# High Elf Tactics - Everything Else



## DivineEdge (May 31, 2012)

A while back I wrote a High Elf Unit Overview/Tactica. I'll link it at the bottom of this post. I started to post up how to play armies, and a long post about how to deal with Teclis, but they got deleted when the site went down. 

Posting up (in the army-specific beating strategy column) it will look like this. 

Army X's Strengths (units, gimicks, abilities)

Army X's Weaknesses

Effective Units to Use/Not to use

Anything Else pertinent I need to say

Anything else relating to High Elves and how they play I will post up as well. (eg. beating Teclis, beating chosenstars, anything requested). As in my previous tactica, I would love it if other people posted, whether or not they agree with me, to show multiple sides to dealing with a problem. 

First up is dark elves, then the 8th ed. books

High Elf Unit Overview and Army Wide Tactics - http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=112437


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## DivineEdge (May 31, 2012)

Beating Dark Elves

Dark Elves are widely regarded as one of the strongest books in 8th ed. In addition, anyone who has played with/against the druchii with the asur will know that they are very effective against high elves, seemingly even moreso. 

Strengths:

1. Hatred
Every single dark elf unit has hatred, just as all high elves have ASF. In addition, because they hate us so much, they get rerolls to hit in every round of combat. Just thought you should know. Standard of balance can screw with them though. 

2. Magic
Once again, just as we get +1 to dispel, they get +1 to cast. This isn't what makes their magic phases so potent though. Their is no limit to how many die they can use to cast. They all come with power of darkness, which generates dispel die. They also have the sac. dagger - a magic item that lets the sorc. using it off a model in her unit to gain a power die. Unlimited uses, can be used multiple times in a turn. Most dark elf lists you will see have a big block of spearmen. These generally aren't line holders or anchors - they are 6 point power die. They have a special lore, but it is nothing to get worried about. They have acess to fire, metal, shadow and death. Shadow is obviously potent, (though PoS less against us) and mindrazor is as good on them as it is on us. Death is especially good for them as they will have seemingly unlimited power die if the get off Purple sun and you roll 6s. Metal isn't great against us (actually, all the damage spells are downright terrible). Fire is blah as always. Just know that they will get off spells when they really want to. 

3. Black Guard and Hydra
The two most deadly cc units in the dark elves arsenal. Let us start with the much-maligned hydra. He is really tough to kill - with t5, a 4+ armour and a 4+ regen and a bucketful of wounds. He has a ton of attacks and thunderstomp plus a breath weapon that has a strength proportional to its wounds. Flaming attacks (which should be in your list somewhere) deal with the regen, and at least s5 is needed to deal with this monster. A decent sized group of white lions with the banner of eternal flame should wipe it off the board, and they are good in any list. Remember, dark elves are elves, so move fast, and the hydra is even faster. 
Black guard are the other cc unit of doom, but luckily, we are the army that is probably the least scared of them. When I play dark elves (which I have been doing for over a decade) they are a unit I always take, and can toast all but a few units in the game (3 not counting chosenstars) - phoenix guard, swordmasters, and white lions. Black guard are boss. They are ITP ld9 stubborn, so stay in fights. They have a unit cap of 20 though, and have the elven defensive stats of t3 5+ armour. They strike with multiple s4 attacks (usually armour piercing) and generally win. The kicker though is their I value of 6 - meaning most of our units will not get rerolls to hit against this monstrosity of a unit. The best solution - don't let them get into combat. Dwellers them (only base s3) or shoot em up or kill them before they get close. DO NOT, however, let me mislead you. You must close with DE to win. They will outshoot you and will probably outmagic you too (unless you have Book of Hoeth/Teclis). Phoenix guard with the razor standard will kick their butts, and swordmasters will reap a bloody toll before dying. White lions shouldn't be fighting them (they have cold ones and cavalry to hunt) but aren't exactly terrible. Hit them with miasma and a big block of spearelves with wreak havoc. Just know how deadly these guys are. 

I will finish up this post later - I have to go now.


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## ultor (Dec 6, 2010)

Dark elves don't have +1 to cast, you can only use the dagger once per spell.
While dark elves have rerolls to hit every combat, due to ASF & same I high elves also have rerolls (and strike first) main difference is dark elves have multiple attack models armywide (excluding spearmen and cold ones)

Black guards are not a big deal. When special vs special, all Highelf units can wipe out the Black guard on 1vs1. But as they are stubborn they can hold a few turns.

Also fire lore is devastating against high elves that dont have 2+ ward vs fire. it's hard to counter 3 lvl2 sorceresses with lore of fire getting extradices from power of darkness and blasting away fireballs without dice limits.


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## DivineEdge (May 31, 2012)

Fire isn't devastating. It sucks. They are really easy to counter. Let them throw fireballs at the same unit (I'm assuming you are saying they take advantage of the lore attribute). Think how devastating it would be if the DE player spent 500 points on death instead? Fireball without die limits - so throwing over 6 die at fireball is good - no offense man, but that is kind of smoking it (see what I did there?).

Like I said, BG are dangerous, but less so to us. But is they get in with something not SM/WL/PG, then trouble brews on the horizon - moreso if they take hag graef instead of murder. If you think that they are no big deal - then I believe you opponent must be running them suboptimally. If hey get into combat with our specials, we win, but if they get into combat with anything else (or buffed up/us debuffed down) they toast things. 

Oh, only once per spell - not a big deal then is it? They can get off a lot of spells = lot of extra pd. 

Yes - we get rerolls. They way I look at it (when we are not fighting each other) is that we always strike first and usually reroll but they usually strike first and always reroll (at least in the 1st round). But they are cheaper across the board and we don't get rerolls if we are fighting black guard/cold ones or if we git hit with miasma.


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## ultor (Dec 6, 2010)

I'm using both DE and HE (also VC and ogres but not related here  )

Fire is devastating with many small sorceresses (even if they are lvl 1s completely naked) you can try PoD with a single die (a 2 is always a fail but else you're good to go) in order to dispel will you risk your lvl4 with a single die? most people don't so you can toss a fireball according to the powerdice you gain with +d3 bonus from lore attribute. (spamming 3 sorceresses you spend 300 points and 3 dice per phase) if you want you can keep a lvl4 sorceress with shadow and dagger,too. still (d6 or 2d6) s4 fireballs are no joking matter for T3 models). Our models are already too expensive.

Unless it is a specially tailored list for HE no one takes hag graef banner to Black guard as they can already reroll everyturn. So don't expect it in an allcomers lists. They will probably have razor standard.

There are only 2 things that bother me to no ends is stubborn pendant lord and hydra. Hydra's cure is white lions with flaming banner, right. For the other, keep a ring of Corin or seerstaff on high magic mage (if you know you'll play against DE otherwise you probably won't take any one of these)


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## DivineEdge (May 31, 2012)

I sometimes bring a seerstaff high mage just to kill of the pendant of kaeleth. 

Having played dark elves and high elves since the time of maiden guard (happy face) I always rate BG as a threat. Mine always take banner of murder (cheaper razor standard) but in a vs. HE list ASF is vicious. 

With the 300 point fire mages, you can only cast fireball. Pretty much every fire spell is pretty crappy and the fireball spam that takes advantage of this is like the coven of light - expensive, gimicky, and pretty easy to shut down - just subpar. 

A high elf archmage gets +5 to dispel, which means if you throw 2 die, I can throw one. Risky - maybe but I have a fallback level 2 so it isn't a huge loss. If you do 3 I'll throw 2 and stop it pretty reliably. In the end, 30 repeater crossbowmen would be more reliable and much more scary - and count as core.


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