8th Ed. Dealing with he swordmasters.

Hi, I'm new to the forum, an opponet uses a horde of swordmasters, a horde of spearman then usually a cheap unit. My question is what is the best way go deal with the sw? His lord is generally the loremaster.

 

Salamanders, Salmanders and more Salamanders!!! They will do massive amounts of damage against a unit of Sword Masters. Toughness 3, poor armour save, small bases (and he even conveniently fields them in a target friendly hoard formation). Salamanders for the win.

Dwellers Below will also work very nicely. It is the bane of Elves. Remember that Dwellers allows no saves of any kind, so the Banner of the World Dragon is useless against it.

Alternatively, you can probably hold the unit up with a defensively built stubborn Oldblood cowboy (just make sure you don't equip him with a magic weapon). This works best if backed up by a life Slann to heal the odd wound that may slip through (though that combo is only feasible in larger games).

 

Why no magic weapon?

 

I expect it's do to some high elf magic item..?

 

@n810 is correct. Just about every competitive High Elves army will have their key unit carrying the infamous Banner of the World Dragon...

 

It also looks like you're going to have to heavily maul the Swordsmen unit to deny it as many Horde attacks and then hope to break it with a charge. The problem with Horde masters is their reroll hits, Str 5 to wound. It's brutal, and understandably so! So you'll need to pepper them with Salamander shots and then focus a ton of charges on them. It may seem like overkill but you'll need to hit that unit with two units on your charge and try to break them. Otherwise, you can try to bait your opponent in with letting him charge you first, but it's risky since a Horde formation of Swordmasters is gonna bring the pain.

You may try to ask your opponent not to bring so much cheese, too.