Regarding Ward Saves and Wizards

Hey all, welcome to todays Warhammer tactics discussion!

Some tactics are simpler than others...

So I was reading a discussion thread over at Ulthuan.net posturing about the new Book of Hoeth (which will be amazing by the way, rerolling a single dice on a cast is crazy good with +5 to cast!) and what to run with it on a Level 4. The first answer was always "45pts fits a 4+ Ward perfectly!". Its not just with respect to High Elves though, it seems to be a pervading opinion everywhere. It made me wonder, why does everyone always say "Ward Save!" as the first option for a Level 4 wizard?

I personally haven't given my Level 4 a ward save since Guardcon last year, and in 6 games only ever used it to save against Miscasts... Yes, I have been known to take the Loremasters Cloak from time to time, but that's mainly for the unit effect rather than specifically the Wizards defense  Its certainly not gonna be an item I'll cry about when its gone in a week. That's reserved for the Helm of Fortune...

There are two things that account for the majority of my Level 4s deaths: Miscasts and Panic tests. The others are where I've either been losing horribly and she has nowhere left to go, or I've made a big time mistake.

Lets look through the ways to avoid losing a Wizard:

Combat: 

You should always avoid combat with Rays, Wizard or not...

A) Make possible Mage hunter units target priority one. They are always small and relatively easy points anyway, and they are often the same units that hold up my White Lions etc from getting into combat so I also need them gone for the big boys to do their job.

B) Always have secondary units to run to if the primary mage bunker is in trouble. That's half the reason I prefer MSU Archer core, (and its only gonna get better now my bunker will be Reavers :-) ) Often I see players with only one dedicated bunker for the wizard, and nowhere else to run to when the pressure is on...

C) Most units that can threaten a mage bunker have no ranks so you can, at a pinch, leave the flank facing the threat and hold them with Steadfast while your Wizard is safe on the far side, until support arrives.

D) This is the one that I generally find most players simply don't even consider; You can often just run your wizard around by herself perfectly safely giving her much greater maneuverability to avoid danger. Its game dependent of course, but many armies have no real ranged threat to worry a lone character, especially by turn 5-6 if you've focused on getting rid of them, so as long as you can whip out your trusty charge arc template, life is good.

Shooting:

The deadly sniper Cannon, bane of Vampire Lords everywhere...

Warmachines can always force those annoying LOS! tests and that's an issue you'll always have to live with. It is only a 1 in 6 though, so you can accept it and move on... but there are a couple options to avoiding it though:

1. Shoot them first. Archers/Magic missiles are surprisingly good at killing warmachines.
2. Hide. True line of sight hasn't made the table entirely visible, and no spells bar Magic Missiles actually need Line of Sight anyway
2. Make sure you always have enough models to avoid that awkward situation where magic/other shooting kills enough to leave you without a LOS!
3. Give them other targets to shoot at. Simple yet obvious!

Magic. 

This kind of Magic should be avoided at all costs...

Okay, there's not much you can do about the dreaded 6 dice monkey, but obviously make sure to spread the characters so its not such an obvious target. They also don't allow Wards anyway, so what does it matter?

Snipe spells are really not that dangerous, especially now you get your Generals Ld (or do you...?), and Caress also only averages 2 wounds to a S3 wizard, so you can risk it if needed but an important thing to think about, they all max out at 24". Its not hard to stay out of that range when most buffs nowadays have longer range.

So there you have it, a whole bunch of ways to avoid losing a wizard without a Ward Save involved in any way, shape or form. Hopefully, that gets my point across, about why I think Wizards should never ever need a Ward Save. Would love to hear your opinions on this though!

The Warhost marches forth

Here's your Dragon,  Daenerys.

Hello all!

As I was asked nicely by a friend from the old country, I thought I'd share some photos of my High Elf army so far. It also gives me a reason to skive off painting for a couple nights. I still need to put some snow on a number of bases but I'm holding off until I have a large chunk finished to do it all in one large batch. Anyway, I'm really happy with everything I've done so far, and I think the traditional Caledor colour scheme I'm going with works really nicely and has avoided the cliche colour X and white so many HE armies I see end up with at the moment. It also occurs to me that the lighting in my room is a bit shit for good quality photos so sorry if the colour's are a bit washed out.

This is also a nice way to show that I am not on the Bandwagon, before it arrives and sweeps us all up :-P

Without further ado, The characters.

Lord on Horsey:

Lord on Eagle from Coolminiornot:

I'm Immune to Killing Blow, SUCKAS!!!!!

The Everqueen, who generally stands in as my Level 4 but we shall see if it stays that way:

Booteh shot

BSB on foot:

BSB on Horse (I'm especially happy with this guy):

Hero on foot (or Alith Anar if he's broken :-D):

And now the Core. The reason the army stalled somewhat a few months back...

Archers finished so far (and probably all that ever will be finished now I don't have to have them...):

Maiden Guard, they've been standing in for archers recently as I just love this unit:

I'm sure I'll find a reason to include them in new armies, just because.

Close up of unit filler and standard bearer

Reaver unit 1,Yay they are core now!!!:

Reaver unit 2:

Next the Special choices, surprisingly little is done so far...

Swordmasters of win:

White Lions of fail:

It occurs to me the reason they fail so much is probably cause they aren't finished yet...

Dragon Prince Champion:

And finally the Rares

Sacrifices, or Great Eagles as they are more widely known:

Bolt Throwers:

Theres no crew done cause frankly who actually ever uses them... They'll be done one day but I'll wait til the end before I bother


So thats it, hope you all enjoy them!

New Shinys!

Seriously, where can I buy one of these models?

So the internet has been flooded with pictures of the new High Elves and frankly they all look gorgeous, even  the Flying Chariot, which I'll be honest, I never thought could never be better than a giant turd... I can't wait to flood my desk with new shiny toys!!!

Alongside this we've been given what seems to be a rundown of the overall layout of the book. A few things stand out to me:

• Reavers are still Special. BOOOO!!!! However Silver Helms and Tiranoc Chariots are now core so that's what High Elf core choices will look like. I can't imagine taking anything but 2-3 chaff Helm units supported by 1-2 Chariots and maybe a Bus, unless something crazy happens to Spears/Archers.
• Phoenix Guard to Rare. This does support the rumours of them getting Unbreakable, but I'm surprised they are moving them as the balance between them, Swordmasters and White Lions was fairly close to perfect in the last book imo. They'll need more boosts than Unbreakable though to justify taking them in this world of 1+saves.
• Riderless Phoenixes in Rare, and possible Dragon Princes on some kind of Monstrous mount. I was worried that Phoenixes might just be a character mount, but happily that's not the case. I somehow doubt the latter option will happen though as I feel we'd have seen models by now due to GW not releasing rules without models these days and not tending to be especially subtle about beautiful new models when they have them. 

Anyway, lets look through the new models, shall we.

Alarielle is back!

So lets start with the return of the Everqueen. Great news but I prefer the old model thanks, I just really don't like the head gear to be honest. Otherwise the model is lovely. Hope her rules are as awesome as they used to be. Die Daemons, Die!!!

Ninja Mage!! 

Some kind of Warrior Mage. Is this the return of Belannaer, or just a new hero class (hopefully both!)? The model looks cool, with a nice action pose. Of note, is the armour matches the plastic IoB Swordmasters, so clearly related but in what manner is the question. It would be pretty nice to have a mage that doesn't need to hide in a bunker at the back.

BSB Special character?

Probably my favourite model of the lot. Loving the power stance! Supposedly a Seaguard special character, with vague rumours of it being the Phoenix King himself. I seriously doubt the latter, as I can't see the King holding his own banner... but would be interesting to see a SC that might make Seaguard useful. I'd guess he'll get some kind of ambush rule or similar to represent ships landing behind the enemy forces or something.

Girls just wanna have fun?

My second favourite release. Captain of the Maidenguard maybe? I just love the fact it seems you can go heavy Avelorn theme in the new book. She'll fit nicely into my Maidenguard to.

Yay, they're back!

About bloody time! Look great with the bows, and should fit in with the old ones too, if you organised the unit with Bows in front and Spears supporting from behind. I'm intrigued to see what their supposed Water Bows do and hopefully they won't just end up as overpriced bowmen with similar effectiveness. Hate to see them go the way of Hellstriders, but GW doesn't have a great track record in pricing units with similar battlefield functions...

Well they can't get any worse can they?

Lets note the most important thing here, the champion has two swords. TWO SWORDS, PEOPLE!! Maybe they'll actually be able to do something this version! They've also wandered into Core which provides the interesting option of heavy scouting High Elf armies to mess with deployment. I look forward to them being ridiculous broken to make up for last edition.

Flap flap, Mutha Fucka!

So finally confirmation that we can take unridden variants, yay! I forsee my Rare having two at all times, because, yelling "FLAME ON!" is why. The models are really nice imo, apart from the god awful wing joint that stands out like a sore thumb. I thought GW were past this kind of basic design flaw, but oh well, I'd bet a number of companies will have beautiful  (and cheaper) alternates within a month or two.

And finally:

Seriously, the Eagle Workers Union really needs to sort their shit out.

I really want to hate this model, as lets be honest, the concept is a bit silly, but goddamn if GW hasn't made it a winner. The Eagle is great, and the chariot also looks sleek and elegant, like a beautiful yacht of the skies. I think they really channeled Battlefleet Gothic Eldar in the design and it really worked. Hopefully the rules back it up, but it doesn't look like there's a warmachine of any type on either picture of the Chariot that I can see? I'm also not sure how anyones supposed to fight combat from the back but hey, magic did it!

Overall I'm pretty damn happy with the upcoming High Elf release and can't wait for it hit the shelves. Sadly between this and my newborn Tau army, my savings are feeling very unloved right now... ah, screw it!

Empire in Flames Report

I was gonna write up a detailed Bat Rep for Empire in Flames but got bored halfway through, (I think I have issues with writing far too much detail) so slightly abbreviated one will have to do instead.

The gangs all here!

Game 1: My NZ ETC Brettonian replacement, Mark

This was Turn 2. As you can see the Knights are still way to close to the wrong board edge...

Mark was way to defensive for reasons unknown to anyone, as he would have ran over me if he went for it. Mass S3 bow shots vs armour is fail. I sat back like any good Elf Gunline does and picked up points where I could while using the White Lions as a deterrent (Mark was way too scared of them so I used that to my advantage) We traded about 300 odd points each but I got a comp boost at the end to give me the win. Playing the system baby!

Result: 10 all 
Comp Result: 11.5 -8.5

Game 2: Locky with TK/Dark Elf alliance

At the top you can see my silly White Lions trying to run off the table

I was a bit worried about this as the Casket could be a problem and TK shooting is bad for naked elves. I set myself the goal of shooting up the Heirophants bunker as fast as possible. It took a while but I got him T5. Sadly I lost a lot on the way, with Chariots cleaning out my Level 4/BSB bunker on Turn 5 as I had to leave them in range to get the Heirophant. My White Lions also had their first fail, panicking from some Dryads and costing me what would have been a game Destroying Flank sweep through Lockys army. I picked up the Break point first though and the 1000pts gave me the win.

Ouch...

Game Result: 15-5
Comp Result: 13.5-6.5

Game 3: Brendan with VC/Goblin Alliance

Brendan wasnt fast enough to avoid my ninja camera skills!

Brendan had an infantry heavy army with some Ethereal back up and Goblin toys. Unfortunately this just isn't fast enough to get to my army, and meant I could focus fire all the fast stuff first before moving onto the next wave. And thats pretty much what happened, though my stupid HoDA wasn't too helpful only killing one Hexwraith... Flame of the Phoenix nuked the Ghoul Horde, and I cleaned up everything but the GG with Vamp Lord and Night Goblin mass for a 15-5 win.

The Goblins were too dumb to know they should have run off.

Game Result: 15-5
Comp Result: 14-6

So a pretty good first day all in all but my list was struggling to get the big wins, as I couldn't really finish off things quickly like a heavy combat army. If this could continue, I'd do alright! It wouldn't though...

Game 4: Greg Johnson's Empire/Ogre Alliance

Gregs lovely Wolf themed army, including the amazing Mournewolf Cavalry he built in a week!

It all started well enough...

 Gregs written up this horrible debacle over at http://hoodlinghole.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/empire-in-flames-2013-report-part-2.html, so you can read it in all its gorey detail. Needless to say, with the Demi/Mournfang double team and all the armour on the table, I was pushing the boulder up hill to begin with and then my White Lion block decided the weight of expectations was too much and gapped it off the table Turn 3 with my Level 4 and BSB, and that was game...

And then there were none....

Game Result: 17-3
Comp Result: 16-4

Game 5: Andrew with Empire/Lizardmen Alliance

The Saurus have left the building!

I got away with this one by the skin of my teeth. I managed to panic Andrews Saurus out the building T1 (It does actually happen!) and snuck my Dryads in to the building and held everything off as best I could. My Level 4 cascaded T1, and the White Lions again sucked the big one, charging 3 Demis only to fail their fear test and do 1 wound before getting smashed up in return. I was pretty much up shit creek running out of ways to protect the building when the game ended on T4 and utterly robbing Andrew of the win that would have come had he 1-2 more turns. Score! (its a stupid way to end the game imo, but I'll take it. I'll discuss my thoughts on missions at a later date.)

How to finish a game in style! Its all skill, honest!

Game Result: 14-6
Comp Result: 14-6

Game 6: Daniel Bird with a beautiful Wood Elf/Empire army (My vote for best painted)

Operation: Stay Far Away from the Helblaster, in action.

Daniel had a fairly Tree heavy Wood Elf list alongside some Demis and a Volleyball Gun. I stayed outside the 24" bubble of Volleyball death and shot up the Wood Elf Bunker killing the BSB and Level 4 turn 3. Sadly the Demis cleaned out my Back Line, but the White Lions finally didn't disgrace themselves killing the Treekin. Was a bit messy but with my Characters and White Lions alive I got the win.


Game Result: 13-7
Comp Result: 13.5-6.5


So in the end I picked up 5 wins to 1 loss, for about 70 Battle Points. This put me into 6th place overall which I'm very happy with, considering I faced a combined 13 Demigryphs, 3 Mournfang and about 3 armies worth of Knights with my S3 shooting spam and White Lions of Fail. Its also a pretty good start my tournament gaming in Australia; Masters here I come? ;-)

As for the list, I think it worked nicely but really does leave you short against armour. Just a few overall thoughts

Winners:
High Magic was amazing all weekend (assuming she was still on the table...) and I've really fallen in love with it now. Hopefully it gets even better in a month! Just have to remember the short range of the spells which means you occasionally waste the first turn of magic.
Glade Guard are so god damn good. Just being able to move and shoot is a god send, and if High Elf archers get the same, life will be good.
Swordmasters. I love these guys 127 pts of win, talk about terror causing. They pretty much always kill more than there worth, and watching players consider whether putting a full bus into them is a good idea, is amazing

Losers:
White Lions. Supposedly the most bent thing in any High Elf army... I'm sorry but my White Lions are the biggest failure on a alarmingly regular basis. I think they're cursed, or I'm the exception that proves the rule or something. I know the terror they cause in opponents helps alot, but I'm honestly gonna be leaving them on the bench until the new book as they drive me nuts...
Hail of Doom Arrow. Again a supposedly awesome item, which did basically nothing in every game. I'm not sure I got the targets horribly wrong either, but it just fluffed every time. The highlight being it causing just 1 wound to the Hexwraiths, leaving me seriously short on ways to deal with them... Not sure I could ever justify dropping it for anything else though, at 25pts its crazy.


Anyway that's all for now. Next post, I shall discuss the sexy new High Elf pictures that have taken over the interwebs today.

Pew Pew Pew.... Pew Pew Pew...

So everyone's favourite blue alien communist robot gunline is here, (and judging by sales, that really is everyone!) and I've been officially sucked into the madness. Pew to the Pew, baby!  Its kinda fitting too, as the jump and run gunline seems to have become my style lately. This is mainly due to the High Elf book forcing it on me, but I've been truly embracing it for the last couple of tournaments to get in the mood.

I've been poring over the book, trying to get my head around all the crazy names for stuff, and its starting to sink in but Tau really are a different beast when it comes to units and weaponry. Really gonna need some time on the tabletop I think... So far the thing that sticks out is just how many S7 missiles you can fit into a list if you want, well over 100 at last count! 40k is gonna be interesting in the coming months as Tau destroy the age of Fliers singlehandedly.

Dark Emissary

I received my first Tau robots on the weekend as a prize for beating up some noobs in a 1500 pt each doubles tournament with Dave Durie-Smith at the local GW in Camberwell. (Think this may have to be my new army funding method :-)) The style we employed was pretty much the same as any Tau army so good practice for the months to come. Shoot, run, shoot some more with a combined High Elf, Wood Elf army of filth.

The lists were:

Lvl 4 High Magic
Lvl 2 Shadow - Withering/Mindrazor
BSB - Reaver Bow

31 Archers
25 White Lions w/ Banner of Sorcery
Eagle

Treeman Ancient
BSB w/ Hail of Doom
62 Glade Guard
Dryads
Eagle

Yeah, I think you see where we were going with this! It wasn't friendly and Curse of Arrow Attraction/Flames of the Phoenix/Withering plus this list was horrible to behold

We beat up:

• A pretty weak High Elves + Vampires combo 
• Had a tight win vs a Khalida/60 archer gunline with Karl Franz knight bus ally (for the record, you can out shoot Khalida but its not pretty...)
• Then the White Lions beat up a Chaos Warrior/Vamp combo

Unfortunately we got pipped to top place by my Shirts Off team mates, Ben and Greg as we forgot to carry our Dark Emissary into the opponents deployment zone in two games, while they didn't. Oh well, still a good day and some free toys. Next time....

Empire in Flames

Next weekend, I shall again be unleashing Pew Pew upon my enemies at Empire in Flames. The tournament is being run down at Hampton Gaming Club by Chris Cousens. Its a bit different as the armies are 1500 pts with a 500 pt allied contingent. This was pretty much what encouraged the lists above. I thought about what could ally with my High Elves without seeming overtly like trying to plug a Cannon into a list to fill a hole then looked at my Everqueen and it seemed fairly obvious, an Avelorn themed alliance! (honestly nothing to do with it being a rather powerful combo of pewpew at all ;-)). Mark Skilton kindly lent me his Wood Elves to unleash the rain of arrows, and the list pretty much wrote itself.

Level 4 - High Magic, Scroll
BSB, Charmed Shield, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (Metal)

15 Archers - Muso, Standard, Flaming Banner
15 Archers - Muso Standard

19 White Lions - FC, Banner of Sorcery
7 Swordmasters - Blademaster, Talisman of Loec
5 Reavers

2 Eagles

Wood Elf Noble on Steed - Hail of Doom Arrow, Dragon Helm

11 Glade Guard - Muso, Standard - Gleaming Pennant
10 Glade Guard - Muso
8 Dryads


So 51 Archers and High Magic = result? Dunno... Aim is clearly to shoot up the chaff, then blocks then clean up whats left.

I know it has a glaring deficiency against armour, but hopefully I can pick up the chaff and minimize casualties in those match ups while people overestimate what White Lions can actually do and hold off (who knows, this might gain me a small comp boost too, though I doubt it). The BSB has Metal so against Daemon Princes, hopefully I can Vaul's the Flaming Ward then 6 dice ftw Searing Doom as its really my only chance at all. But hey, whats life without problems?

If you're wondering the Wood Elf Noble is on Steed purely to cock block any Kadaii I have the misfortune to face.

On another note, I actually realized last night, that bar my White Lions, which are only base coated, I will actually have a fully painted army which is nice as it means I'm getting there slowly!

Hopefully I'll remember to take some photos this weekend for a bat rep, but I will defo be tweeting out results as they come.

Laters all