A change of pace - Dwarfs

Everyone knows that I play High Elves.. but did you know I also play Dwarfs?  Yah.. I have a bunch of the beards in the closet and haven't played with them for a long time.  So without further ado, I give you my 2500 Dwarf list.

2477
Dwarves

LORDS:
Lord (SB, GW, RoStone, RoResistance, MRoSteel, MRoChallenge) = 281

HEROES:
Thane (BSB, MRoGromil, RoResistance, RoPreservation) = 155
Runesmith (Shield, GW, MRoBalance, RoSpellbreaking) = 151

CORE:
30x Warriors (FC, Shields, GW) = 355
25x Longbeards (FC, MRoGrungi, Shields, Great Weapons) = 425

SPECIAL:
30x Hammerers (FC, RoBattle, Shields) = 445
Grudge Thrower (2x RoPenetration, RoAccuracy) = 155
Cannon (RoForging, RoBurning) = 130

RARE:
Organ Gun = 120
Organ Gun = 120
Gyrocopter = 140


I have a lot of WS4/5 GWs in this army.. which is perfectly fine for me because Dwarfs are slow anyway.  The 30x Warriors with HW/Shields and Great Weapons are pretty good utility since they can take a lot of damage and swing back hard.  The Grudge Thrower is S5 simply because it destroys entire regiments and the Cannon offers S10 D6 magical/burning wounds upon impact.  I have two Organ Guns in this list to deter flanks and offer cheap, powerful shooting and I have a Gyrocopter to annoy people.  Being able to fly 20" and burning people with a S3 -1 template should be very annoying indeed.. especially to Elves or Skaven.

My idea is that the Dwarf Lord sits comfortably with the 30x Hammerers and have the Longbeards chill out with the BSB.  The Runesmith can hang out in the Hammerer unit too to offer serious protection.  I'm thinking that if I deploy 6 wide with the Hammers, I can have the Lord up front with the BSB and the Runesmith will be forced to go in the back.  Since Command has to be in the front, as long as my champ is alive, the Runesmith will be safe.  The battle plan itself is going to be quite simple:  Weaken the enemy forces with superior shooting and then charge in for big damage.  I'm not sure how the light shooting is going to play out in a game vs. horde-like armies, but it'll be a lot of fun regardless.  The Dwarf Lord is a challenge monster and I doubt he's going to die in combat since he has a 1+ re-rollable and everything above S5 counts as S5.  He will probably use his MRoChallenge to pull units in combat with him.. and no one in the game wants a piece of 30 Stubborn Ld.9 Hammerers with a red-faced angry Dwarf Lord leading them.

Oh, and the Dragonslayers.  I might take some of these guys over my 2nd Organ Gun simply because they're T5 WS6 Dwarfs with Slayer Axes.  Sure, they might die if you shoot at them or if they're in combat.. but that's exactly how they like it!  Not to mention they're just there as speed bumps since they can offer warmachine protection, add to combat res by flanking, charging and killing things, and can soften up enemy attacks if they choose to allocate to him.  Not bad for 50ppm!

Whatcha guys think?  I think the list looks pretty good.  On a sad note though.. overtime has hit again at work and I'm going to be a little slower on the blog posts.  Sad face indeed.

BR: 2500 High Elves vs. Dwarfs

The mission: Breakpoint, He wins the roll to go first.
I rolled for and got Mystifying Miasma, Withering Hex, Pit of Shades and Okkam's Mindrazor.

My army list:

2493

LORDS:
Lv.4 Archmage (Book of Hoeth) = 360
Noble (BSB, GW, AoC/GP) = 168
Korhil = 140

CORE:
30x Spears (FC, War Banner) = 320
25x LSG (FC) = 350

SPECIAL:
25x Phoenix Guard (FC, Banner of Sorcery) = 455
25x White Lions (FC, Banner of Eternal Flame) = 415
12x Sword Masters (Musician) = 185

RARE:
2x Great Eagles = 100


His army list:
Dwarf Lord
Great Weapon, Shieldbearers
RoStone, MRoSteel, MRoSpite, RoPreservation

Thane BSB, RoFury, RoCleaving
Runesmith, Great Weapon, MRoBalance, Scroll
Dragonslayer

Large unit of Warriors (FC)
Large unit of Longbeards (FC)
Large unit of Ironbreakers (FC)
Smaller unit of Warriors w/ Great Weapons
Small unit of Thunderers
Small unit of Quallerers
Grudge Thrower w/ 2x RoPenetration (S5), RoAccuracy, Engineer
Cannon w/ RoForging w/ Engineer
Organ Gun


Turn 1 Dwarfs:
His army moves up a little bit but nothing too outrageous.  A huge stone from the Grudgethrower lands comfortably on 15 White Lions and kills 13 of them even though I deployed wide (10x2+5).  I rage and scream but after a few minutes I sit back down.  Organ Gun kills more White Lions (was furious at this point).  Quallerers shoot and kill 2 Sword Masters.  I pass my panic test on the WL.

Turn 1 High Elves:
My entire army moves up a good distance.  My Eagles fly into next turn charge range to his Stone Thrower and his Cannon, my Sword Masters marched 10" straight to his large unit of Warriors, my White Lions SR'd into a smaller unit, everything moved up.  Magic phase sees Miasma and Pit of Shades (powered up) cast with IF on the Dwarf Lord's unit of Ironbreakers; I reduce their stats by 3 (rolled a 6) and my PoS misses with the large template and only kills a few.  My shooting phase has my LSG shoot at his Dragonslayer and I put a wound on him.

Turn 2 Dwarfs:
He advances his Warriors with the GWs up, but the placement of my PG bunker and the ruins next to it makes it difficult to charge.  His Lord's unit inches up, his Longbeards and Warrior unit moves up a little too.  The Grudge Thrower thankfully misses, the Organ Gun + Thunderers kills a few White Lions again (passing panic), and the Cannon fails to do anything.  During this phase, his insane Dragonslayer charges my LSG and they stand and shoot to kill him.

Turn 2 High Elves:
I charge the GT and the Cannon with my Eagles and charge the Runesmith's large unit of Warriors with my Sword Masters.  He holds across the board.  I SR my LSG and my Spear unit into fighting formation now that the templates have been engaged.  Magic sees a IF Pit of Shades miss the Ironbreakers again, but I miscast and kills 2 Phoenix Guard with a small template S10 over my Wizard's head.  Korhil and the BSB are saved by LOS! rolls.  Shooting from the LSG unit into the Organ Gun puts 3 wounds on him but he saves 1 of them.  Combat sees the Eagle charging the cannon killing the crew and overrunning into his Quallerers.  The Grudge Throwers' crew also lose combat, but thanks to Stubborn, they stay with 2 guys left.  My Sword Masters throw all their attacks into the unit and kill 6 total.  He swings back and only kills 2 guys, but he has the bonuses to stay in combat.

Turn 3 Dwarfs:
No charges are made this turn.  The Organ Gun fires at my LSG squad and kills 7 of them.  Thunderers shoot my White Lions and reduces them to 5 dudes.  I pass panic again and my White Lions are more grim-faced now than ever.  Everyone else that can move inches up and gets ready to charge.  Combat sees the Eagle with the Quallerers tie combat, I kill off the Stone Thrower and look at his Thunderers on the flank, and my Sword Masters throw their attacks at the Rune Priest/unit and kills him and 4 others.  Ranks and bonuses say otherwise and the Warriors hold in combat after only killing 1 Sword Master because of crappy rolls.

Turn 3 High Elves:
The turn begins and the Elves do a tactical retreat back with the PG, the leftover WL unit and the Spear unit.  I also placed my PG in a way that prevented his Warriors w/ GWs from getting in the action since his Lord's unit would block any charge space.  For magic, I IF Miasma and Pit of Shades (in that order) on the Lord's unit and it scatters again (sadface), but the large template covers a good amount of Ironbreakers in the Lord's unit.  He passes his LOS! roll but 13 Ironbreakers fail their I test since they need 1s to pass!  I also miscast on my PoS and I damage everyone around me for a S10 hit.  Korhil and the BSB both take a wound from that and 2 PG die.  That's fine, worth the damage done.  I forgot to charge my Eagle into his Thunderers because I'm bad and shooting from the LSG kills off the Organ Gun.  I lose the combat with the Quallerers but that's fine.  The eagle did its job.  Combat from the Sword Masters kill off a good amount of Warriors again, but thanks to the full command and ranks, he stays in the fight after killing 3 more Sword Masters.

Turn 4 Dwarfs:
On his turn, his Longbeards charges my 30-man Spear unit and my reaction is to hold.  The Dwarf Lord's unit tries to charge my White Lions but fails the charge and advances 6".  The Warriors w/ GWs move up slightly on a angle behind him.  His Thunderers reform and face my Great Eagle and his Quallerers adjust to face the battle as well.  The Warriors with the GW are behind the Lord's unit but unable to do anything this turn.  In combat, the Sword Masters finally lose combat and they run with 2 guys remaining.  The Spears attack in 4 ranks, puts out 21 attacks with WS4 re-rolls and scores 4 kills on his Longbeards.  That's pretty damn good.  He kills 5 total, exposes what his BSB was armed with and wins combat by 1.  I stay on a roll of 6.

Turn 4 High Elves:
I can't flank charge with my LSG squad because my stupid fleeing SMs (they keep fleeing) are in the way so they reform and shoot at the Warrior unit in front of them (killing 2).  My PG backpedaled a little more, and I positioned my White Lions in a diagonal line so if the Lord's unit charged, their flank would be exposed to my PG.  Magic sees Okkam's Mindrazor go off with IF on my Spear unit that's engaged with the Longbeards.  I miscast again and lose a Wizard level and Mindrazor (rolled a 1 for d3).  That's fine, that damage is done.  My Great Eagle flies behind his Thunderers and out of LoS of his Quallerers and in rear charge range of his Longbeard's unit.  In combat, I put 4 attacks into his Dwarf BSB and the S8 mauls him down.  The rest of the attacks go into the Longbeards but he rolls a godly number of 6s for Parry but that's not enough.  A ton of Longbeards go down and they break in combat (I think 8 die), only for me to roll a 1 and a 2 to run them down.  He rolled a 4 (5, -1 cause he's Dwarfs).  I guess the Mindrazor left the Spears stupid or something.

Turn 5 Dwarfs:
His Lord's unit charges my White Lions and I hold for that.  His Longbeards rally and face my Spears.  The Warrior unit with the GWs move into a flanking position should my PG charge and the Warrior unit that killed the Sword Masters charges my LSG unit.  The White Lion's Champ went into a challenge with his unkillable Lord, loses terribly (overkilled by 4) and only 2 White Lions remain because the Ironbreakers whiff their attacks.  They hold because of Stubborn on a 8.  The Warrior unit ties combat with the LSG and that was it for combat phase.

Turn 5 High Elves:
I charge my PG unit into the flank of his Dwarf Lord's unit, my Eagle charges the back of his Longbeard unit in combination with my Spears from the front, and combat is all over the board.  Magic phase is weak but has Miasma cast at the Lord's unit (reducing it by 2).  Korhil issues a challenge, lands a Killing Blow on the Lord who then shows him the Rune-of-I-don't-care and pimp slaps Korhil into the mud.  The BSB chops up some Ironbreakers, the White Lions chops up more Ironbreakers and the Phoenix Guard follow suit.  I have ranks, flank, charge, BSB and kills so he needs double 1s basically after all combat is done.  He breaks, I catch him and the game is over because we hit the Breakpoint.

High Elves claim major victory over the Dwarfs!

Tactica: High Elves vs. Dark Elves

Dark Elves Army Analysis

Strengths:

• Fast, mobile troops, just like every Elven army
• Powerful magic users that can take potent magic lores
• Powerful Dragons and the dreaded Hydra
• Great selection of competitively priced and diverse units
• Some lists can offer a sick amount of shooting
• Powerful and unique magic items that can fill many roles
• They hate High Elves so much they re-roll hits always

Weaknesses:

• T3, 5+ save just like most Elves
• Ring of Hotek now only effects casters within 12" of it
• High Elves have a much better time in combat with DE thanks to ASF and re-rolls to hit at equal or greater Initiative.

Dark Elves Unit Analysis

Dreadlord/Master

These guys can take just about every sick, twisted and profane item combination that you can think of.  They can buff the unit they're in with Ld.10 Stubborn thanks to that new stubborn helm, they can become nigh unkillable because of pendant, and they can outright maul with with things like Crimson Death.  You never know which combo you're going to get, but most of the time, the dude will be geared to take damage.  The Dreadlord can take a good amount of protection and still offer up some solid damage with S6 Crimson Death, so be wary of engaging him in combat.  Popular new items are the Black Dragon Egg that gives him a dragon's breath in combat or in shooting range, or having him be a Ld.10 Stubborn roadblock that can tarpit all day with the BSB in range.  Speaking of which, the BSB will most likely be geared for protection as well, since DE (for some reason) have a lot of magical armors that can save the day.  A popular choice will be a 1+ armor save that's re-rollable since the DE can steal all the magic items they want from the BRB.  If any Masters or Dreadlords are located in a cavalry unit of CoKs, then expect them to be geared out for substantial combat.

Supreme Sorceress

Be prepared to see a lot of Dark Magic vs. High Elves.  Since they can have additional army dice outside the norm and have spells that can completely wreck your units (Soul Stealer, Black Horror), you need to be ready.  A Lv.4 can sit tight in a large unit of spears with sac. dagger and go to town on you.  She can also choose to fly on a Dark Peggy and use things like Pendant + Focus Familiar to touch you when she otherwise wouldn't.  In fact, any sorceress with Focus Familiar is going to be playing all kinds of LoS and combat denial with the ability to reach out 6" from anywhere she wants.  Dispelling is going to be your best friend.  Be ready to accept that 1-2 spells are going to get off and you only have one scroll now (unless you take a Sigil).  The spells that you should be very wary of are those that's going to do massive, massive damage to units.  Things like Black Horror having no partials, auto-hitting center on top with a 5" template is serious business.  Don't let these things go off or you're going to have a lot of dead Elves (the good ones) to put away.  It's OK though, we're High Elves and we have +1 to dispel so unless they IF, we can save all our DD for these spells.

DE Magic
Just so you know, Dark Elves also have access to all the other "killy" lores like Fire, Metal, Shadow and Death.  Go through the magic sections on my site and study each lore to the best of your ability.  Knowing which spells and what magic combos can hurt your army the most is pivotal in winning the game vs. another magical army.  An example would be you unknowingly letting Mystifying Miasma go off because you're so afraid of his other hexes just to find out that having lower I means you lose your re-rolls to hit on ASF.  They can even take Metal to make their units more durable in combat or increase their chances to hit you in close combat.  Lore of Fire can buff their shooting so they wound you easier and Lore of Death can pick off your precious heroes.  I think every player that wants to play High Elves should study the magic phase in much greater detail than the other factions.  Not only do we have access to all of them and we should take advantage of each lore, but it helps widen our understanding of the magical combos our opponents can field against us.  Here's a brief tactical exercise for you:  Go through my magic articles 1 & 2 and see how these spells can benefit the enemy.  Apply them to each of the units listed in this tactica and see the combos in your mind.  That will prepare you for every possible encounter ahead and you'll know exactly which spells to let go and which ones to dispel.

DE Core Units

For the most part, he has the same unit you do in terms of stats.  The thing to note is that although they share the same I value as you, he doesn't have ASF.  This gives you a huge advantage over his spears in combat.  Their advantage?  Their price.  They can field almost every equivalent unit to you for a good amount cheaper. This means more of their units will be on the board and this means they'll have a lot more shots too.  Things to note:  Since their Spears are cheaper, this means they can get a lot more dudes in their units.  You might kill a lot of them when you first hit, but you know damn well that they're going to be swinging back (with Eternal Hatred too!).  Their RXB and Corsairs got exceptionally deadly in this edition.  That's because RXBs fire in 2 ranks and with a good amount of them on the board, you're going to see black-fletched arrows all over the place.  S3 arrows might not seem like a lot, but when your opponent starts rolling handfuls of dice a turn and telling you to take wounds with -1 armor thanks to AP, then you might start to sweat.  Corsairs got a pretty nifty buff too since they can shoot and opt to stand and shoot in 2 ranks.  That and the fact that they don't completely suck in combat kinda makes them the DE version of LSGs.  No worries, most of our troops can maul these guys once we reach combat.  Be prepared to eat a ton of lead before we get there though.

DE Special Units

Black Guard will still see a of play even if their max unit size of 20 will limit the amount we'll see on the battlefield.  This doesn't mean they're not good though.. Ld.9 Stubborn and ItP with 2 attacks each, always re-roll to hit, I6 and WS5 makes them extremely effective in combat.  Throw on the ASF Banner and they'll be going before us in combat (for the most part) and we won't get re-rolls to hit back.  This pretty much means that that stupid ASF banner has to die ASAP.  Such is the case in last edition, such is the case now.  If you think DE will have only Black Guard to throw at you in combat, you've definitely got another thing coming.  People have started to dust off their Executioners as well since they know they're going to get their attacks back no matter what.  S6 Killing Blow is no laughing matter and since they can put a character with Stubborn and/or ItP in there, Executioners will have plenty of face cleaving fun.  Even lowly units such as Witch Elves can do insane amounts of damage to your Spears.  I6 denies your ASF's re-rolls and the fact that they can have plenty of WS4 S3 attacks coming back at you could mean a lot of dead Elves.. especially when buffed by Cauldron.

The Hydra and the Cauldron

The Hydra has always been one of those units that are "questionably" priced.  It has good movement, causes terror, has a strong breath attack (proportional to remaining wounds), and has regen.  Although it's no longer the insanely undercosted beast it was in 7th Ed, it's still a extremely powerful monster to deal with.  It has a lot of attacks with Hatred and can now breath in combat.  Terror is no longer as powerful as it was, but the fact it's still a raw damage machine for fairly low costs makes it very powerful.

As for the Cauldron, that thing got buffed significantly last errata.  It is now T10 and has a 4+ ward which makes it extremely durable vs. enemy shooting and magic.  At the beginning of each turn, it can opt to give units a 5+ ward, Killing Blow or +1 attack.  The ward save keeps units in combat and protects them against our magic, Killing Blow is extremely dangerous on things that have multiple attacks (like Witch Elves or Black Guard) and +1 attack is good for everyone.  Expect to see this thing on the field a lot because of all the wonderful buffs it can offer the army.

Everything Else

This area is opened for suggestions and will be added based on player feedback/requests.

Recommended Magic Lores

Shadow:

• Hex their unit's toughness to make them easier to kill
• Hex their unit's strength to decrease their damage keeps our units alive
• Pit of Shades threatens Dragons, Hydras and the Cauldron
• Mindrazor on ASF units with re-rolls to hit mauls all of their scary big units

High:

• Easy to cast and diverse lore that gives us plenty of utility against DE
• Flames of the Phoenix can now burn down entire units unless dispelled
• Vaul's Unmaking can destroy the powerful magic items that DE relies on

Fire:

• Flaming Sword of Ruin puts the hurt on everything in his army
• Damaging spells all over the place puts the hurt on low T models
• Flaming Cloak adds to the damage once your units hit combat

Recommended Units

Lv. 4 Archmage w/ Book of Hoeth or Book of Ashur

When spells need to go off and Teclis is not an option, Book of Hoeth is your best bet. High Elves with their innate +1 to dispel can take Book of Ashur for a total of +6 to dispel.  Personally, I think IF is still the better choice because it can force spells to go through regardless of whether or not they're willing to dispel.  If your opponent is not taking much Hydras and you think your units can take care of his monsters, then High Magic is the way to do it.  The last thing you want is to get stuck in combat with some unkillable lord or have your wizard in jeopardy because of Ring of Hotek.  Just Vaul's Unmaking the thing and continue on your merry way.  For more info on what lores to take and how they help your units, check out this previous post.

Prince and the BSB
The Prince should feel pretty comfortable with defensive builds such as AoC + Vambraces of Defense.  A humble GW will do against most enemies and you can throw in whatever unit needs more combat support.  I find that PG or Spears is the best place to put a S6 Prince because you can increase the damage potential of that unit by a good amount.  The BSB is also a must have in this edition.  The mounted version in a unit of infantry means he can get picked out by spells that would normally allow a Look Out Sir! roll, so you probably want to keep him on foot.  AoC/Guardian Phoenix + Great Weapon would be the best way to kit out the BSB, but if you need a 2+ armor on the Prince, feel free to take the more expensive version from the BRB.

Korhil, Caradryan

Korhil is there because his S6 and KB can threaten any anything in his army reliably.  He can buff up the Phoenix Guard with a nice Stubborn 9 and a good amount of attacks.  Just make sure he's on the edge of the unit and challenges as much as he can to stay alive.  Caradryan and his MR3 is invaluable against something like Dark Elves because their magic will be a serious pain in the ass.  The 3 S5 Flaming Attacks that each does D3 wounds is also going to be a solid answer vs. Hydras as well.

Lv.2 Mage w/ Seerstaff of Saphery

Supporting caster can take something cheap that can widen the amount of spells your army have access to.  Key choices here are a Lv.4 with High Magic and a Lv.2 with one of the other lores listed above.  Lore of Metal is also an excellent support lore because Glimmering Robes making White Lions 1+ vs. shooting threatens everything in the DE army.  Enchanted Blades or even Swords of Ruin just increases overall damage done to his army, which is always good.

Spears, LSG

LSG can shoot plenty, but don't ever expect to outshoot his army.  The only reason why you might want to deploy wide is to prevent getting breathed on.  In short, your units should win in combat vs. most of their standard troops because you have ASF, Martial Prowess and re-rolls in combat.  Even though they get tons of re-rolls vs. you because of Eternal Hatred, with good enough magic augmentation, you should be owning face left and right.  I recommend Spears simply because you can take more of them over LSG and they can be just as good as your elite infantry because of the sheer number of attacks vs. T3 units.

Phoenix Guard, White Lions, Sword Masters

Phoenix Guard with ASF and I6 can only be matched by his elite Black Guard.  If he takes ASF Banner anywhere else, the only other units you should watch out for is his CoK, Witch Elves and his heroes/lords.  Other than that, PG should be doing pretty good damage vs. the rest of his army because of their Fear, 4+ Ward and S4 vs. T3.  White Lions with a Eternal Flame Banner literally threatens everything in his entire army.  Elves die on a 2+, you chop off Hydra heads all day and even his Dragon should be afraid of ASF S6 White Lions.  The 3+ natural armor save is brilliant against S3 shooting and with Glimmering Robes giving them a 1+ save vs. shooting just because ridiculous.  Last but not least, don't be afraid to take some Sword Masters to apply pressure on the flanks and pull some shooting off your main forces.  As much as I hate saying this, our elite SM in MSU formation tends of take a lot of fire.  The reason why is because once they reach combat, they can pretty much chop up half a squad of units by themselves.  This is good and bad - good that SM pulls fire away from the rest of your army (big threat unit) and bad that they're an expensive unit to lose.

Dragon Princes, Eagles

Eagles are just dirt cheap target practice RXBs or Corsairs to say the least.  They are there to apply pressure and nothing else.  March blocking isn't that powerful anymore, but the ability for you to take a good amount of them for a reasonable amount of points puts Eagles to good use.  Just fly them at your opponents missile troops and force them to deal with them or be locked up in combat.  Dragon Princes, on the other hand, are still rock hard I6 WS5 units wearing 2+ armor and is immune to flaming attacks.  They pose a huge threat to the army because almost nothing is faster than them in combat and they do a lot of damage.  The 2+ armor saves them from a lot of attacks but with enough armor piercing shots, even our mighty DPs can drop dead.  I'm afraid to say it but I'm going to anyway:  DPs and Eagles are great distractions and fire magnets, nothing more.  It's our infantry that's going to be doing the damage to the DE forces.

Lion Chariots
I'm not going to say much about these guys except.. if your opponents don't shoot at these, once they reach combat, a lot of Dark Elves are going to die horribly.  Except these guys to get shot up to all hell, but they're really good at doing damage to DE units.

Recommended Strategy

• Neutralize or pressure his RXB and shooty units so the rest of your units can reach combat.
• Be mindful of character bombs holding the Ring of Hotek.  The way it works now is that it only effects casters within 12" (not targeting within) of it.. so they might try to rush in and deny your magic phase that way.
• Expect to eat some really hurtful spells from Dark Magic, so save your DD and scrolls for these.
• Use your own magic to the best of your ability to neutralize, disable and destroy his magical item's advantages.
• Flames of the Phoenix or another mass destruction spell can seriously hamper a Supreme Sorceress' ability to use Sac. Dagger.
• Your units can win most combats once they reach the frontlines, so make sure you do damage to his shooting units first unless..
• ..Target priority suggests you might need to switch targets and disable his more fighty units if they cause higher threat to your army.
• Dark Elves are fast, so you must compensate your movement to his.  Most of the time, he can move just as fast as you can so be extra careful about where you position your units.
• Dark Elves are also very angry when fighting High Elves.  Expect to take more damage than normal because they get to re-roll all their attacks vs. us.
• That is also why Standard of Balance makes a great banner to have on our elite infantry when fighting DE.
• Assasins - they're out there and they're faster than you and have ASF.  Good thing that once they do damage, they're going to be taking it to the face.
• Don't forget your Valour of the Ages special rule when fighting against your Dark kin!
• Hit the Hydras hard and their breath will be a lot weaker.  Banner of Eternal Banner should go on whatever unit you want to kill those damn things.
• Be wary of which units he plans on buffing with his Cauldron of Blood.  Unless you have Pit of Shades on it, I would just ignore it and go for nuking the unit he's trying to buff instead.
• When facing Dragons, go for the Dragon first!  The Lord on top is probably going to be impossible to kill, so unless you Vaul's Unmaking his items, the Dragon will be easier to get rid of.

BR: 2K Blood Angels vs. Tau

Today, I played my first game of 40K in months.  I finally decided to get my damn Blood Angels on the table and they played against my friend JR's Tau.  We played a Battle Mission game and there was 3 objectives 12" apart from eachother spread out on the map.  The first marker was placed in the middle, I placed the 2nd 12" directly to the left of that and the third one he placed by his deployment zone.

My army list looked like this:

Mephiston
10x ASM (PF/Infernus, 2x Meltaguns)
10x ASM (PF/Infernus, 2x Meltaguns)
5x ASM (RB TLAC, PW, Meltagun)
5x ASM (RB TLAC, PW, Meltagun)
Corbulo
Sanguinary Priest
3x Baal Predators (TLAC/HB)
2x Vindicators (DB)

His army had:

HQ Suit with BS5 and Missile Pods
3x 3x suits with Plasma/Missiles
2x units of Kroot
2x units of Fire Warriors in Devilfish
2x 2x Broadsides
1x Hammerhead with Railgun
2x 2x Piranhas with Fusion

He rolled for first and deployed.


First turn saw both Vindicators take heavy combined fire.  One lost a weapon and the other one was stunned.  The Tau jumped around like cowards and some poor rolls kept the Rhino holding my Sanguinary Priest in good condition.  His Piranhas also jumped in front of my army and threatened all my vehicles with their Fusion weapons.  On my turn, I returned fire from my Baal Preds and they killed one of the Broadsides on the right side of the field.  3x Baals shooting all their shots at 2x Broadsides killed only 1.  Very sad face.  It's OK, the rest of the army pushed up; Mephiston jumped up behind the ASM squad and everyone was in range of the Priests' FC/FNP bubble.  I moved some units around to deny him as much shooting as possible, giving most of my army cover or denied LoS.  The only damage done by me this time was killing two Piranhas that flew in front of me with some good meltagun/infernus shots from one of my ASM squads.  They assaulted and killed the gun drones after, then rallied into cover.

His following turn disabled two of my Baals and took the weapon off one of my RBs.  JR epically failed to kill the Vindicator but managed to disable its shooting again with a Stunned result.  Nothing really happens on his turn except his suits jump back into cover after killing a couple of ASM.  I'd like to make it clear that I completely forgot what weapon my RBs got because I haven't played in so long and thus, forgot to use their TLAC (thinking it was a Heavy Flamer lol).  So the RBs moved up and proved more bubble on my right most ASM squad that also flew up.  Mephiston passed for wings and he flew up behind them.  My left most ASM assaulted and killed some gun drones before getting back into cover by the middle objective.  Corbulo's RB hides behind the terrain (out of LoS and getting a sweet cover) and sits tight.

On his turn, he destroys one of my Baals and stuns the other, epically misses my Vindie again with his Pirahnas, but was able to score a kill on it with the Railguns he had.  He rolls a Wrecked result and my Vindie parks itself nicely in front of my RB, making it even harder to see.  After killing some more ASMs, he jumps back and I have 5 ASM left in the other squad and Mephiston behind him.  My RB with the Priest's unit is also nearby.  During my turn, I disembark my Priest's unit of ASM and run them towards the cover by his control point.  My ASM flies into terrain and gets ready to assault.  Mephiston casts Wings and gets ready to help the assault on the Kroot.  My Vindie without a weapon turbo-boosted across the board to provide the squads with a AV11 LoS-denying cover after the assault that was to be completed.  Shooting from the Baal also penetrated and stunned his Devilfish on the right side.  My leftmost ASM flies towards the remaining Piranhas and killed it with meltagun/infernus fire.  The assault from Mephiston and the ASM kills all the kroot, leaving him with no scoring unit.  I massacred behind the Vindicator without a weapon.


His next turn blows up my Vindicator (blocking Meph) and leaves my assault squad with just the Sergeant, failing to kill the entire unit.  Combined fire from the rest of his units puts down a Baal Predator but fails to kill the RB sitting at the top objective.  Some Marines die at the bottom but all is well.  Instead of jumping back, he moves his army into position to assist his Kroot congo line running for the far left objective.  His Commander is in the open and so are 3 of his suits.  On my turn, Mephiston flies over kills all 3 suits and then hides behind a piece of cover denying him LoS to Meph, my last Baal opens fire and kills his HQ suit and that last Sergeant flies back near the Sanguinary Priest's unit of ASM to tell warstories and drink tea.  They are now comfortably controlling the point on his side of the board.

On his turn 5, he flies his army closer to me and moves his Kroot across the board into scoring position.  He flies his remaining 6 suits closer towards the middle of the map to support the remaining scoring Tau forces.  Some shots later and my remaining Baal Pred gets all his guns blown off in epic fashion.  His Devilfish that was stunned before flies next to Mephiston and waves because he can't do anything, so the turn passes to me.  I eyeballed the distance towards the suit and Mephiston makes 3 power tests for Wings of Sanguinius, Unleash Rage and Sanguine Sword.  He rolls a 6 on his fleet and charges into combat from 24" away; locking both units of suits in combat and manhandles both of them.  The only heavy weapon he has on the field is the Broadsides on the far left side of the board.  He had a Hammerhead fly too close to my ASM by the middle marker and they charged in with a Thunderhammer and a Krak grenades.  The HH got stunned and had its Railgun knocked off, which is fine.  Oh, and I guess I should mention the Baal Pred ramming the Devilfish that was next to Meph from 15" away and doing absolutely nothing.

JR rolls for Turn 5 and the game ends.  Corbulo's unit of ASM was sitting on the middle CP, my Sanguinary Priest's unit was sitting on the one by his deployment, and his leftover Kroot held one.

Looking back, even though I was seriously outgunned, I think that smart use of terrain and LoS denial saved most of my marines from Tau firepower.  I used my ragtag vehicles as cover and denial and made the best of the situation because I had stronger troops that can reliably hold locations with FNP.  Though JR made some really bad pen rolls for his weapon damage, I think the winners of the game go to my resilient and powerful troops that hugged every piece of terrain like it was their mother.  I'd like to thank JR for the game (always a pleasure) and having to put up with my constant questions.  I had WHFB and Warmachine all mixed in there lol.

2-1 Victory for Blood Angels!

Tactica: High Elves vs. Dwarfs

Dwarf Army Analysis

Strengths:

• T4, high armor values, Ld.9 across the board
• Powerful runic combinations on lords and heroes
• Strong anti-magic mechanics and lots of dispel dice
• Accurate and powerful shooting in both units and artillery
• Durable, reliable troops that will hold in combat when needed

Weaknesses:

• Slow, easily outmaneuvered
• Can be outnumbered (although not by High Elves)
• Reliant on shooting to be most effective

Dwarf Unit Analysis

Runelord w/ Anvil

In total, they give the army +3 DD and a good amount of runic scrolls.  They can also take MRoBalance that functions the same as Annulian Crystal.  Watch out for his ability to make units charge in the magic phase or cast Wrath and Ruin that'll slow down your units' movement.

Lord on Shieldbearers, Combat Thanes, BSB

Could be geared for combat or survivability; you won't know until you reach combat with it.  Don't test the waters unless you're confident you can win combat.  If he's in a big unit of Hammerers, forget about it.  Nuke it from high orbit or engage it with your best hero-killer, White Lions and magic support.  He's not going down without a fight.  The combat Thanes can be tooled up with 75 point of runic weapons/armor so be mindful when engaging combats with them.  Most likely they'll be geared for combat, but sometimes they'll be geared for resilience so be ready for both.  Sometimes it's best to challenge with your unit champion so you can see what they're packing before you invest your Prince or someone special.  The Thane BSB will almost always be geared for survivability so you can bet your ass he's going to be tough to bring down.

Dwarf Warriors, Longbeards and Ironbreakers

Dwarfs are extremely durable and determined in battle.  Their large block of warriors will be taking plenty of damage from pitiful S3, so be ready to hex the crap out of them or buff your dudes with killing power.  ASF and re-rolls means we get plenty of attacks in so the problem lies in our ability to reliably wound.  Use the magic lores available to you and don't be afraid to throw a good amount of dice down to make things happen.  Hesitation will cost you games, so if you need a spell to go off, make it happen.  Like regular Dwarfs, Longbeards are just as sturdy but more dangerous in combat because they can take S6 Great Weapons on top of their WS5, and take a magical banner.  Ironbreakers are pretty much the same thing as Warriors except they have higher WS, S and armor.  Big deal, kill them the same way you would kill all other Dwarfs but be mindful that he'll take less casualties.

Hammerers

These guys are Stubborn on Ld.9 with WS5 and Great Weapons.  In order to win combat with these guys, you need to pretty much kill them all.  There's a lot of things in our army that can give these guys a run for their money, like White Lions, Sword Masters and Dragon Princes on the charge.  In fact, if you magically augment the battle enough, even Spears can take down a good number of these dudes before they get to swing (they only have Heavy Armor).  Sure they'll stay locked up in combat with you, but at least your doing damage.  Just like everything else though, if you run in there with a block of Spears and expect to win combat, you've got another thing coming.  You absolutely need support via magic or kills to prevent getting beat to shit.

Dwarf Shooting

For the sake of sanity, I'm going to put it all into this one paragraph and sum it up like this:  Dwarf shooting is the best in the game.  It's accurate, it hits hard and it can be magically enchanted to do flaming damage.  They can have S5 GTs that can re-roll scatter.. so if you don't deploy your dudes wide and use Swift Reform to the fullest, you're in a world of shit.  Thunderers have +1 to hit and do S4 Armor Piercing, so be mindful of where you place your Knights since they can fire in 2 ranks and stand and shoot.  The same applies to the auto-hitting cheat of a Organ Gun because that thing can most certainly mess you up if he rolls well (and he can re-roll the art dice if he wants).  S5 -3 to your armor saves is instant death to most Elves (including Dragon Princes) so you almost certainly want to tie those up or disable them somehow.  The rest of their weapons are pretty self explanatory:  Their cannons are magical and can re-roll misfires, their flame cannons will eat you alive and their Gyrocopters can fly around your flanks and burn you to death all day.  You need fast units to engage these threats as fast as you can and don't be afraid to nuke the hell out of them (by nuke, I mean magic/shooting).  Any 6s wound WMs now so that means you need to score 3 6s to take them out of the game.

Everything Else
This area is opened for suggestions and will be added based on player feedback/requests.

Recommended Magic Lores

Shadow:

• Hex their unit's toughness to make them easier to kill
• Hex their unit's strength to decrease their damage on your fragile units
• Pit of Shades on low initiative units and instantly kills warmachines
• Mindrazor on ASF units with re-rolls to hit mauls all their troops in combat

Metal:

• Turn their armor against them or decrease their value permanently
• Buff your own armor with Glimmering Robes to vastly increase survivability
• Enchant your weapons to be armor piercing and +1 to hit to increase heavier damage

Death:

• Plenty of snipe spells to pick off heroes and BSB
• Debuff their entire army with -1 S and T
• Purple Sun can spell doom for the entire army

Recommended Units

Lv. 4 Archmage w/ Book of Hoeth or Staff of Solidity
When spells need to go off and Teclis is not an option, Book of Hoeth is your best bet. Dwarfs have a lot of dispel dice and runic scrolls, so forcing the result with IF is the best way to do it. If you don't want to or need to save points, go with Staff of Solidity because it's cheap and reliable.

Korhil, Caradryan, Prince w/ White Sword, AoC and GP
Korhil can challenge anything in his army and emerge victorious with his increased chance of Killing Blow. Caradryan offers a good challenger and 4+ ward vs. Wrath and Ruin from the Anvil. If you don't like SCs, go with the Prince for the Ld.10 and awesome killing power. If you want more survivability, go with a simple GW and Vambraces of Defense instead. If he has a Dwarf Lord and issues a challenge, he's probably tooled up with all kinds of runic madness. Just keep that in mind.

Lv.2 Mage w/ Seerstaff of Saphery
Supporting caster can take something cheap like High Magic and spam out Shield of Saphery to protect your units against enemy missile/artillery fire or cast Courage of Aenarion should the battle goes ill.

Spears deployed in 10x3 formation, Swift Reform
Deploy wide so you don't get completely destroyed by his accurate, high strength stone throwers and harassing Gyrocopters. When you need to get into the fight or his warmachines have been neutralized, swift reform and engage.

Phoenix Guard, White Lions
As long as has warmachines like cannons, flame cannons and grudgethrowers in his army, you want to deploy wide to minimize damage to your ranks. Phoenix Guard can take a ton of beating and still strike back but you'll need some form of magic buff if you want to kill anything.  The AP banner is something to consider as well.  White Lions can pretty much chew through his entire army once they reach close combat so you want these guys in combat ASAP.  WS5 and S6 are essential at killing a high T army like Dwarfs and Stubborn just adds to the flavor.  Keep as many of these guys alive as you can:  Screen them, buff them, do something, just get them in there!

Something fast - Cavalry or Eagles or both
Cavalry/eagles is just mandatory. There's nothing in the army that applies more pressure to his guns than cavalry or eagles, or both. You want to get up in his face as soon as you can and distract his guns away from your troops.  Your top priority should be anything that can apply a template or just outright maul you like Organ Guns.  If you have Eagles and he has Gyrocopters in the air, it's time to do some serious dogfighting.  You do not want templates on your flanks.


Recommended Strategy

• Neutralize or pressure his guns so the rest of your army can move up and engage in combat.
• Expect to be dispelled a lot if he has a Runelord w/ Anvil unless you take Book of Hoeth or Teclis.
• Keep your units large and wide so you can prevent damage done by area of effect warmachines.
• Use your magic to bring down his toughness or armor and buff your units so you can effectively wound his units. Magic is your best friend.
• If he has a good amount of Great Weapons, be prepared to take heavy casualties in combat. You need solid support to kill a lot of his guys to reduce getting wrecked back.
• Get in fast, get in hard. The longer you delay, the more he can shoot up your army.
• Don't get over confident and over-extend your army. The Dwarf army can take a lot of damage, you can't.
• Don't be surprised if Dwarfs charge out there or move across the fields are accelerated rates.  Be mindful that this is now 8th Ed. and that Dwarfs have a average charge range of 10".
• Don't even bother shooting Dwarfs:  His artillery counter-batteries you all day and you can't really wound his dudes.  On top of this, he outshoots you any day in the week.

Island of Blood High Elves pics!

Got some pics off of Warseer, BoLS and Dakka.  These look quite amazing!  Oh, and if you're a rat lover, go here.  Click on the pictures to get a larger view.

Army specific strategy guides

I'm going to be staring my High Elves vs. X army tacticas sometime soon.  That's going to be a pretty big project that it'll probably take a long time to finish because there's 15 armies total (including the mirror match).  I'll also probably have to update it like crazy since the metagame in 8th Ed. will be constantly changing and new power builds will arise.

With that said, I need your help.  Which armies would you like to see me write about to get started (pick top 5)?  These guides will be competitive and thus will include the most optimal choices to maximize our win chances.  If you don't like it, too bad.  The entire purpose of strategy guides is to help others claim victory.

New 8th Ed. Army Predictions

I think most of you have read the article I posted over at BoLS some time ago detailing army tier predictions for 8th Ed.  If you guys missed it, here's the link.  Keep in mind that that particular article was written maybe a week or two before the FAQs were released.

Today's short blurb will be my predictions on what the army tiers are going to look like now that we have the FAQs and people have started playing games already.  Before I go any further, I'm going to use a different way to represent the tiers since there's no definitive tiers yet (lacking actual stats).

Here are the armies that stand out a good amount above the others:

Warriors of Chaos

The Empire

Skaven
Dwarfs

Here are the ones that are smack dead in the middle.  The ones that I feel are slightly above the curve with all things considered are in red, and the ones that are not are in blue.  Depending on the build of the army, these spots are inter-changeable.. which is absolutely fantastic because it shows 8th Ed. will be extremely balanced and fun.

High Elves

Daemons of Chaos

Dark Elves

Lizardmen

O&G

Beastmen

Bretonnia

Vampire Counts
Ogre Kingdoms

Tomb Kings

And here are the armies that I thought lost more than they gained:

Wood Elves

What do you guys think?  I think this list is pretty damn accurate as of right now, but it'll most definitely change as we play more games and discover new combos and tactics.  Stay tuned for my upcoming Army Reviews for 8th Ed. on Bell of Lost Souls.  I got a 3-part article spread coming out soon.

Special Characters in 8th Ed

To take them or not to take them.. that is the question.  The RTS player in my head screams an overwhelming YES!  In this post, I'll highlight the three SCs I take the most and why I take them.

Korhil
Ld. 9 Stubborn, Immune to Poison, Woodsman.
WS6, I7, 4 attacks with S6 Killing Blow and ASF.

Korhil is a challenge monster and his high WS, ASF and Killing Blow will leave most characters headless on the ground before they get the swing.  He has really crappy 4+ armor, so he's really a glass cannon that adds a nice Ld.9 Stubborn onto whatever unit that he's in.  Woodsman, sadly, is wasted when he joins a unit of Phoenix Guard, but that's just the price you pay for someone like him.  At 140 points, he's one of the biggest steals in the game and can really deter enemy characters from assaulting the unit that he's in.  Put him on a corner of a unit to minimize the amount of attacks he'll be taking back and challenge every chance you get.  Challenge puts him out of combat, can score you a +4 overkill (or kill the enemy hero/lord), while maintaining his awesome Stubborn in effect.  The strength of this character is that he's designed to be in a challenge.  If you're not doing that, you're doing it wrong.


Caradryan
Ld.9, MR(3), 4+ Ward, Fear, Kill me and I kill you.
WS6, I7, 3 attacks that are S5 Flaming and does D3 wounds with ASF.

For 175 points, you don't really get better than Caradryan.  The 4+ ward is extremely helpful at keeping him in the game and the 3 attacks at WS5 Flaming that does D3 wounds is godsend.  Caradryan, is also a challenge monster like Korhil because no hero, lord or special character wants to get locked in combat with him.  This is not because they fear that Caradryan will kill them.. but this is because when Caradryan dies, he does D6 wounds with no armor saves to whoever killed him!  To make things even more ridiculous, these wounds count towards combat res.  The MR(3) is just fantastic in almost any unit you want to throw him in.  Having MR(3) in 8th Ed. means that you give one of your units a 4+ ward against magic damage.  It's still kinda strange that Caradryan works best in White Lions and Korhil does it best in Phoenix Guard.  Oh, and before I forget, Caradryan has Fear.  He doesn't say much, but he'll make your opponent take fear tests in every round of combat you're in with him.

Teclis
Ld. 10, 1-man Magic phase, High Loremaster of Hoeth.
He doesn't really attack, but he's the best offensive caster in the game.

Oh Teclis, how I love and hate you at the same time.  One of the things that drew me to High Elves was magic (the other being Dragons).  Elves are a mystical race and one of the most appealing things about them is that they're masters of magic.  Teclis, is the strongest offensive caster in the game.  He IFs on any successful spell cast that consist of any doubles and gets to ignore his first miscast each turn (on double 6s).  He also generates +d3 extra power dice AND dispel dice in every turn because of his staff and carries a mindwar-ish forget scroll.  To top it off, he is the High Loremaster of Hoeth and he knows every spell of every lore and gets to choose which lore he wants to use before the game.  While other mages are stuck with a lore when the army is built, Teclis' rules specifically states he gets to choose before the start of the game.  Some habits sure die hard and 8th Ed is both Teclis' playground and deathbed.  Good because all the spells got a lot stronger and casting them with IF can be game changing, but BAD because the randomness of the game have increased A LOT.  Gone are the days that you can take Teclis balls up and place him outside a unit and think he'll be safer on foot (TLoS), and gone are the days you think you're safe from a charge (lol boxcars!).  At nearly a quarter of your army when playing 2k points, T2 and no saves of any kind, you better be prepared to eat some wtf random moments and like it.  Oh, and you can lose concentration when dispelling and casting.  C'est la vie!

I like SCs because they add flavor to my army and are more cost effective than other normal builds available to me in the book.  Sure, Caradryan might not look so fluffy in a unit of White Lions, but he gives them a undeniable advantage that should be taken advantage of.  What about you?  How do you feel about Special Characters?  Feel free to leave as many wtfuranoob comments as you want.

What's wrong with this picture?

*Note that the Steam Tank only inflicts D3 Impact Hits rather
than D6 like other chariots (This will combine with the D3
Impact Hits per SP listed below).

Equipment
The Steam Tank is armed with a main cannon in the hull and a
steam gun in the turret. The Engineer Commander is armed
with a repeater pistol (see page 47).

Special Rules
Impact Hits (D3 per SP), Large Target, Terror, Unbreakable,
Steam Points (see page 51)

Page 51 – Steam Tank, Movement phase
Change to “Each SP allows you to move the Steam Tank 3".
To charge with a Steam Tank, first declare the charge as
normal, and then specify how many SP you are using to charge
with. The charge range of the Steam Tank is equal to 3" per SP
that is spent. In addition, each SP spent on the charge adds D3
to the number of Impact Hits inflicted by the Steam Tank in
the Close Combat phase. Note that you do not add the roll of
2D6 to the charge range when a Steam Tank charges, and that
the target unit may make a charge reaction as normal.”


Page 51 – Steam Tank, Shooting phase
Change the last sentence of the third paragraph to “Models
covered by the template are hit automatically.”

Page 51 – Steam Tank, Shooting phase
Ignore the last sentence of the fourth paragraph.

Page 79 – Steam Tank, Special Rules
Change to “Impact Hits (D3 per SP), Large Target, Terror,
Unbreakable, Steam Points”

Page 80 – Summary, Steam Tank
Change special rules to “Impact Hits (D3 per SP), Large
Target, Terror, Unbreakable, Steam Points”

No, seriously.. what is wrong with this picture? I'll tell you what's wrong with it.. a T10, 10 wound Tank with a 1+ armor save that's invulnerable to spells without a strength value.

Other than Teclis casting IF Mindrazor on Spears and praying for 6s, I see no reliable answer to this thing. In fact, most armies don't have an answer.

Before you ask:

Q. Can the spell Pit of Shades from the Lore of Shadows affect the
Steam Tank? (p51)
A. No.

High Elves in 8th - FAQ Review

You can find the FAQ on this page:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=1000018&pIndex=1&aId=3000006&start=2

Let's go over the big ones really quick (my comments in bold blue):

Q. The Speed of Asuryan special rule states that “all High Elves
have the special rule Always Strike First, regardless of the weapon
they are wielding.” How does this interact with a great weapons
Always Strike Last? (p43)
A. The army book will take precedence in this situation. For
example, a Sword Master would strike first with his great
weapon. If his Initiative value is equal to or higher than his
opponent’s, he will also benefit from a re-roll to hit.

Enough said.

Page 89 – Choosing an Army
Add “Elite Army
The High Elves are few in numbers, but their armies are
trained and equipped to standards so high that they are the
envy of all other races. To represent this, they have no limit to
the Duplicate Choices of their Special and Rare troops.”

The few, the proud, the elite.

Page 58 – White Lions, Special Rules
Add “Forest Strider”. Ignore the Woodsman special rule.

Yes, White Lions and Korhil now have the Forest Strider rule.  This means they can pass through terrain without harm or any other weirdness.


Page 63 – Dragon Mages, Reckless
Change “This extra dice can cause a irresistible force or a
miscast as normal, and can cause the Dragon Mage to roll
more dice than he is normally allowed to.” to “This extra dice
can cause irresistible force as normal.”

This means the extra dice can cause IF.. which leads to losing control.. and eventually a miscast.

Page 66 – Teclis, High Loremaster
Change the last paragraph to “In addition, any spell cast by
Teclis will be cast with irresistible force on any successful
casting roll that is a double, however it will only be considered
a miscast if the roll includes a double 6.”

Page 66 – Teclis, War Crown of Saphery
Change the second sentence to “The spell is still cast with
irresistible force, but Teclis is able to dissipate the magical
energies harmlessly and suffers no ill effects.”

So now it's confirmed.  Teclis will be able to IF off any doubles as long as he makes a successful casting roll and it will only miscast on double 6s.  Which leads the follow up.. the War Crown will just stop it from happening once per turn.  I'd also like to mention that there's no errata for Teclis' High Loremaster rule; allowing him to choose lores before the game starts.

Page 70 – Korhil, Chayal
Add “Paired Weapon.”

Korhil now gets ASF, with re-rolls to hit, and Paired Weapon means EXTRA attack!  That's 4 total attacks with Killing Blow now folks.

Page 71 – Caradryan, The Phoenix Blade
Change the second sentence to “In addition, it has the Multiple
Wounds (D3) rule.”

Which buffs his attack by a lot.  Now it's simply S5 Flaming, D3 wounds for each unsaved.

Page 101 – The Banner of Ellyrion
Change to “The unit automatically passes any Dangerous
Terrain tests it is required to make”.

OK, no biggy here.

Page 102 – Staff of Solidity
Change to “This staff prevents the Mage’s first miscast – the
spell is still cast with irresistible force, but there is no need to
roll on the Miscast table.”

BIGGY HERE.  You roll double 6s, your spell goes off IF and you ignore the miscast.  For dirt cheap.  Really big oversight possibly too.. considering if you roll boxcars, you can get the spell off regardless of reaching the casting value or not.


Overall, a very good FAQ for us!

High Elves in 8th - Tactics

Fellow Princes, we are less than one week away from 8th Edition and there is still a lot to cover.  In this blog post, I will talk about the different tactics we'll use to maximize our army's potential.  I will also cover some units that are not featured in today's list and how we'll use them.

First, the list:

2478

LORDS:
Teclis = 475
Lore of Shadow

HEROES:
Noble (BSB, GW, AoC, GP) = 168
Caradryan = 175

CORE:
20x Spears (FC, War Banner) = 225
20x Spears (FC) = 205
20x Spears (FC) = 205

SPECIAL:
20x Phoenix Guard (FC, Banner of Sorcery) = 380
20x White Lions (FC, Banner of Eternal Flame) = 340
8x Dragon Princes (FC, Banner of Ellyrion) = 305

Before we dig into the list, let me tell you about this dilemma that I have:

What do I take for my core choices?  Right now, I have the following choices at 2500 points:  The choice I have listed above; 60 spears total broken up into 3 units of 20 with Full Command.  My second option is the 30x LSG unit with Banner of Eternal Flame and another unit of 20x Spears in Full Command.  The bonus of the first is that I have 3 units top play with instead of 2.  Body count is 10 higher and each spear unit is fighting in 5x4 formation and have a lot of attacks going back against the enemy.  The advantage of the LSG combat formation is that they have bows that can shoot from 24" away and do a decent amount of damage.  They only have 10 less guys than the Spear regiment, but each LSG is 13 points and each dead is very costly to my army.  Personally, I think the 3 units of Spears are the way to do it.  More bodies means more combat efficiency and more units gives my opponents more to shoot at than just 2.


Let's see now.  I have a good amount of core, and they'll be used to push up the lines and provide an anchor for my elite infantry to chew up the enemy.  Phoenix Guard can take a lot of damage from the enemy and my White Lions with Caradryan gets a comfortable 4+ ward from magic.  Banner of Eternal Flame on the White Lions eats up enemy Hydras and other big scary things while my BSB goes happily in a unit of my choosing.  The only thing that stands out is my rather bizarre formation of Dragon Princes that goes galloping down one of the flanks.

A key note on how you should use these units.  In my first 8th Ed game I noticed one crucial aspect of war that High Elf players MUST adjust to:  Stone Throwers.  How will we avoid these giant rocks of doom?  The idea is to use a new game mechanic called "Swift Reform".  Before we go anymore in depth, this is how SR works:  In your remaining moves phase, if you have a musician, you can take a leadership check to reform however you like, followed by a normal move.  You cannot charge or march, but you can advance normally and shoot.  Now how does this help us?  Against Stone Throwers, Cannons or Bolt Throwers, we want to form lines of 10x2 instead of blocks of 5x4.  A ST (especially Dwarven ones) landing in the middle of our nice big block will kill a good amount of our expensive infantry.  We do NOT want that.  Instead, we keep our guys in nice lines until we're comfortable with our marching range.  This is really helpful with LSG as we can march up, shoot in the next round or reform and shoot in the next round if we're expecting a charge.  Just be mindful of your opponent's unit's position at all costs.  The last thing you want to do is get stuck in an advancing formation instead of a spear formation on the turn that he charges.  Not only will you lose rank bonuses, but you'll have less guys to attack back and will most definitely break from combat.

Contrary to what a lot of people have said, cavalry is still a very important part of your army.  You need it to decimate the enemy ranks so they cannot steadfast and chase down the enemy should they break from combat.  They are also great flanking units that can hit your opponent's flank or rear for an extra CR and give you movement advantage on the battlefield.  Another thing about cavalry is that they are always a target; especially heavy cavalry like Dragon Princes.  The way I'm running them is 6x3 with 3 extra bodies behind the main front.  I don't need them to get a rank and break the enemy, I just need them to flank charge and annihilate standard troops so the rest of my guys can run up the field. The way I see it, High Elves have two hammer units in 8th:  Dragon Princes and Sword Masters.  Both deliver an unhealthy amount of attacks but one of them is faster (both in M and in I), have more armor and is immune to fire.  You don't need a rocket scientist to figure out which one that is.  Sword Masters, on the other hand, are used as MSU (Multiple Small Unit) that sit on the flanks of larger units of Spears, Phoenix Guard or White Lions and function as supporting charge units.  You can use them to bail one of your units out of combat when the enemy has too many dudes, or you can just double charge them in at the same time and watch the fireworks.  Sword Masters will remain the MSU unit they were in 7th Edition.  Unless you want to +4T them every turn and just run them up the battlefield as fast as you can, they should never be taken in a large unit.

Now for what I plan on doing with Teclis.  He debuffs the enemy and casts Pit of Shades on anything that has low I or a warmachine that needs to die (auto-fails).  Okkam's Mindrazor makes charging something like Spearmen suicidal because they'll be taking a crap ton of S8 attacks in return with re-rolls to hit.  Getting to Teclis will also be a challenge because he'll have Smoke and Mirrors to play switch-a-roo with Caradryan.  That's going to be good at keeping him away from assassination attempts and force the opponents to think much harder than he otherwise would.  Don't be afraid to cast 4-5 dice at a simple debuff if it means it'll save Teclis' ass or prevent damage onto a unit that you need to stay in the fight.  The last thing you want to do is hold back with Teclis because he's not that kind of character.  He's there to power through your enemies' defenses so be really ballsy when using him to get off the spells you need.

I honestly see Teclis playing a much bigger role in 8th Ed than I do in 7th.  Spells got much more devastating and the Star Dragon is pretty much out of the picture because of all the field artillery.  Is taking him cheesy?  I think Teclis is even more risky than he was in 7th Ed.  There's almost no guarantees on how the battle will turn out.  Some spells have a chance to backfire, your casts and dispels have a chance to shut you down and random charges keeps Teclis on his toes more than ever.  With TLoS, I can't even take Teclis out of a unit for the fear of someone gunning him down.  All in all though, with careful play and precise execution, I think Teclis will be THE competitive build for High Elves in 8th Ed.  We need magic now more than ever.