High Elven Tactica By Zadzhiff 1 Introduction 1.1 The Elves in general Take a look at our basic Elven Warrior. He is fast (high Movement and an Initiative equal to a Human Lord's), competent at what he is doing (average-high WS and BS of 4) and reliable (Ld8), but he is not very tough or particularly strong (average-low Strength and Toughness of 3). Add a rather high points cost and a tendency to be well equipped, and Elven Armies will be swift, flexible and rather hard-hitting, but they lack the numbers and stamina to win a war of attrition. Note that Elven Steeds cost no more than warhorses, but come with a Movement of 9. The High Elves are usually a rather defencive army. Spearmen, Archers and Sea Guard are good, solid defencive troops and the Elven cavalry is more suited to act as a mobile reserve than for a headlong charge a la Bretonnia (basically because their strength of 3 tends to let them down if the enemy does not break at their charge). The Repeater Bolt Throwers, probably the most feared piece of machinery in the whole game, are also at their best in a defencive strategy where they can mow down the incoming enemy formations. 1.2 Special Rules The High Elves comes with a few handy Special Rules: Citizen Levy: This very useful rule allows High Elven citizen troops (ie Spearmen, Archers, Sea Guard and Shadow Warriors) armed with spears and/or bows to fight/shoot with one extra rank. The advantages are obvious. It also accentuates the Elves' defencive character since spears and bows are the classical defencive weapons of the Warhammer World (and, equally important, Game). Ithilmar Armour: The unbelieveable lightweightness of Ithilmar gives one extra point of effective Movement to the heavy Elven troops. It is hardly a very great advantage for the Infantry of a mainly defencive army, but anything that is free must be worth it, must it not? For Cavalry it can be the very edge you need to get in that crucial, potentially battle winning charge. Elven Enmity: Though obviously not the equal of Hatred, the Enmity rule is still a useful thing. Note that it has one subtle advantage over Hatred; it applies to any Ld test, not only Break tests. What do you prefer, anyway, a shooting duel against the Druchii or a desperate melee with them? Dragonrage and Dragontamer: It is rare for these rules to substantially affect a game, but again, who would say no to a free advantage? Sooner or later a Chaos Dragon will refuse to fight and you can conviently dispatch its rider. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Characters 2.1 Elven Lord General An Elven Lord is a reasonably good fighter, especially since he will be able to strike before just about everyone. If you want an aggressive general, simply tool him up with Sword of Teclis, Armour of Protection, Talisman of Obsidian and mount him on the ugliest monster available. However, this can only too easily come to grief if your devious opponent has taken a Black Orc Warboss or similar with the Sword of Destruction. Not to mention what a Khornate Lord with Chaos Runeshield and a suitably scary magic weapon will do to him. A less glorious and less risky idea is to place him in a unit, give him a Bow of Loren, a magic armour just in case and perhaps the Crown of Command. The Bow is practically guaranteed to hit with the Lord's BS of 7, and will almost equal an extra Repeater, while the General's presence will ensure the reliability of the surrounding units. If placed among the White Lions, he and they will be immune to psychology and break tests. 2.2 Battle Standard Bearer Rerolling failed break test are of course desirable, but this guy is very vulnerable; Toughness 3 with 1 wound and an unhealthy amount of enemy attention is a lethal combination. And to that comes a cost of 98 points... He only get a single magic item, so if you improve his survivability by giving him a nice solid defencive item to keep him alive, you will not get that extra magic standard. In my oppinion, he is only for large battles and should be kept out of combat at all costs. 2.3 Hero Well, for four points more than a Human Lord, you get better M and I, but one less Attack and Wound. Sounds like a pretty bad deal to me. But Elven Heroes are what you get to lead your combat units apart form the General, and at least they benefit from the usual Elven advantages like Ithilmar Armour and Elven Steeds. If mounted on a Pegasus or Great Eagle, a Hero will give you a rather cheap and powerful flier without risking your General. 2.4 Champion At 48 points, you get an Elf with extra WS, BS, S, I and A plus the ability to fight challenges and carry a magic item. Great for a Cavalry unit, since he will only cost about 20 points more than an ordinary trooper and and his extra Strength is just what Elven Knights need. And a Swordmaster Champion will strike before almost everyone with an effective Strength of 6. But for most infantry units, he is just one very expensive Elf. You can have entire rank of extra troopers for the same cost or a much more powerful Hero for only double the cost. Unless you think you really need that challenge ability, I would say leave him home for your Infantry. 2.5 Mages High Magic is certainly powerful. The Fiery Convocation is just about the most effective attack spell there is, while the Hand of Glory can make your entire army unbreakable! If you have the points, a Mage Lord with the War-Crown of Saphery and the Skull Staff is virtually guaranteed to grant you magical superority. The trouble with the Mages are that they cost very many points, and that they are very weak in combat. The last is accenuated by their stupid refusal to use non-magical equipment. Try to keep them out of harm's way as long as possible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Regiments 3.1 Dragon Princes of Caledor Ah, the cream of the Elven nobility. And nice models too. Seriously, the great thing about this is that they get their banner for free, and it can be upgraded to a magical one at half the normal cost. If you want one élite unit of heavy cavalry, take the Dragon Princes. Otherwise, the Silverhelms are much more flexible. Remember that they strike with a strength of only three after the charge, which means that they are in trouble if their enemy doesn't break at their charge. 3.2 Silverhelms As cavalry goes, this is a very flexible unit. You can tool them up with all possible armour to get a unit of 2+ Save heavy cavalry, but if this is what you want, why don't you get the Dragon Princes instead? They are just as good at a substantially lower cost. If you leave their Save at 5+, they will qualify as Fast Cavalry, which means that they get one reform and any number of turns free each Movement Phase. Their points cost will also stay at a reasonable 31 points per model and they will still hit as hard as a Dragon Prince. However, do not try this against opponents with substantial amounts of bowfire; the 5+ Save will see a lot of dead Elven nobles against Waywatchers. The other thing to do with these is to get just heavy armour and shields. Their cost will only rise to 35 per model, and they will now have a 3+ Save while still moving 9". Just pick your fights and they will do magnificiently. 3.3 Ellyrian Reavers Skirmishing Archers with a very high speed that does not affect their aim. How can you go wrong? Actually, there are many ways to go wrong. First, anything short of a Halfling will likely beat them in close combat. Also, they are quite vulnerable to shooting themsleves (yes they are at -1 to hit, but each hit can easily slay a 25+ points model) and ordinary bows just don't bother Chaos Knights. Keep out of enemy charge arcs, beware of massed archers and pick your targets. Remember that if you get within 8" of an enemy unit, it can't march, which should give you an extra turn to shoot at it with your ordinary archers. 3.4 White Lions If you have a General on foot, place him here and the Chracians will keep their nerve come what may. White Lions are absolutely lethal on the charge, as most enemy troopers will not be able to strike at all. The 'Lion Claw' attack, which inflicts D3 wounds, is very nice against Beastmen, and it is just what you need against Bull Centaurs. The greatest weakness of the Lions are enemy troops with very many attacks, and of course their high points cost. You will need those shields against Wood Elves and Dwarves, since these will modify the Lions' usual 4+ Save versus shooting to 5+/6+ with their Elven Longbows, Crossbows and Hand Guns (if you are really worried by missile casualities, get the Standard of Shielding, and enjoy a 2+ Save against shooting!). 3.5 Phoenix Guard The weakest of the High Elven élites. Their effective strength is "only" four, and they lack the Sword Masters' and White Lions' extra protection against missiles. Once you have upgraded them to heavy armour (there is no excuse for forgetting that), they will cost 15 points a piece. Unless you intend to field all three élite regiments (you must be playing a very large battle...), I suggest you get the Sword Masters instead; for only one extra point you get better strength, a penalty to bowfire and the option to improve their Save further against shooting. 3.6 Sword Masters of Hoeth With a Weapon Skill of five, effective strength of five and an enormous initiative of seven, these Elves are real élites. Just avoid enemy charges, and these will take on and beat almost any enemy regiment. Their 'Deflect Shot' ability will see them through all but the most concentrated bowfire in combination with their 5+/4+ Save against shooting. The greatest enemy of the Sword Masters is heavy cavalry; with their high movement these usually get the charge, and a -2 Save modifier simply is not enough against Chaos Knights. The very high points cost of Sword Masters means that you usually will not afford to field a very large unit. Get a unit of, at most, twenty Sword Masters, and concentrate on keeping them reasonably intact until they enter combat. Enemy Cannons are bound to target these, so be prepared to deal with them. 3.7 Lothern Seaguard These seaborne archer-spearmen can be very handy in a defencive stategy. Make sure that they have a standard and a musician, and form them up in a wide formation two ranks deep. Shoot at the oncoming enemies with the longbows (make sure you take that upgrade; 24" range does not suffice) in the first few turns. Then, when the enemy gets within charge range, reform into a deep block only four models wide to maximize the rank bonus. When the enemy charges, you will get a stand an shoot with eight arrows, and can then strike with three ranks of spears. You will need at least sixteen Seaguard to make this effective. Note that Seaguard are expensive troops; with longbows and heavy armour they cost as much as Sword Masters! 3.8 Elven Spearmen Spearmen of any army are quite defencive troops, and the Citizen Levy rule and the option for heavy armour make these very good defencive troops. At 12 points each, they are one of the cheapest troops available to a High Elven General, and thus they can be bought in relatively large numbers. Twenty Spearelves will make a good solid unit that can hold their own against most enemies. Watch out for heavy cavalry though; at strength three not even the Spearmen's great number of attacks will cut through 2+ Saves. One unit get a Magic Standard, the Standard of Defiance being an obvious choice for a defencive unit. 3.9 Shadow Warriors While Shadow Warriors are not the equal of Waywatchers or Dark Elf Scouts, they are rather cheap as Elves go. Remember to give them longbows. Against most enemies, they preform the usual tasks of infiltrators; silencing war machines, threatening flanks and disrupting enemy movements. Against the Dark Elves, however, the Shadow Warriors will be next to unbreakable. Since even Cold One Knights will need a few turns to slaughter 20+ Shadow Warriors, they can be very useful to secure a flank or simply bog down a few enemy regiments. In this case, field them in ranked regiments, and even consider sticking to the normal bows to save a few points. You will still want to have a couple of Skrimisher units to deal with the Druchii's Bolt Throwers. 3.10 Archers There is not too much to say about these. Get the longbows, but leave the light armour at home. Field them in two ranks, as this makes the units much less unwieldy, and give them a little bonus in hand-to-hand. If you also add a standard, they can infact hold their own against weak enemy units, especially if placed on a hill. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 War Machines 4.1 Repeater Bolt Throwers Perhaps the most feared piece of machinery in the whole Warhammer World. As a general rule, your army should always include at least a couple of these. Heavily armoured cavalry and ranked up infantry of any sort are the primary target for these. Unless you have very many Repeaters, try to target the same unit with all of them. This forces even big units to take panic tests, and the psychological effect of a 20+ strong regiment being crippled in a single turn of shooting will have on your opponent should not be underestimated. Since they are so dangerous, your opponent is likely to spend much effort silencing them. The classsic way of silencing war-machines is to drop fliers on them. There is a few things to do if you suspect your opponent to do this. First, you can spread out the machines as much as possible, so that the enemy has to attack them each in turn to silence them all. While this will see a couple of Repeaters have their crews slaughtered horribly, the rest can continue to shoot meanwhile, and your opponent cannot use his precious flier to attack your other units. The other idea is the complete opposit; clumb all the Repeaters together in a battery, and add a Hero with the magic item Talisman of Ravensdark and perhaps a Sky Arrow. You will stand a decent chance to rout almost any flying creature. A similar nasty idea is to give the Hero the Black Gem of Gnar. 4.2 Tiranoc Charioteers Like all chariots, these are very powerful on the charge, but are only to easily stopped in their tracks by missile fire. In a defencive strategy, these are useful as part of the mobile reserve. Their inability to march will be of no consequence, and they can be hid from enemy archers behind hills, buildings etc. Extra horses are a good investment for some extra survivability Against armies with very weak missile power, like Chaos, they can be used more aggressively, but I really recomend a defencive overall strategy against such armies, so the chariots are still better left in the mobile reserve. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Monsters 5.1 General There are many kinds of monsters, and most can be used by most or all armies. Below I will discuss a few monsters that are of special interest to a High Elven Lord. Generally, monsters are very expensive and must be ridden by an expensive character to be reliable. This make them high risk troops, so don't buy them just to have them, but think about what you need the monster for, and whether you cannot achieve the same end by using other, much cheaper troops. 5.2 Dragons of Caledor As said above, the Special Rules concerning these are not very powerful, but it is useful to keep them in mind. An Elven Lord on an Emperor Dragon is about the most deadly thing you can field, but it is very hard to make up for the thousand-odd points he will cost. Due to the fact that Dragons are not affected by the Bound Monster rule, and their great prowess, they can be used as independent monsters with great success. Look out for the Ld of only seven on the normal Dragon though. 5.3 Unicorn The Unicorn is an interesting creature. It is small enough to be included in cavalry units, and it is just as swift as an Elven Steed. It also comes with an dispel and strikes at Strength six the turn it charges. I would consider it as mount for any character that will be included in a cavalry unit. 5.4 Great Eagle 30 points more expensive than a Pegasus, the Great Eagle gets a excellent WS of seven, and a useful strength of five. It will thus fight pretty well, and is still much cheaper than a Griffon. Either get one as a reasonably cheap flying mount for a character, or take three or so unridden ones and use them to silence the enenmy war-machines. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Strategies 6.1 The Hail of Death This is an extremely defencive strategy. The main idea is to field the maximum number of Repeaters as well as numberous units of Archers and Sea Guard. Then simply shoot the enemy units into oblivion as they approach your lines. Pick your targets (Repeaters target Chaos Knights, Archers target Marauders etc) and concentrate your fire; destroying/crippling one unit is better than damaging five ones moderately, if nothing else so because it spreads panic faster. Despite this strategy's heavy relience on missile power, you should include at least one unit geared up for close combat. The chances are that no matter how efficient your missile troops are, at least one enemy assault unit will reach your lines, and even if beaten down to a fraction of its starting strength it will still easily beat up the average missile unit. This close combat unit could simply be a large unit of Sea Guard led by Characters tooled up for melee, though a dedicated close combat unit like Swordmasters is my prefered choice. A highly mobile 'rapid response' unit, ie Cavalry or Chariots, is another alternative. Anything that gives you another turn to use your bows and Repeaters is very desireable, and for this reason Shadow Warriors and Reaver Knights are good in this strategy. All they need to do is to get within 8" of an enemy unit and it cannot march. They can also boost the kill count with their own bows, but remember that is not their main task. It is also important to stop any early aerial attacks on your Repeaters; a flier your own is probably a good idea. 6.2 Counter Attack Again, the main idea is to weaken the enemy units with missile fire before they reach your lines. However, unlike in a 'Hail of Death' you include several tooled up close combat units (Silverhelms, White Lions etc) and preferably chariots. When the enemy formations are close enough, and hopefully seriously weakened by the hail of missile fire, these hard-hitting units charge and hopefully break them. Your assault units should not need to be very large, and their leaders can preferably be equipped with 'One Shot Wonder' weapons like the Dragonblade Lance or Potion of Strength. As with missile fire, concentrated charges usually work best. The comments above on Infiltrators and fliers apply here too. 6.3 The Defencive Arch This is a slightly more aggressive strategy. All your defencive, shooty troops are deployed in the centre and concentrate on causing as much carnage as possible among the enemy troops as usual. Then comes the aggressive part. Use several units of shock Cavalry (Dragon Princes and Silverhelms geared up to a 3+ Save) plus Chariots and deploy them on the flanks. The very fast and hard-hitting troops try to outflank the enemy and charge his units in flank (or even better rear), preferably before they reach your missile troops (and slaughter them horribly). Again your shock troops should not be forced to fight the enemy core troops before these has been weakened by missile fire. Potential troubles with this strategy include enemy Infiltrators that stop your shock troops from marching, ugly monsters preying on your missile troops and sacrifical units that anchor the enemy flanks. Avoid charging anything unbreakable. On small tables the enemy battleline might be so wide that you simply cannot outflank it, forcing you to charge head-on into the enemy troops. It is obviously easier to outflank and envelope small, compact armies like Chaos than swarming hordes like Skaven. 6.4 Offencive Tactics The High Elves are in many ways at their best when fighting defencively, and such tactics are very appropriate for Militia-type troops like the Citizen Levies. But there are many reasons that one may want to fight more aggressively. Most obviously, the scenario may dictate some goal or goals that only can be achieved by offencive warlfare; an objective that must be captured, an enemy force that must be intercepted, the Elves might be forced try and break through the enemy lines. It is also important to vary one's tactics from time to time, so as to not become too predictable, and an aggressive High Elven strategy may cast your opponent off balance. The best assault troops in the High Elven Army are the Élite units (Silverhelms, Dragon Princes, Chariots, Swordmasters, White Lions and Phoenix Guard) so it makes good tactical sense to include more than the usual proportion of such troops in an aggressive army. It is also reasonable within the background; the Citizen Levies will naturally most typically be engaged in defencive engagements. The high speed of the Elven Cavalry makes them well suited for flanking or enveloping manoeuvres, and by charging enemy troops in the flank or rear deny them their rank bonuses. A classic approach is to concentrate all fast, hard-hitting units of Cavalry and Chariots on one flank, Élite Infantry units in the middle and the more defencive parts of the army (Spearmen, Archers, Repeaters) on the other. Ideally, the whole line should be shifted so that your 'aggressive flank' is deployed near the edge of the table on that flank and your 'defencive flank' is deployed near the centre of you deployment zone; in that way your Cavalry can more easily outflank the enemy line while the enemy troops in the far flank hopefully can be ignored for the first few turns as you concentrate on destroying his other flank. Once this is accomplished your aggressive troops can continue down his line, destroying unit after unit. A final note; consider your opponent carefully before deciding on an aggressive approach. The strategy suggested above for example will obviously work best against a rather slow, unwieldly enemy force with a low proportion of Cavalry. It will almost certainly not work against Wood Elves who are at least as manoeuvrable as you and mostly likely will not have proper battleline for you to "roll". Generally aggressive play is more recommendable against armies that are not too heavily inclined for attacking; nothing will make a Chaos Lord happier than the Elves coming rushing to meet his dedicated close combat troops instead of shooting for all that they are worth.