Well, played a little friendly game yesterday in preparation for a tournament in a week or so and was thoroughly and soundly beaten. I just seem to really struggle against HElves, the speed of asuran means that I was receiving up to 100% of his hits from swordmasters, nobles, spearmen, the lot! Also, he wrangled in a dragon. It's never nice being surprised by a dragon!!! Anyway, he deployed first and set up his bolt throwers on either side of the battlefield, fast cavalry and dragon lord on one flank, 20 odd swordmasters and a horde of spearmen in the middle and some archers protecting the other flank and a level 2 High magic mage. My army went something like this; Slann (Life), BSB, Mystery, Focus, Magic Dampening (enemy wizard loses 6s), cupped hands and forbidden rod. Scar-Vet with crown of command and some other bits. Priest with dispel scroll and curse charm. 30 saurus (with scar vet) 20 Temple guard 2 x 10 skirmishers with blowpipes 10 skirmishers with javelins 2 x salamanders 3 x terradons 5 x chameleons I got the first turn and moved everything up the board. My terradons flew over his fast cav and dropped their rocks, killed ONE elf with the maximum of 9 S4 hits. One. Set themselves up to kill a bolt thrower. Skinks worked up the flanks, taking down another fast cav who pass their panic test. I roll high on the winds of magic and chuckle over my options. First spell, dispelled. Second spell, dispelled. A commanding roll on a dwellers see's it go off with no dispel option. Muahahaha! Aimed it at his swordmasters; banner of world dragon, no effect (it was only soon after that he mentioned his ONLY mage was in the spearmen... I think I would have targeted them instead but we'll never know). Final spell, triple one. Failed to cast. On his turn, he kebabed most of my terradons with the bolt thrower, ditto a saurus or two. Moved his blocks closer and flew his dragon inconspicuously off to the flank. I failed to dispel his spells despite having an underling of the bloody gods at my command and the flames of the phoenix snuffs out a temple guard. My next turn I deliberate over what to do... in a move of supreme stupidity (and some dodgy terrain placement) I turn one of my salamanders away from my main army to deal with his light cav before swinging back around to the fight. This leaves my temple guard flank a little open. But it's not like anything could swoop across the battlefield and take on the rock-hard TG... is it? Anyway, shooting goes well, kill off a bolt thrower and drop a few swordmasters and spearmen with my skinks who have now taken over the left and right flank almost completely... except for the dragon. Never forget about dragons. My magic phase is as uneventful as the last, I think I got one buff and no throne of vines off. Not happy about that. In his turn he charges my flank with a dragon. Did anyone see that coming? Anyway, he fails the charge with his swordmasters so I'm not too worried. But they're all getting a little close now. His magic phase is as poor as my own, in fact, I think by turn 3 he stopped casting spells and just debuffed whatever I had put on. You should be able to dispel a dispel attempt, or 'boost your spell' or something. Holding my dispel dice while he shuts down spell after spell was not fun. His shooting is poor, that's what you get when you shoot at skirmishers. In combat, his dragon and rider kill only a few temple guard thanks to some amazing 5+ saves and my guys do some damage in return. With +3 from flanks, my BSB and normal standard I actually beat him by 3 or 4. Predictably, he passes his re-rollable Ld6 test. In my next few turns, my skirmishers destroy everything outside of the main battle (I have learned my lesson with skinks and HElves, you may think you'll benefit from the +3 CR you get from a rear-charge, and then they kill 8 skinks) and at one point a salamander lands a perfect shot on the spearmen and fry 11 of them! Whoosh! My slann has to concentrate on buffing and regrowing the templeguard as they take a charge from the swordmasters too. Kudos to them, they were in combat from turn 2 onwards with a dragon and from turn 3 fighting on two sides with some of the best elite infantry in the game. They never budged, they killed most of the swordsmen and took the dragon down to just 1 wound but you don't get points for almosts. At some point, my saurus obliterated the spearmen and charged the swordmasters in the flank to help out but only took the unit down to 1 man and a bsb. 3 more wounds and I would have gotten maybe 850 more points than I did. Unfortunately, despite being hard as nails, the temple guard were all killed that left my slann in combat with a dragon and some swordmasters. Ouch. He held out for 2 turns weathering a tremendous number of hits (a toughness 8 slann with a 4++ save is pretty sexy) and healing himself in the next turn, but in the end the proud toad was torn apart and my army scattered. Things I have learned; - High Elves are bastards. - Skirmishers still rock. March and fire, -1 to hit, poison, double-tap. They're great. Both javelins and blowpipes have their advantages, 20 shots will usually get you some 6s but once javelins are close you're usually hitting with no penalties, which is rare! - Temple guard are solid, but even they have a breaking point. For me, that breaking point was over 1000pts of elves on their own. Wailing at them for 5 solid turns. Still impressive. - Magic is capricious. My first two turns I didn't get more than one spell off. Not good for a magic based army. And even when he got some spells cast, they lasted until the enemy's turn and no longer. Also, at a certain point there were no targets for dwellers and I could barely afford to cast anything but buffs anyway. - Life magic is boring. Next time I'm running Light. I think WS10 I10 ASF saurus could have helped me more than T6 5+ regenerating saurus. Does anyone else struggle this much with HElves? There were many points in the game where I thought I might have a chance. Plenty of very important rolls that could have changed the course of the game in a second but they all came up HElf. Any tips and tricks would be appreciated!
It can be a tough fight against HE. I have found that over my time playing against them that Lore Of Light seems to work ALOT better for me then Lore of Life. Since most of the Lore of Light Spells can be cast as AOE and target multiple units of mine I can really negate alot of attributes that make HE the power they are. If you give your guys I and WS 10, suddenly the HE don't get rerrols and are hitting you on 4's. If you also get Pha's Prot, the HE are now hitting you on 5s. I find that those two in combination are the most powerful, even more so then getting berrona's timewarp off. If you do get the timewarp also you are now faster then the HE and more tough (also getting rerolls, HA how does that feel you elves.) I have also found that against HE you really need to try to get the fights to be 1v1, unit wise. Most of the time our units can stand toe to toe vs the elves, on a one on one fight. Buffed with magic you are almost gauranteed to a win. If they start getting multiple groups or side charges you are in for a head ache. Take your time with your lizzies. Try not to get into combat till 3rd. Setup your counter charges and redirectors.