failing two in a row very slim.
Then they have to run off the table without rallying.

Of course, it can happen and they can run, (as happened in my game before last (a 50 man unit of Spearmen with level 4 sorc)) and when it does it is lovely.

Teclis isn't "that" hard to kill. To be fair shadowblade will kill him 90% of the time before any sword-master can even swing their blades. The best way to deal with him is just destroy the unit around him and then laugh as the feeble bugger flails uselessly against your units.

If your opponent is dead set on using Teclis then consider Shadowblade, else maybe a normal assassin (though this is harder to use no doubt). Else, just destroy his unit, nothing in warhammer is so hard it cannot be destroyed with sufficient force!
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Dirty Mac
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Post by Dirty Mac »

Ahh, the old, if brute force doesn't work , you are not using enough trick.
I doubt he will field Teclis i was just wondering.

but i have an army list up the the other section, and i should be playing him next week.

Thanks.
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Post by Nightwind »

Dante Valentine wrote:He flees with the unit, though this is far from a sure way method of getting rid of a unit.

They have to fail the test first of all with a decent leadership (i'm not sure of Teclis' LD but im guessing its going to be 9 at least). Then they will probably be in range of the army BSB, making the chances of failing two in a row very slim.
Then they have to run off the table without rallying.

He doesn’t even need a BSB, because a High Elf fighting a Dark Elf can always reroll panic tests.
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Post by A18no »

I'll give you some hint for your magic only. If you know that you'll face high elf most of the time, play you magic like that:

Shadow Lvl 4, dagger, ward 4+, or +1 to cast and dispel from the common pool. Yes it's 70pts or so, but you'll be on par with his +5 to dispel, and you'll cast at +5 to negate it too.
Shadow Lvl 2, Darkstar cloak, cause they almost always include the damn Annulyan Crystal.

It's seam weird to play 2 shadow caster, but the BASIC spell from shadow is your best friend. Cast the boosted version of it.

Just a -1 WS, -1 Ini is awesome against them:
-1 WS mean that you hit on 3+ with re-roll each turn (don't forget that our hatred is eternal against them), and he hit you on 4+.
-1 Ini mean that he loose his re-roll each turn!!! Cause you now got better ini than him!

On the lvl 4, dropping his strengh or toughness is great, forget the Mindrazor, againt the T3 they got, you won't benefit a lot from him. Pendulum and pit of shades is not good against heir Ini 5, but if manage to drop it by the basic spell, it could be usefull.

Hope that help and good games!
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