# Versus... Phoenix Guard (7th)



## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi all,

Continuing with the Fantasy Versus... series, next on the list is Phoenix Guard (suggested by Othiem). If you want to add your suggestions as to who Fantasy Versus should deal with next, go here for the general thread.

So, High Elf Phoenix Guard, how do you combat these pointy-eared nuisances? Their ward save tends to make them much more resilient to shooting and offensive magic than normal Elven units. Couple this with their relatively high damage output and you have a unit that has the potential to get to your lines mostly unscathed, and then cause havoc.

So how do you plan to combat them? Do you have a preferred unit or tactic that works every time? Do you just rely on artillery and hope your opponent fails the ward save enough?


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

The only thing that I have found to work is cause so many wounds to them that they will fail some saves. I usually do this with unit affect magic and massed ranged units


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Phoenix Guards are one of those extremly stable units that exist in WHFB with good psychological bonuses and one hell of a save.
Downside is the huge pointcosts of them meaning that you will rarely face a full 20+ unit, some 12-15 are most often standard.

Highelves using PG tend to be defensive(shooty, magicy) armies that have them as their wave breaker in the defence, using them as the most forward unit and daring opponents to charge them.
Actually the best way here is to babysit them with cheap units and go around them to kill all the much squishier elves behind them 

But if you want to kill them: Any forms of units with high A characteristic, a few examples below. There are ofc alot of more options...
Chaos Warriors(pref with MoK) and shields would walk trough the elves with very low casulties recieved in a few turns of combat.
Savage Orcs(pref big uns) with spears can work the same way.
Wraiths will do nicely with their many attacks and immunity to the elves retaliations, just make sure there aint no pansy pointy eared one with the item that gives the unit magical attacks in it!
Any unit of Heavy Cav can be used to hold of them for a long time. Some heavy cav have nuff attacks to plough tru the elves(like bloodknights). 
Other units like Empire Knights can fight stalemates a long time vs them thanks to their awsome save, effectivly holding them away a long time. Just make sure your BSB is around so no misshaps occur :laugh:

Shooting them(or eq spells) are a splendid sollution, preferably with handgun eq to negate normal armour save meaning that statistically each 2nd wound will kill one. The classical "force them to take bucketloads of saves" works just as well on them as any other unit, there will die elves that way :grin:

But: Once again, babysit them. If you dont have anything that will wade tru the pointyeares with ease, like when playing a horde army, just make sure that _they_ cant do any good in return. This is the grand charm in WHFB, that you actually dont need to fight everything in the enemy army the same way you do in 40k.
Skaven slaves, Goblins, Emprire detatchments, Gnoblars, Marauders, any fast cav can totally mess up the PG units day by denying them to be used the way the elf player want it to :mrgreen:


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

As someone who has dabbled in pointy-eared bastarddom on and off, I can safely say the following:

Just because the Phoenix Guard cause Fear doesn't mean you should be afraid of 'em. Any of your more elite units, or if you're playing Dwarfs or Chaos, core units, can go toe-to-toe with 'em. Yeah, they've got a ward save... good for them. They're T3. They're also super expensive, so there probably won't be more than ten or fifteen in the unit, so you can static combat res 'em to death if you feel like going that route as well. Gobbos already Fear elves, so sending some gobbos after the Phoenix Guard kind of takes the bite out of their Cause Fear characteristic if you're a greenskin. A brick of 30 gobbos should be able to static combat 'em. 

The aforementioned "shoot them" idea works well too. If you don't have firearms (and let's face it, guns are lame. Fantasy is a knife fight...bringing guns sort of defeats the spirit of the thing, which is why dwarfs are a bunch of beardy little cheaters) then oddly enough, fast cavalry seems to work just as well. Run 'em behind the unit and start throwing stuff (or shooting with shortbows, depending on what kind of fast cav it is). Again, Elves are T3. You'll whittle 'em down to a managable size pretty quickly, and then you can charge 'em in the back. If they waste time turning to face your fast cav, then that's fine too, because you can run circles around 'em. A unit of five marauder horsemen can probably take care of things, assuming the High Elf player doesn't bother spending one round of shooting with a bolt thrower to neutralize them.


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## loser for sale (Jun 12, 2008)

Or go for the traditional "Lord On Dragon With Super Mega Weapon Of Doom In The Flank" approach. If they turn to face the Lord, they'll take longer to reach you so you can shoot them to pieces.

If playing against them using Lizardmen and, before the game, you know that your opponent will use PG, take a Saurus Oldblood with the Blade of Realities. 5 attacks, hitting on 3+s, wounding on 2+s, ignoring both armour and ward saves.


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

currently, i think one of my hydra's would earmark the phoenixguard for din dins


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier (May 5, 2008)

I found a ratling gun more than enough in my last game against pheonix guard, 2 survived the fusilade then ran like ...... like....... pointy ears.


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## rVctn_Khaiyn (Dec 1, 2007)

I'd agree with the idea of throwing large, cheap units at them. While they have high Weapon Skill and respectable Strength (for an Elf), the Phoenix Guard only have one attack a piece, and so it can take them a while to wade through large blocks of infantry.

As an alternative to lots of cheap units, you could send models with high Armour Saves, as they will only ever reach a -1 modifier. Just make sure you can beat them, or at least come close to matching them when it comes to combat resolution.


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## Hudson (Jun 3, 2008)

this type of unit is exactly what i throw my flaggelants at i mean yes flagellents arent a cheap unit (as empire points go) but it's always nice to annoy your opponant.

opponant: "ha these are my pointy eared men of death costing half my points
me: "ha these are my twats who are hear to die and will hold you up until i charge you in the rear with inner circle knights
opponant: "aww but the cost me a fortune"
me: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"

and so forth lol

gotta love flaggelants the tame even the biggest creatures for a turn or two i always take things like them into battle they nutralise anything for a couple of turns which effectively take them out of the game, i've taken 2 big units to a game against dark elves and held up two hydras for the whole battle (lucky rolls did help out admittedly) which ment as the DE player held a lot of hope in these two units my knights were free to run rings around the rest of his army

the thing with PG like other elite units is that because they're so damned expensive they've really got to earn their points so just ignoring them, holding them up with sacrificial units, or as mentioned toying with them with fast cavalry is a great way to deal with them.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Marauders with Great Weapons. Slap Mark of Slaanesh on them, and you can have a 30 Strong unit for 205 points outnumbers, outranks, is immune to fear, and can hold them long enough (even if they can't hurt them, thanks to that Bloody Always Strikes First rule) for a Chariot (D6+1 Impact hits, 4 Strength 5 attacks, 2 Strength 4 attacks should be able to decimate that unit) to hit their flanks.

For adding another 60 points to the cost, you can guarantee yourself a 6+ Armour Save (Light Armour and Shields).

Knights of Nurgle with Rage Banner as well makes them the ultimate unit to take them down. Immune to Psychology, +1 Attacks ignoring their Armour, wounding on 2's, with any retaliating hitting on 5's.

For Beasts of Chaos, a Shaggoth is definately where its at. It costs the same as a Marauder unit with Great Weapons, Shields and Light Armour, 30 Strong, yes. But they cause Fear in the Phoenix Guard, have a massive number of attacks (give em Additional Hand Weapon) and can decimate an entire front row, while they are hitting on 4's, wounding on 6's.


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

Time to start playing the flagellants I guess. I don't roll with heavy shooting, and what little I have I try to focus on their cav. This leaves me putting state troops toe to toe with them more often then not, and that rarely ends well. They seem to shurg off most attempts to flank with my knightly orders, just not enough attacks to overcome the ward save, not to mention failing the fear check on the charge. Magic is hard to get through, as it's a cold day in hell that I manage to dispell drain magic. I'm just happy nobody can afford to field enough PG's to cause autobreak.


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

Hudson said:


> opponant: "ha these are my pointy eared men of death costing half my points
> me: "ha these are my twats who are hear to die and will hold you up until i charge you in the rear with inner circle knights
> opponant: "aww but the cost me a fortune"
> me: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"


I rofl'd at that. Seriously though, our PG are some tough customers. I find that a lot of players don't want to engage them in CC simply because they ASF with halberds. I typically use PG in a game where my enemy is using a low-LD list, like skinks or skaven. The flipside to this is that PG aren't very good against horde armies because they only get one attack each. As far as flank protectors go, a 5-strong unit of fear-causing halberdiers with 5+/4++ is pretty good.

PG can be reliably downed by concentrated fire, however. A dwarf/empire/dark elf gunline is any high-cost unit's worst nightmare (I personally hold that anyone who uses a gunline is a downright bastard, but that's just IMHO). Basically, for all yall non-Asur players out there, just shoot at PG until they're no longer a threat.

White Lions, on the other hand, are a different story :wink:


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## The Meddler (Sep 25, 2010)

Dread 13th. 4d6 wounds, no saves. Low model count=new unit of clanrats.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Take advantage of their weak offense and slam something they can't really kill into them. This means either hordes of guys or something particularly big and scary. For my armies, there's plenty of viable options. 

Repeater Crossbowmen can force wounds on them, taking down a few of them before combat so that they lose a little of their anvil status. Black Ark Corsairs are cheap enough to come in numbers, and get a buttload of attacks, same with Witch Elves. A War Hydra has very little to fear from the Phoenix Guard, and can force a bunch of wounds on them at just the right strength. 

For my new Lizardmen, any Saurus. S4 can do a little bit of damage to them, but not enough to compare with the quantity of S4 that the Saurus will be dishing out, and in addition, they'll be cheaper. Dwellers Below from a Slann would also soften them up handily, as they're only S3 against that, and once there's only 8-10 of them left, they're just a speedbump.

In all of these equations though, I'd have to make sure I put something that can kill a character in my solutions. My mate runs Phoenix Guard quite regularly with a Battle-Standard, or a general, to provide both killyness and added anvilness.


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## turel2 (Mar 2, 2009)

As with any elf infantry unit, massed shooting always helps.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Less so. T3 is initially good, but even so, at the least, half the shots are bouncing off. I'd shoot White Lions over Phoenix Guard - mainly because ASF S6, but also because instead of a S4 AP shot having only 33% chance of killing a target if it hits, it has a 44% chance of killing the target.

And then there's thecase that as well that Spearmen and Swordmasters as well are far squishier (no save versus S4 AP), and can cause more damage in the long run (you're getting 5 spears for every 3 Phoenix Guard, and 2 S5 Attacks apiece) than the Phoenix Guard.

Phoenix Guard especially now tank up with the Banner of Sorcery which makes magic heavy armies very popular. Combine that with a Lore of Life Wizard and you're looking at T7 Units which passively damage enemies and regain lost troops every turn, they do become quite naughty. If they don't go for the Banner of Sorcery, they can have the Standard of Balance, the Lion Standard, or the Razor Standard.


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