With my enthusiasm for End Times: Khaine building I have been thinking on what units and characters I would pull together from all the elven army books to build a list from. As a High Elf player I am very excited about core choices or the core tax! For me the only units I like from the High Elf core is Silver Helms and Reavers, now finally it seems I can get hold of effective shooting and block infantry.
So what I will do today is look into the core choices how they compare, what they bring to the table and so on, of course its my opinion so take it all with a pinch of salt. First of its looking at the army rules.
Core Units
Spearman, Dreadspears, Bleakswords and Eternal Guard - Cheapest infantry we have got not much to say except its personal choice between the two prowess rules. Bleak swords put me off for a measly parry save you lose a rank (or two) of troops. No thanks. I find they make be cheap and cheerful but they always fall in the end, many times I have lost due to my spearman block crumbling opening up a flank or a hole.
Two points more expensive than the others but worth it big time! They fight in 3 ranks with Armour Piercing spears and are stubborn. So no more crumbling so easy and a punch through armour for us weak elves is awesome. Even better is the extra LD and WS. They are one hard spear unit and put the rest to shame only downside is getting them in the woods to make use of their rules. But with that stat line still king of the elven spearman.
Archers, Glade Guard and Darkshards - On to shooting. As a High Elf player I have always avoided fielding Archers S3 shooting is a big waste of time. Looking at our cousins we have the Guard and the Shards coming in at a couple points more. Again I think it is personal preference between the two. Guards have range and an extra shooting rank (And another one on top in woods) Shards with multiple shots and gain light armour.
Still head scratching on this one but glade Guard are more likely to hit compared to the Shards despite their volume of shots. The Guard can also take magic arrows though expensive look to be very powerful on the right target.
Ellyrian Reavers and Dark Riders - The light cav ( I find the Glade Riders to be an anomaly which ill go into latter) Not much to say for our cheap chaff unit. Keep them cheap as always Dark Riders pulling ahead as the Reavers Martial Prowess is useless in such small numbers. Can take bows or hand crossbows but we have better units to do the shooting.
Lothern Sea Guard and Corsairs - The Jack of all trades unit which seem to me to just to make core look more busy. Corsairs naked have a decent armour save of 4+ so basically Bleakswords, kitting them out with an extra hand weapon puts them same price as Witch Elves who are undeniably better even despite an armour save. Giving them hand crossbows turns them into heavily armoured shooting unit which suffer from short range. Lothern Sea Guard well as a spear unit they are eclipsed by Eternal guard (If equipped with a shield) yeh you may lose shooting but the many shooting combination between the three armies remedies that.
I would forget these guys they are out classed by other units.
Witch Elves and Dryads - The damage dealers of our core. First off they are both the same points. Witch Elves with two attacks an extra point of initiative, Frenzy and Poisoned attacks. So a stupid amount of stuff for a small price. Fragile but so deadly! And I think we will be seeing a lot of these among the armies. Dryads are close with two attacks, hatred , immune to psychology, 6+ ward and fear and T4. Sadly it is pretty obvious that dryads are pretty outclassed. Sure they are a bit tougher but they cant have a command squad vital for combat nor magic banners.
Silver Helms and Glade Riders - Silver Helms hold the title of heavy cav and cheap enough for decent size buses as well, shame they cant take a magic banner. Glade Riders are a bit strange, expensive fast cavalry so to expensive for chaff, to fragile for close combat. With Ambushers all I can see them being is a back field harrying unit. Still a lot of points for a pain in the arse.
So what I think we will be looking at in Khaine.
The Anvil - Eternal Guard
The Hammer - Witch Elves
Shooting - Darkshards or Glade guard
Chaff - Dark Riders
Heavy Cav - Silver Helms
Thats core done next in line Special choices and thats going to be one veeeeeery long post!.
- Pete
Nice post Pete!
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