So in about a month or two I have a 2,000 point match (or several) against a friend who uses High Elves. It's pretty competetive - but I only have: 24 Saurus /w Spears 24 Saurus /w Hand weapons 16 Skinks 10 Skink Skirmishers 6 chameleon Skinks 8 Cold One Riders Saurus Oldblood/ Scar Vet Skink Priest 1 Terradon So what else should I get in order to beat her?
You absolutely need at least: Slann (HE magic is a pain in the butt! The slann will help with that. Cupped hands of the old ones for mistcasts ftw. Lore of Light will allow you to negate that ASF nonsense plus get WS10 I10 on your units). At least one priest (2 if no slann). Temple guard to put the slann in if you want him protected well (TG are stubborn with him in the unit). Everything else is good except for one last thing.... Salamanders! You should get at least 2 ( I run 3 for every battle I have now). Another note: The only way to run that terradon (without getting 2 more) is to make him a skink chief on the terradon. You can turn him into a character/war machine hunter. Vanguard move will make him pretty good, but a target.
if you do get a slaan (which i would highly recommend) then lore of life is also not a bad choice (specifically because of dwellers below). the reasoning behind that is that only 1 high elf special choice has a strength value over 3, meaning every time you successfully cast dwellers below half (statistically) of whatever unit you hit with that spell will fail their strength test and just die with no saves. only white lions are strong enough to fail only 33% of the time, but everyone else will be failing 50% (not counting heroes obviously). with 8th edition changes and with the high elf army rules, she'll most likely be taking a LARGE block of spearmen. if you charge them you'll be fighting 4 ranks of ASF I5 which will quickly result in you losing combat. a dwellers below will cut that giant block of spearmen in half. keep in mind though, your opponent will always try to dispell dwellers below with everything she's got, which means you should either use dwellers below as a decoy spell so that you can cast throne of vines and then the other spells in the lore at increased strength, or chuck a lot of dice at dweller's below, possibly get high enough that they can't dispell, or get IF and then with your cupped hands of the old ones force the opposing player's lvl 4 wizard she'll most likely have to take the penalty for your miscast. if you've got a skink priest, take the lore of heavens signature spell iceshard blizzard and hex a repeater bolt thrower, or a big unit of lothern seaguard or archers.
I was pretty certain that's what was going to be suggested - they're on my shopping list! Thanks guys! =D I know for a fact she's sporting a few Spearmen that come with the Island of Blood (by the time we play, she'll have two sets of HE from that) as well as the Dragon Princes of Caledor and Silver Helms. Will Salamanders and Slann /w TG be able to counter them quite well?