High Elves Preperation

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Mogwai
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High Elves Preperation

Post by Mogwai »

Im making a list to go against High Elves next week. Is there any must haves in my list ? Any units or lores of magic that do exceptionally well against them pretty boys. Going through the High Elves Army Book . I noticed allot of items vers Fire and DE in general.


Thanks in advance.
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Sulla
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Post by Sulla »

Things that are good vs HE

Shooting; all your shooters will find happy hunting grounds vs expensive t3 infantry. Take a mix of unit sizes; sometimes you will need to shoot an eagle; you don't want to waste a 20 man unit on that. Use a unit of 10 and if that fails, use another unit. Or charge it with harpies.

Dark magic; for exactly the same reasons.

Hydras; Heh, they are so underpriced, they are happy to play against anyone, but small base, low toughness, high price infantry really hate breath templates.

Chariots are nice to go before the ASF of your foes and tough enough to be resilient against anything other than white lions. Also good for assassinating mages in units.

Expect him to bring either the tome of furion or Teclis, so he can force through at least one key spell per turn, and the std of sorcery for d3 Power dice. It may be worthwhile tohave a pegasus hero with the ring of hotek to punish him for overreliance on magic. He can also hunt small units/war machines or add +3CR for rear charging a key combat.

Don't rely too much on magic items (he can unmake them) or anything with high damage output but small numbers. Even our assassins only strike at the same time as the most lowly HE. Numbers are your friend over quality vs HE. If you do get into an elite vs elite battle, make sure you bolster your troops with the 5+ ward from your cauldron. Outlast him. That's the best revenge any DE can desire.

DE vs HE are usually very bloody brutal battles, but also great fun. The armies are rarely outclassed by one another as they both have the tools to deal with each other.
Mogwai
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Post by Mogwai »

Thanks for the recommendations Sulla ! I'll do my best.
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Saintofm
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Post by Saintofm »

I butchered a large unit of seagard with about 15-20 crossbows with sorceress inside it armed with lore of fire, Level 2, power stone, and life taker (it's been a while, but yeah, I didn't even need to get into Close combat with that unit).

Chariots, Our chariots are about even with their lion chariot (we can both wound eachother on 4's with our base states). If you get the charge in this can settle things fast, but if the two chariots don't...Lets just say me and that HE player kept laughing at how long it took them to kill eachother.

Hydras are worth it.

Unless they take cavalry, expct 5+ save at most, and elvin toughness so lore of fire works, but considering the spells in Dark Magic I do have to agree with Sulla. This is espesialy true if you get Word of pain as thay means their best units need 5+ to hit you, or wind blades or chill wind to bring on the hurt.

Any spell that requires an Initiative test don't use as we are dealing with elves and their I of 5 standard. That still said, anything that can reduse their weapon skills, initiative, strength, and toughness will be of great help (WS so you can hit them, and so they will need that rerole ASF gives them; I so they don't get that ASF; Strength for the two great weapon armed units; and toughness so you can wound them on 3's.

I doubt lore of Metal will do any good here as most of the units have a low armor save, with the exception of a few troops.

Heavy cavalry leave to the Cold one Knights. If knights have the ASF banner, then that will cancel out the HE's rerolls to hit, and still allow your eternal hatred to do it's thing.
Who needs sanity? I have a Hydra
Rommel44
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Post by Rommel44 »

Recently I played HE in a 2400 point game and after a few turns I ended up w/a massacure, which was thanks to a number of things that I found very effective against them.

*Shades are a great unit against HE, epecially if he is running a few units of 10x Swordmasters along w/his bigger units. I found these guys a lot more effective then RXB's in my opinion, as they can scout 12 inches away and unload there Repeater Crossbows w/BS5 shots, meaning that even a small unit of 9x will hit a lot more then a unit of 20x RXB's in my experience.

*Assassins: Granted that they are rarely seen now, they still prove there worth however you have to use him carefully. I have used him in both the Ninja and the Slayer builds (see the tactica forum) and both have proven great. Where the Ninja Assassin is good at taking out those pesky Lion Chariots and elite units such as knights while running around in a unit of shades, the Slayer is great for getting killing blow off against Characters, as well as against infantry/elite units to help your own rank and file troops in CC.

*Supreme Sorceress: An obvious choice in most DE armies, however I have had great success at running her as a Lvl. 4 w/Dark Magic other then most DE players who tend to run the Lore of Shadows. I run her w/Tome of Furion, Lifetaker, and the Talisman of Preservation, which I have found to be a nasty combo and it guarentees me the spells of Dark Magic that I want to use depending on the type of HE army I am facing, including the Power of Darkness spell, and the Lifetaker is great at taking out HE Elite units.

*Cold One Knights: Now these guys are just brutal against T3 units and HE are no exception. Instead of running a Deathstar unit, I run 2x units of 6x Cold Ones w/Full Command and these guys have yet to let me down. I use them to threaten mu opponents Swordmaster units because even though they have ASF, S5 attacks still have a hard time wounding 2+ armor save units and they don't get there rerolls to hit as Cold One Knights have the same Initiative as Swordmasters.

*Hydras: If you run them, be sure to run at least 2x since one will just get shot up really quick from shooting and magic, and from there just sit back and watch them crush your opponents :D.

Anyways, hop this helps you in the future mate!
Last edited by Rommel44 on Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dante valentine
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Post by Dante valentine »

When facing our hated kin, i always find my battles to go one of two ways: very very well or utterly horrendous!

After the new HE book came out and with the 8th Ed. rules, it took me a while to formulate a decent strategy to max my chances of winning.

I see DE ve HE's in a similar way to a game of rock, paper, scissors. Let me explain more:

Swordmasters: While being awfully nasty to face in CC with most of our units, a low T and Armour save makes these guys prime targets to be shot at by our RXB's.

White Lions: More resilient than Swordmasters from shooting so hit these guys with magic.

Phoenix Guard: Probably one of the more popular choices of infantry due to the fact they cause fear, good Initiative and a potent wardsave. However, with one S4 attack each, they are unlikely to do THAT much damage to your lines. Resilient to both magic and shooting, kill with combat.

This is the strategy i use: each of the main infantry units has a major weakness that HAS to be exploited, otherwise chances are he will steamroll up your line.

The other major advantage we have against HE is the high points cost of his special infantry. With large infantry blocks (horde formations, normally 4 deep min) becoming more and more popular in my gaming group (and i'm guessing other places) HE players will soon find their points eaten up if they take a 50 man unit of phoenix guard.

While that unit may be potent and your chances of breaking it and running it down extremely low, it is not going to achieve that much during the course of the game.

Where as if your opponent fields smaller units, i.e 20 swordmasters, these can be easily annihliated with the use of some RXB fire and a chariot or two!

Magic lore's are always difficult to work out when facing HE: i like shadow - being able to drop the strength and toughness of already pretty weak units is invaluable. That said, a bit of bad luck can leave you with spells that rely on you hitting units with a low initiative: not that useful when facing elves.

Alternatively, consider fire: a low toughness and generally light armor means that even a basic fireball can cause significant damage to elite units.

Oh, and one last thing: take Hydra's - stompy, chewy goodness all round!

Anyway - just my experiences when fighting the poncy high elves!

Kind Regards

D
Focusfamiliar
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Post by Focusfamiliar »

Well, i'm a high elf commander, as elfy as you can get. (But, just sometimes, i wonder if Malekeith deserved the throne... Hmm...)

Okay, any high elf player worth his grain of salt will take a large unit (14-21) of either:
White lions
Swordmasters
Pheonix Guard

And a great eagle/shadow warriors/ellyion revears.

Also, most players now include at least one with or dragon princes/silver helms.

If you are verusing the white lions, remember, they are just as fragile in combat as swordmasters- and only have one attack each! Don't bother to much with shooting them, and charge in a very strong, large block of something. Personally, i think an equal size unit of witch elves should be able to take them.

Swordmasters- the one unit that i honestly don't care, you will not let them get into combat, even if there are only 5. Shoot them, magic them, just kill them.

They are ws6 s5 i5 a2 monsters! WITH asf... I know this wasn't against an elf, but 5 of my swordmasters ran into a 20 strong skeltons, with spears unit. I killed them all, and nearly the vampire with my champion who was left.

Pheonix Guard. I don't know what to say about these guys... ws 5 s 4 i 6. The problem- 4+ ward. Again, im thinking a few smaller units of witch elves will be able to take them. Or beat them through combat res (only ld9 base high elves... imagine mindrazor).

If he takes these, shoot them!! Do it. Some people say through only 1 attack, and s4 they won't do much... I've seen commanders make that mistake too many times. Pheonix guard win because you can't kill them. Espicially with a life archmage. The only bad thing about pheonix guard is they have a chance to get flanks etc that you can't get on other HE units. Because they may take a turn - or 3- to break you. So, throw missles and a lot of bodies at them. Hope that helps!
A tratior dark elf, or a traitor high elf, not entriely sure.
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Malekith@naggarond
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Post by Malekith@naggarond »

it depends on what he takes
I am a high elf player and I know that anything with high strength will kill them
As for Phoenix Guard I recomend Black Guard with banner of Hag Graef
lots of xbows and bolt throwers work against lothern :twisted: :twisted:
DO NOT :!: :!: :!: get into combat with dragon princes unless it is with executioners with banner of Hag Graef
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Tethlis
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Post by Tethlis »

In my experience, Phoenix Guard are actually the one unit that you shouldn't fight in combat using infantry. Strength 4 doesn't seem like much, but it's still re-rolling to hit, and it's generally more than enough to massacre a Dark Elf infantry unit while the Phoenix Guard take very little damage in response. I've sent Black Guard against Phoenix Guard, expecting good results, and been utterly massacred due to the resilience of the Phoenix Guard and the lack of protection for the Black Guard.

Keep in mind the ASF game; most High Elf units will be re-rolling misses against us, unless our Initiative value beats theirs, so sending units like Witch Elves, Black Guard and Cold One Knights against low-Initiative units helps a lot to nullify that High Elf killing power.
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