[gamey]

I am a Warhammer newb, but have played wh40k for a bit. My first game will be versus a friend fielding a 1k Ogre army.

I built the following in ArmyBuilder and wanted to get some feedback because I know so little of how Warhammer tactics play in general and how the High Elves play in particular. A bunch of questions ran through my mind as I tried to build this.

Rationale for the army: It seems like the HE are hard hitters, but squishy, have great magic, and good shooting and mobility. They did not seem to hit hard enough to really stick it to a unit of Ogres (when I ran the statistics) so it seems like I should lean towards fast and shooty and try and stay out of close combat unless I can get really favorable odds. The dragon princes seem to be able to hang in close combat (on the charge for a round) and if they don't win out, they will likely be wittled down slowly.

So, my questions:
1 - Is the basic thinking above sound? If not, why not and what would you recommend?
2 - Would you keep the White Lions or go with some other special infantry like Pheonix Guard or Sword Masters? (I opted away from PG because they did not seem to hit hard enough, though they seem hard to kill; I am not sure on the Sword Master versus White Lions point.)
3 - In general, why take a large Spear Elf unit over the other specials. It seems like the measly 4pt difference between a basic spear elf and the PG, WhiteLions, and Sword Masters is worth just ditching the 18 spear elves and going with a few less, but far more potent special unit? (I see most of the lists on here with lots of spears, so I included it mostly because of that thinking I am missing something. ) Does it mostly make sense against swarm/horde like armies where the 18 (3 rank deep) spear attacks are effective against lower toughness models?


Total Roster Cost: 997
Noble 155pts
General; Barding; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour
1 Elven Steed
1 Reaver Bow
1 Enchanted Shield
18 SpearElves 177pts
Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
10 Archers 110pts
Hand Weapon; Longbow
White Lions of Chrace 168pts
9 White Lions of Chrace
Musician Mus; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Stubborn
1 Guardian
Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour
Dragon Princes 195pts
4 Dragon Princes of Caledor
Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance; Dragon Armour; Shield
1 Drakemaster
Hand Weapon; Lance; Dragon Armour; Shield
Foe Bane
5 Elven Steed
Shadow Warriors 92pts
4 Shadow Warriors
Hand Weapon; Longbow; Light Armour; Scouts; Skirmishers
1 Shadow-Walker
Hand Weapon; Longbow; Light Armour
Repeater Bolt Thrower 100pts
1 Repeater Bolt Thrower
2 Crew
Hand Weapon; Light Armour

 

[Wenis01]

i wouldnt take archers against ogre's unless he has alot of knoblars. Foe bane is a good choice but i would give it to the noble. rember the high elves have different ammounts of unit types now so you can take another bolt thrower or an eagle. an important thing to remeber about orges is they are fast... if you can get your eagle within 8 inches they will only be able to move half distance. you may want to scour the GW web page because i remeber reading something about fighting ogres somewhere.

 

[gamey]

I will search the GW site for info.

1 - So you propose ditching the archers for an Eagle to march block them. For march blocking, tactically, how does that work? I get within 8" of them and then when they charge me (if they charge), I flee?

Later edit: Scratch this question because I just read this other post and it answers my basic march block question.

a - What is the rationale for dropping the archers versus ogres? I ran some numbers and from a wound effectiveness point of view, 10 archers will wound more Ogres than the repeating bolt thrower (though the RPBT has the nice high strength ballistic missile mode, I just don't think there are going to be lots of ogres in deep ranks.) I was thinking of having the Shadow Warriors to try and march block by having them scout somewhere annoying to my friend. As you can see from my earlier question, I am not so sure of the march block tactic, so the Shadow Warriors may be a poor choice for that. I will drop the Archers and go with an Eagle instead as you suggest.

2 - My rationale may be poor for the Noble, but I was thinking something like; Create a shooty mobile hero that can likely avoid close combat and still shoot 3 good high strength shots into something each round. If I add foebane, I need to drop the Reaver Bow and I believe I have know committed the hero to a close combat role. I suppose I could have him join the Dragon Princes to augment their CC effectiveness, but think I am likely to stick with the mobile and shooty hero especially after dropping the 10 archers

Thanks for the feedback so far.

 

[buckero0]

Ogres move too fast for your strategy. Shooty is great in small games and don't worry about magic at 1k.

Noble 155pts
General; Barding; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour
1 Reaver Bow
1 Enchanted Shield drop the enchanted shield and get the sword of might so he can hit back after killing ogres from afar. Make sure you get at least 3 turns of shooting (T1,T2, Stand and shoot at least and then maybe charge him into the flank of a unit)
18 SpearElves 177ptsgood unit

10 Archers 110ptsdrop these, you don't need them

White Lions of Chrace 168pts
9 White Lions of Chrace

Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour
Dragon Princes 195pts if you can get 6 and a warbanner, that would be better

4 Shadow Warriors

Repeater Bolt Thrower

Please don't post stuff straight from army builder - it is super annoying to read and against the forum policies. Don't let the ogres charge you from over 6inches and you should do fine. I think that reavers would be good in this list, but I love fast cav. They can usually smack the flank of a softened unit and win or bait and flee. Your shadow warriors can march block just as well. The RBT is a whole lot better, because when you actually hit the ogres, you have a decent chance of wounding them. Archers don't have as good as of chance and the points could be better spent somewhere else.

 

[gingerninja]

Well, I agree with most people about dropping the archers. You have no magic to bolster their effectiveness with missed hits, and the bolt thrower, if fired on mulit shot, will do probably more damage than you think.

I can't agree with Buckero0's opinion on magical weapons as that combination would be illegal. 2 Magical weapons are not allowed, no matter if they serve different purposes. I would give the noble a lance, so that when he charges, he wounds on 2's, making him more effective.

I would also make the Dragon Princes 5 strong with full command and the lion standard. This will make you immune to those annoying fear tests, making sure that you always hit hard.

Your list will then look like this:

Noble: 159pts
Heavy Armour, Lance
Enchanted Shield, Reaver Bow
Barded Steed

18 Spearmen: 187pts
Full command

5 Dragon Princes: 250pts
Full Command
Lion Standard
Drakemaster has Foe Bane

5 Shadow Warriors (this is the minimum)

7 White Lions: 111pts
Musician

7 Swordmasters: 111pts
Musician

Repeater Bolt Thrower

Total: 998pts

This gives you 2 strong flanking units, and nice centre, some march blockers and a really heavy hitting cavalry unit.

ninja out

 

[ga1661]

The only thing I don't like about GN's list is that I absolutely hate giving the Reaver Bow to a character on horseback... if you want to fire the bow, you can't march, and if you're inside a hard cavalry unit, generally you want every single move the unit makes, if at all possible, to be marching or charging. And I can't imagine you want to let him run around on his own, outside of a unit, that's just asking to have him killed. I'm much more a fan of Ring of Fury if you want to give a ranged attack, but with no casters in your army, it'd be kinda pointless. So to sum up, I don't have a particularly good suggestion, as a lance is the best CC weapon you can give him, and he already has a 1+ armor save, so I'm not sure what you do with him. Maybe Loremaster's Cloak or Talisman of Saphery?

 

[gingerninja]

The only thing I don't like about GN's list is that I absolutely hate giving the Reaver Bow to a character on horseback... if you want to fire the bow, you can't march, and if you're inside a hard cavalry unit, generally you want every single move the unit makes, if at all possible, to be marching or charging. And I can't imagine you want to let him run around on his own, outside of a unit, that's just asking to have him killed. I'm much more a fan of Ring of Fury if you want to give a ranged attack, but with no casters in your army, it'd be kinda pointless. So to sum up, I don't have a particularly good suggestion, as a lance is the best CC weapon you can give him, and he already has a 1+ armor save, so I'm not sure what you do with him. Maybe Loremaster's Cloak or Talisman of Saphery?

You could always chane him to have the helm of fortune, and guardian pheonix with a normal shield. That will keep him within the spare points, and have a better save.

ninja out

 

[gamey]

Thanks To All So Far

Thanks for the great feedback all. I really like gingerninjas suggestion.

General response:
1 - I won't user armybuilder text directly next time
2 - I will definitely go with gingerninjas changes
3 - For the noble, if I could make the points work, why is a lance superior to a great weapon? I know the lance gets the initial plus 2 strength attack, but doesn't it lose that in subsequent cc? So... it seems like over more than one round, the great weapon is superior (assuming the hero sticks in for more than a round.)
4 - Why a sentinal in the spearelf squad? Does he add that much?

Thanks,
I will update this thread with how the ogre fight goes.

 

[buckero0]

sorry gingerninja, it was late when I saw this post and I didn't proofread it. The reaver bow can be pretty good against ogres, but I worry about how many times you'll get to use it.

the lance is better on mounted guys only on the charge, then the character has to resort to his hand weapon. Grt wpn, will make him str 5, but he can't use his shield, so there are concessions. I don't know that if the noble takes the reaver bow he should join a unit, he may be better off, out on his own to shoot as much as possible and then charge in when one of his units needs help with kills. Ogres usually don't have that much shooting. The noble could take out any leadbelchers the enemy may have in 2 turns of shooting (this is just 1000pts) so he could start with a unit and then split off if needed.

Foebane might be decent, because Ogres don't have much armor to begin with.

 

[gamey]

Victory - Changed the list

I finally got to play my first games last night and went up against against Ogres and then Chaos. The Elves did very well. Against the Ogres the entire army took one wound and Chaos did better, but still conceded by round 4.


Both opponents considered the Noble on horse with the Reaver bow as "broken" for its point cost relative to the damage that it did.

List I played:
Noble; Steed; Reaver Bow; Heavy Armour; Shield; Hand Weapon
I basically stripped this guy down as much as possible to be a dedicated long range mobile weapon. The worst thing that ever happened to him was when the Chaos demon cast some spell on him that made him shoot at one of his own units.

15 SpearElves; Standard Bearer
I reduced the number of spear elves to allow room for the archers.

10 Archers
I know you guys felt these weren't worth having, but after watching a game of Dwarves v. Ogres, I realized three things: Speed kills (poor dwarves got ran in circles by the ogres), but ranged weapons kill speedy things (dwarves only got their licks in from their firing line), and that march blocking is key.

The 10 Archers consistently wounded Ogres as they advanced and caused one line of bulls to lose a model and panic holding an entire flank. I can see that in some terrain heavy or deployments without hills that the archers may not work optimally, but in both games I had them placed on a hill protecting key access points for the close combat oriented opponents.

6 Sword Masters of Hoeth
5 Sword Masters of Hoeth
Excellent! Both Chaos and Ogres have limited ranged capability and with these guys moved into flanking positions with the centers protected by either the Dragon Princes or Reavers, they generally were never attacked and were effective at hitting really hard when needed. My opponents also felt they were "broken" with 2 strength 5 attacks per model at their point cost. I imagine next time I play my friends, they will thin these guys out first ASAP.

5 Dragon Princes; Musician, Standard bearer
Pretty much the anchor of all my close combat tactics. These guys can threaten such a wide area and hit so hard. They gave me great tactical options.

5 Ellyrian Reavers; Bows
I did not use these as march blockers, but with their mobility and bows, they pretty much harassed weaker core units and when needed supplemented the Dragon Princes with flanking charges

Great Eagle
I used this to march block both games and it is effective and paid its points back by extending the number of shots I got off from the repeater bolt thrower, archers, and noble's reaver bow.

Repeater Bolt Thrower
Great. Almost used this exclusively in the multi-shot mode because opponents did not have masses of troops.

My overall change to what you guys proposed was to:
1 - Remove a lot of static CR
2 - Reduce armor and close combat options for the noble -- dedicate his purpose
3 - Reduce unit strength a little bit in the spear elves and particularly in the SM
4 - Remove unit commanders

That all allowed me to add the Great Eagle in for march blocking and the archers. Next time, both opponents will likely go after or account for the Great Eagle with modified tactics and also thin the Sword Masters, but for combat heavy and shooty poor armies, I like my chances with the High Elves. It will be interesting to see how this list fares against faster and shootier armies and against my friends as we learn how this all works.

Thanks for all the help. I have to say, the tactical options with Warhammer were a lot more interesting than what I had to play with in WH40k.

 

[Vanquisher_Dud]

Congrats on your wins, I just gotta say woot woot* for HE and Fantasy (I dislike 40K cause I prefer swords to guns ^^) I got a 1,000 point game tonight vs ogres, I will probably do things a little bit differently (perhaps 2 great eagles and maybe drop the archers, I am glad you did well with them but IMHO 3 strength just doesn't cut it against the high T civs...) Congrats again!

Regards,

VD*