I am a fairly new player to the Warhammer world and this Website! I have only played about 10 games, more of a painting then player really. But lately I have been having some elf problems against a friend. Usually we play a 2000pt to 3000pt game, and the last game we played he bought a very common list of his that includes: - 30 Sea Guard - 30 Sea Guard - 25 Phoenix Guard/banner that granted 2+ ward save against magical attacks - 25 Phoenix Guard - Tyrion - x3 mages - x2 Bolt Throwers He likes to put his mages with his Phoenix Guard and use the Lore of High Magic to "up" his ward saves to 3+. Plus he puts Tyrion with a Phoenix Guard unit to boost his ward save as well. I can take care of Tyrion by giving an Oldblood the Armour that grants the bearer 2+ ward save against Flaming Attacks. I then like to challenge Tyrion so he can't destroy my units. Granted I never kill Tyrion, but he doesn't kill my Oldblood either so I think its a fair trade. But those damn Phoenix Guard won't die! No matter what I through at them they always ward save (his dice as always exceptional of course). I have tried an array of tactics (he almost always buys the same stuff). First off is using magic. With his high ward saves the only thing I can use are spells like dwellers below and pit of shades to kill the Phoenix Guard outright. But it seems I always end up miss-casting and dieing myself or failing the spell (Slann has been sucked to Chaos last two games). Poison hasn't worked very well against those ward saves either. I frontal attack has always failed because I fail combat-res because I just can't kill any of them. I try to flank but those sea guard rip apart any thing I tried to use to flank. And they aren't to crappy at fighting either. Blade of Realities is always tempting. Since it takes all of my Oldbloods magic items, it just doesn't seem worth it when his High Elves always hit first. Also I try using augment spells on my troops, which helps, but often a dispel scroll or amazing dispel roll come my way. So basically I need some help with ideals of tactics to take care of or slow down those Phoenix Guard. Anything helps!!!!
Analyse his army: where do hos strenght lie? NO melee characters, no white lions, no cavalry, but just s bunch of T3/S3-4 infantry models. So several ways to deal with these suckers: Oldblood with other trickers shar, ward and 1+ save. He'll be cheaper than the uni unit and can hold them forever without taking a wound. Oldblood without other trickster shard, but crown of command 1+ save and dawnstone. Nothing stop you from having both - 1 for each phoenix guard unit. They can't wound you. Another option is to use 30 Templeguards with Slann. Go wider than him, but no more so your guys cannot attack. Don't care about ranks since you're steadfast anyway, care about maximizing amount of attacks. If you feel like then bring a Skavenpelt Banner. If he go 6 wide then you go 7 wide and BAM 21 attacks from the front +3 from PF and another 5 from second rank you'll have 29 attacks = 6 wounds done. His silly block can only take a swing like once before he loses efficiency. And that's counting the 4+ ward. also bring a large block of saurus warriors. 40 big, with sword sword. They can take the beating and will continue to dish out pain. Same principle as with guards - wider than your opponent and with 40 vs 25 models you will be steadfast and can out grind him. Combine the above blocks with heavy magic: wandering deliberation slann with book of Ashur and Tetto'eko. You'll have a large amount of spells on your slann you can 2 dice and 1 dice safely. Use the spells to buff/hex the units. He'll struggle to stop you. You can also use other builds with the slann and tetto'eko. Besides that just stop all high magic spells and let tyrion have his way with his spells. Most cosy efficient way: oldbloods as mentioned in the beginning. Show him the might of 1+ cowboys with great weapons
It's not super efficient because of the ward saves but I find salamanders are always good against Elves. I also like using Focus of Mystery against them too. Tempest is brutal against elves and Arcane Unforging can mess them up. That being said the Banner isn't too huge a deal for us since our Cowboys usually tote great weapons instead of magic.
There are two ways you can really deal with this situation, either try to throw out so much damage you overcome his ward save, or throw up a unit that can grind him down for 5-6 combat rounds. I personally prefer to add in the damage so here is what I would do in that situation. (All units 7 wide) Unit of 24 saurus with Gor-Rok Unit of 24 saurus Unit of 24 saurus Unit of 8 Cold One Riders (no spears) with 2x oldbloods and scar vet BSB/skavenpelt (Either hit a phoenix unit or seaguard) 1-2 Bastilodons (These guys can grind the seaguard all day long) Unit of 24 temple guard Don't try to play with magic, just build a list that plays to your combat strengths and see how that does against him. You can weather all of his shooting very easily with the above units, even his magic missiles won't do much, and even buffed his units will not be able to beat yours on all fronts, with no magic you can dispel at least one probably two of his spells per turn, just make sure it is the right one. The character builds I would suggest are the following: oldblood, cold one, light armor (this guy goes between your other two characters in the unit) Sword of striking or GW Talisman of preservation Dawnstone Other tricksters shard oldblood, cold one, shield Sword of strife or GW Obsidian lodestone Ironcurse icon Scar vet, cold one, light armor, shield, spear skavenpelt banner If you have points left then add in a couple lvl 1 skink priests with beast and scroll or cube to control the magic phase where you hit the phoenix units so they can't get an increased WS, you can also increase your saurus units. If your cold one unit hits a seaguard unit it will go through it like butter with a total of 39 S4 attacks, 16 S5 attacks, and 6 S6 attacks which means on average 24 seaguard die in the first round of combat. If you hit phoenix guard, even with a 3+ WS they will need to re-roll it for all your 22 character attacks and 9 cold one attacks which means you should be killing at least 8 phoenix per turn. The other answer that I'm sure will come up is salamanders, and honestly bringing 4 to this fight would waste his army really quickly lol
The answer against most Elven block is simple, Salamanders! Just one or two good hits will give him around 20-30 saves to roll, he is bound to lose a good ammount of expensive Elves then. It works even better against Swordmasters, but he is bound to fail that 4++ some time. You then need a big block of TG, you almost always need a big block of TG to guard your Slann, to simply finish them of, if there are only 10 left they should be not much of a problem. Your tactic of holding back Tyrion is sound, by using the Other Trickster Shard you can even get killing pressure on him. The Ironcurse Amulet is, as my fellow Lizards already said, very good against the bolt throwers. Basic Sauri are very good against all T3S3 infantry, so they should chew trough their Seaguard like no business. I rarely have problems with Elves, especially because so many people play them at my club. We have the tools to beat them in our book, i also like to take a High Slann to games with them, his versatility is especially good against the Elves.
The Blade of Realities is not good in an all comers environment, but it seems ideal for you if your opponent truly never varies his list. So if you give a Saurus Oldblood the Blade of Realities, it won't help you a whole lot against Tyrion but your OB should be able to chop through Phoenix Guard with phenomenal ease. Since the listed HE army lacks high strength attacks, Steggies would not be amiss. They are good at thunderstomping puny Elves and only Tyrion will be able to consistently wound them.
Thank you everyone for your input. You guys gave me some good ideas and hopefully I will have better luck next time!
The absolute best method for squishing elves in melee is Birona's Timewarp on Saurus. Elves hit weakly and aren't tough, but they get by with a death-by-thousand-cuts method with their innate ASF and rerolls. Timewarp gives your units ASF too, depriving them of their rerolls and hitting at the same time as them. Speed of Light can also be used to similar effect with the initiative boost also removing rerolls and is easier to bubble cast. Light up your saurus blocks and have a little skirmish with those elves.
In my opinion the most cost efficient method to hold up one unit the entire game is with an Oldblood. Dawnstone, light armour, Crown of command and cold one And theyll do 0,06. Wounds each round or put on another way - they'll never be able to put a wound onto him. Pick the unit with the high magic mage in and kill him. Just aim for him when you charge and he's gone. Nuke the mage and hold the unit. A templeguard unit with Slann can easily tackle the other unit.
Trickster Helm is actually a fun item here as well. They have a hard time wounding with S3 vs T5, and then having to deal with a 1+ rerollable armour save. Having to reroll on top of needing 6s is just painfully hard to do. And you still have the option of getting a dragonbane gem or a talisman of preservation, if you'd rather have a straight up ward save, rather than the rerollable armour save.
I think it's overkill with the ward. a rerollable 2+ will be quite sufficient. Obviously there's the whole issue if the OB get hit by a bolt thrower or magic that doesn't care about armour save, but that would be a risk I'd be willing to take. An oldblood with Dawnstone, cold one and crown of command is 230. Switch crown of command for other trickster shard and it's down to 215pts. That's very affordable and very good. Obviously you need to add either light armour or shield. I'm not quite sure what the price on those are. One could always go for the charmed shield end deflect a random bolt thrower for 5pts.
Problem is you have to take the crown otherwise you are rolling on leadership 4 due to static combat res. So doesn't leave much room for ward. Better of with dawnstone, crown and dragon bane gem
change dragon bane gem to dragonhelmet Also Ld4 is assuming the following: No charge. No wounds done on the PG unit. No Ld9/10 BSB Slann nearby. An OB with dawnstone and Other Trickster Shard should be able to rack up 2-3 wounds while taking none. The Cold One will also do a wound every second round or so But let's assume the OB do no wound, but is near a Ld10 BSB Slann - he'd be down to Ld6 - that'll still give the OB a 89% chance of staying. The most important thing is to calculate the risk and reduce it. If you're solo charging your OB do keep the slann within 12". Cold Blooded and BSB really do a number on the statistics
Oh I agree it can still be done without the crown, but you haven't seen my leadership test rolls I like mine LD 10 with rerolls just to be sure
So should I attempt to close the gab and get into combat at fast as possible or should I sit back and try to soften him up first with magic? It seems I am mostly out ranged by his bows and bolt throwers. And I end up losing more casualties then wanted. Plus Lizards are not exactly fast walkers....
I'd say get in their faces, with the right buffs you can smish them nicely. And don't forget that Birona's Timewarp not only counters their ASF, it doubles your movement. That means that you'd be marching 16" with it on saurus and 24" on skinks, salamanders, and monsters.
It always amuses me that when anyone posts up about a deathstar they are having trouble with the advice is always build a better deathstar and never to just avoid it, kill the rest of the army, win 14-6 or so. skinks should have no problem shutting down 2 rbts, and seaguard are on par with the trolololodon in terms of cost effectiveness(maybe not that bad but similar). Redirect, double flee , move out of the arc/17" of the two PG blocks and just kill the rest of the army.