I’ve now played four games with elves against different armies. Three of them were with a more mobile and varied list that also relied on cavalry and firepower (2* units of Cavalry, 2* Troops Gladestalkers, Dragon Breath, 2* Mage with Lightning Bolt).
That wasn’t very successful. It’s really annoying when you have 11 damage on a unit, then it just wavers and regenerates a lot. Besides a game against Abyssals, it was especially annoying when I rolled a double 1 against the Voidlurker…
And cavalry simply suffers immensely from the loss of the entire TC.
I tried something totally different then.
No more Lightning Bolt but 2 times Banechant, Scorched Earth and Celestial Restoration, combined with Heal 6 from the Avatar.
I always play 1 horde Palace Guard (with Vicious), due to the the increased Def I added another one hitting on 2s and 2 regiments. Yes, never played 4 units of one type and only rarely 3.
And another important addition was a Tree Herder.
This worked very well. Palace Guard is superior and with Banechant they cut through the toughest foes.
Command Orders are not balanced I would say. Why do Abyssal Dwarfs get a shooting attack with 8 attacks on a 4+ and 15 inches, Elves only 6 on 3+ and only 12 inches?
The other one is quite good, because you can risk to have just 2 sources of Inspiring and give Inspiring (self) to some of your kindred units.
Had my first tournament with a similar list. But instead of Seaguard just Tallspears and Air Elementals with Hammer instead of Shamblers, plus minor tweaks.
Was an average result, but just because I got the rules for the scenario in game 3 wrong (and my opponent was quite lucky, he did not even realize my air elementals with the hammer will crush his earth elemental troops into pebbles) and I rolled a double 1 in game one when the 2+ Palace Guard caused 16 wounds on a Pegasus vampire.
Draw, Victory, Loss.
Palace Guard is superior, I don’t like Tallspears with average 4+ Melee any longer.
The Avatar did okay. It’s healing is quite useful and even without CS or TC it can cause some trouble getting a flank.
Or just charge the front of a unit with TC and they will have problems causing much damage to Def 5.
Celestial Restoration will be gone, ‘cheated’ because I overlooked it is the only spell allowing no rerolls.
Yeah, playing those elves was a nasty surprise coming from 3rd. Back then, the palace guard were blenders already, defense 5+ makes them very resillient to boot. Where, in the past, an unhindered cavalry charge in the front and a 50*50 character in the flank spelled doom for any horde, these elves survived the initial charge with plenty of room. (I think I could have routed them on a 11 or 12, so I definately underestimated them).
The double one on the vampire helped quite a lot, then again, next turn the palace guard with 25 wounds got one as well. It was definately a swingy battle and one worth remembering! If only I would have moved that darn necromancer far enough to claim the centre…
