Banner of the world dragon and book of hoeth problems

[Warriorpoet83]

Good day, guys and gals. I'll get straight to the point:
My very regular opponent and I have created a campaign involving us and two of our other friends. Very simple campaign with fixed lists. My pal (regular opponent) has been playing high elves exclusively for several editions of fantasy, and he is quite accomplished in commanding his army, where I have a nasty habit of bouncing from army to army throughout the years. Dark elves, while not my "main" army, are by far my favorite due to aesthetics, fluff, and play style.
I feel that I am a pretty experienced in the game, and this high elf fella seems to be the only opponent that can consistently beat me.
We clashed yesterday for a pre-campaign game, with a loss on my part, and I feel that the most trouble I had was with a lv 4 high magic Mage with book of hoeth in a unit of 20-30 swordmasters carrying the banner of the world dragon. I couldn't understand how devastating this unit was, I was speechless. The potential to continuously IF spells with impunity (BoWD ward save), +1 to cast high magic, and rerolling power dice and dispel dice, was just......let's just say I have no idea what I'm doing.

I have not made my campaign list, but I know he will be running the above unit against us (and before you ask, I have around 300 DE models and can make every unit in the codex and multiples of the units, so models will not be a problem). Are there any tips, tricks, units, or combos that can mitigate the performance of this unit?
I beseech all ye Lords of dread and wielders of the Dark, how do I handle such a unit. What am I missing?

Semper Fi
PS: glad to finally stop lurking on this fine site

[Gerner]

I don't have much experience with Dark Elves or Warhammer in genarel.
I understand you situation, but I think it is a bad idea to tailor your list in a campaign to counter one opponent and focus on beating him.
Warhammer should be about having fun and competing with your friends, not clubbing them.

That said I have a few ideas so far; IF the Black Horror against the unit and focus fire with shooting at them. They only have s3, t3 and 5+ AS.

[Carlund]

Best way to deal with it would just be to avoid it and let it eat some chaff units while you take out the rest of his army.

[Warriorpoet83]

Thank you Gerner, and Carlund, for the quick reply. I understand the "no no" of tailoring and I have a real problem doing it. I'm also not a powergamer by any means, and I make armies that are loyal to my fluff more often than not. And what a joy it is to win with a fluff army, and regardless wether I win or lose, I still have a lot of fun. But the fact still remains that the banner world dragon swordmaster hoeth book Mage booger unit still exists in this campaign. So does a blender vamp with dual ghiests and a steam tank with buff wagons in the other two armies. And I'm prepared for those. I'm just not prepared for the BoWD unit with BoH. I can counter the other nasties in the other Armies, but this one unit has me stumped. I'm not necessarily asking for a list, nor it is my intent to tailor my list to his list. I'm just desperately in the market for some tips and tricks, or oversights of mine regarding said unit. Is there a solid or consistent counter that we have at our disposal? Maybe exploring different lores and synergies here? Unit tactics? Army wide tactics. Any general information will most definetly help

[Dalamar]

Important quesrion is what magic is he using?
If it's high magic then don't field large infantry blocks. Fiery convocation just loves them. If it is high, it's more important to keep his ward save to minimum so dispel as many spells as you can.
Then charge them with equivalent number of witch elves and watch the girls turn swordmasters into a bloody mist.

If it's any other lore, shoot them. 4 bolt throwers will reduce their numbers to insignificant before they can get to combat.

[Gwii2510]

Soften up the unit by shooting then run them down.

[Melle]

you can IF dwellers against it.
will kill half the guys within; and with luck even the mage.
black horror dont work, depending how you choose to read it, since it allow wardsaves.

chaff it around and kill the rest of army. granted his magic phase will be a bi*ch.

2++ against all magic and attacks is nasty.

pour the unit with missile fire maybe? breath attacks?

[Gerner]

Ring of Hotek might be a good thing.

[Warriorpoet83]

Thank you all for the great discussion, and making my first post a great experience. I'm loving everything I'm seeing, partly because I haven't done a single one! He is very non aggressive with his unit. It's not in the back, mind you, but he uses the unit as more of a flank denial and counter charger. His other main unit (20+ Pheonix guard with bsb) tends to be more aggressive. Odd because the innate 4+ ward would seem more as a "tankier" unit. But I'm sure it's because he's dividing up ward saves to his two main units, and that means his swordmasters are going to be more defensive. And he knows I'm very aggressive with my army, so I'll just be coming to him anyway. So it's a bit difficult to surround his unit without my army arriving piece meal.
I guess this means just plain ol' avoiding it.

A difficulty I have with him is in the chaff war department. This has been hard for me throughout different editions. I can't seem to match his 2 reavers, 2 eagles, and 2 silver helms (minimum numbers each). But, because of this, he is VERY good at dictating the combat match ups in our game. No complaining here, more of an admiration. Either way, this fact also ensures the safety of his bunker. Thank you all for the sound advice. I will be rereading these posts to absorb the tactics.

[Dirty Mac]

Have you tried using shades?

[Forbrannir]

Tried and tested my friend. I was in the exact same situation and I found 21-28 black guard run 7 wide with a sorceress to give them +1 strength and a hag to give them frenzy worked a treat. Charged him turn 2 and killed the 25 sword masters and wizard to a man before they could even strike. Hope I'm in time and enjoy.

[Warriorpoet83]

You very much are! Converting and painting being my favorite part of the hobby, I have a wonderful collection of shades converted from the new shadow warriors and plastic corsairs (almost perfect fits, brothers and sisters, I highly recommend the conversion opportunity here). As far as blackguard, I cannot WAIT for the new models, but my buddy says he's just going to shoot them. He's trying to convince me they have no place in my army.
"But I'll debuffs your ballistic skill (word of pain, heavens sig spell, etc)"
"Don't care. I'm still going to shoot them"
Is there merit to his threat? Are they just going to be neutralized by archers? Or is he just not wanting me to run them. Or are we both forgetting something that makes blackguard a lot more powerful than we think they are?

[Calisson]

That's why you place 10 corsairs in front of them.

[Warriorpoet83]

Thanks Cal. Sad to say I wouldn't have thought of it. It'd be nice to have another -1 ballistic skill modifier. I just wish I can actually block LOS with them instead of just the modifier, but I'll take anything I can get just to field them properly! This actually prompts me to start another post about Line of Sight, as I don't feel I understand it completely. Basic warhammer, I know, but with the addition of "true line of sight" I find myself in extremely odd situations in my games where I thought you couldn't see through my screening units, but if you use true LOS, then you can see in between the models through to the unit behind them that you're trying to screen.

[Dirty Mac]

They still take a penalty for shooting through cover, anyway, instead of Corsairs, you could use Harpies, as they could do a flying charge over an enemy unit, and then the BlackGuard could charge another unit in the same turn.