Elven Elites 2k

Thought about my first list for the third edition, likely opponents are (in no particular order) Abyssal Dwarves, Varangur, Orcs, Undead. Any thoughts?

Stormwind Cavalry Regiment

  • Potion of the Caterpillar

Drakon Riders* Regiment

  • Chant of Hate

Tree Herder

Stormwind Cavalry Regiment
Elven King

  • Horse
  • The Shardblade
  • Sabre-Toothed Hunting Cat
  • Mace of Crushing

Palace Guard Regiment
Dragon Kindred Lord

Palace Guard Regiment
Elven Archmage

  • Heal (4)
  • Shroud of the Saint

Palace Guard Regiment

Elves will have changed the most of the factions in the basic book, so there’s very little to say about your list without actually playing it. So without any actual knowledge, this is my gut feeling:

Your units seem to be a bit on the fragile side. The palace guard have decent offensive stats, but remain only def 4+/nerve 15/17 regiments and will not last against a true hammer such as a horde of ax or regiment of soul reaver infantry.

I’m not sure how much of an anvil the cavalry and tree herder will be (neither is designed to be a primary anvil) so you are quite dependant on getting the alpha strike and you don’t have much to win the chaff war to force this. I’d suggest dropping one of the cavalry regiments for a regiment of silver breeze and/or pussy cats. You might want some shooting to remove opposing chaff and get some chaff of your own to prevent your palace guard being alpha charged by cavalry or berserker infantry. (their worst nightmares)

another option is to combine two of the palace guard regiments into a single horde. You won’t kill much with it (as it will draw a lot of attention) but your opponent will be so busy killing it, you’ll have time a plenty to demolish their army with all your elites.

That was my concern as well, but elves have always been fragile so I didn’t dwell on it too much. All of our shooting’s pretty much terrible at this point, with only the Silverbreeze Cavalry being halfway decent due to their maneuverability, but I only have enough of them for one regiment (and not a FMC regiment either :cry: ) so that’d seem a bit wasted without other supporting ranged units. I’d love to field some Gladestalkers (now that I have a unit painted up!), but they’re also just not very good. In fact, point for point they’re worse at damage output than the archers (not accounting for special rules beyond Elite).

Fortunately, my friends have yet to ever utilize chaff units, so I might be able to actually get the alpha strike on their main line formations with flanking support from Drakons and Stormwinds. If the enemy gets a charge in, I’m confident that the Tree Herder (which in my army is going to be a big cool living statue kind of thing) and Archmage Healious can help the unit recover and give all the Palace Guards more survivability and “delayed defense” than would initially be apparent.

EDIT: Alternatively, I might swap the King for two regiments of Battlecats to act as chaff of my own. That’d take some modeling (which could be fun), but I’d REALLY like to get some Cynwall Pulsars to act in that role (one or two Pulsars per swarm base), because I’m super keen on the idea of elven war constructs rather than war beasts or living trees doing the fighting for the magically super gifted elves. Sadly, the Pulsars and Nova Constructs are stupid expensive :confused: