HE 2500, only second game of 8th ed Options

[Thorn]

Hi All,

looking to put something on the table that shouldnt be too hard to play, I'm up against HE as well, so civil war. My first list is primarily a foot list but I have two dragons so I put together a second list for people to make suggestions. I'm sure the foot list is the safer of the two but the dragons would be more fun.

Foot list

Archmage, lev 4, Silver Wand, Talisman of Saphery, Folariath's Robe
BSB, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone, GW

50 Lothern Sea Guard, full command, shields
27 Phoenix Guard, full command, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Banner of Sorcery - both characters here probably

13 White Lions of Chrace, musician
13 White Lions of Chrace, musician

6 Sword Masters of Hoeth, musician
6 Sword Masters of Hoeth, musician

Great Eagle
Great Eagle
5 Ellyrian Reavers, muso, bows

The set up for this list would be very simple, large units in centre flanked by White lions, flanked by Sword Masters, with eagles behind the line for the pop over redirect and the Reavers on one flank. I would try to hold the centre and turn which ever flank I can for a roll up the line.

Dragon List

Prince, Great Weapon, Armour of Caledor, Vambraces of Defense
Star Dragon
Dragon Mage Lev 2,, Silver Wand, Guardian Phoenix
Sun Dragon

BSB Great Weapon; Dragon Armour, Dragonscale Shield, Dawnstone


30 Archers, Musician Mus;
20 Archers, 235 pts Musician, Standard Bearer
10 Spearmen

12 Sword Masters of Hoeth
12 Sword Masters of Hoeth
16 White Lions of Chrace FC, BSB here.

Stong fire base in the centre flanked by white lions on one side and both sword masters on the other, spears on the flank of the white lions to protect their flank. Dragons doing whatever dragons do.

So which of these lists do you feel works better? And how do I use dragons?

This post has been edited by Thorn: May 13 2012, 07:53 PM

[noidea]

Hi All,

looking to put something on the table that shouldnt be too hard to play, I'm up against HE as well, so civil war. My first list is primarily a foot list but I have two dragons so I put together a second list for people to make suggestions. I'm sure the foot list is the safer of the two but the dragons would be more fun.

Foot list

Archmage, lev 4, Silver Wand, Talisman of Saphery, Folariath's Robe
BSB, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone, GW

50 Lothern Sea Guard, full command, shields
27 Phoenix Guard, full command, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Banner of Sorcery - both characters here probably

13 White Lions of Chrace, musician
13 White Lions of Chrace, musician

6 Sword Masters of Hoeth, musician
6 Sword Masters of Hoeth, musician

Great Eagle
Great Eagle
5 Ellyrian Reavers, muso, bows

The set up for this list would be very simple, large units in centre flanked by White lions, flanked by Sword Masters, with eagles behind the line for the pop over redirect and the Reavers on one flank. I would try to hold the centre and turn which ever flank I can for a roll up the line.

Dragon List

Prince, Great Weapon, Armour of Caledor, Vambraces of Defense
Star Dragon
Dragon Mage Lev 2,, Silver Wand, Guardian Phoenix
Sun Dragon

BSB Great Weapon; Dragon Armour, Dragonscale Shield, Dawnstone
30 Archers, Musician Mus;
20 Archers, 235 pts Musician, Standard Bearer
10 Spearmen

12 Sword Masters of Hoeth
12 Sword Masters of Hoeth
16 White Lions of Chrace FC, BSB here.

Stong fire base in the centre flanked by white lions on one side and both sword masters on the other, spears on the flank of the white lions to protect their flank. Dragons doing whatever dragons do.

So which of these lists do you feel works better? And how do I use dragons?

Firstly what lore is the lvl4 taking in the first list? Have to pick the lore when you write a list and effects the synergy. If you looking at throwing it all forward I would suggest Shadow. Lots of good spells to take advantage of. Also I like the Combo of magic items making him immune to normal attacking and nulling magic weapons at same time. However I think you should be avoiding combat with the level 4 at all costs. Sit him somewhere at the back in a nice bunker of archers or spearmen and bail out before going into combat.

Both lists will suffer without a scroll. IMO Scroll is a must because so much magic going around and you can't rely on the dice when you will need it. That and I'm not a big fan of Silver Wand on lvl4's better off on a lvl1 or 2 in a supporting lore.

Personally I prefer to run BSB with Guardian Phoenix and Armour of Caledor. 2+ save and 5+ ward will mean he will stick around alot longer if you throwing him into combat.

Imo play the list that will be more fun. And as for using the dragons, need to get them into flanks of enemies and try to combo charge them with something else so they can't get challenged out and lose on combat res.

[Brendan Black]

Personally I think the silver wand is best on the level 4. He needs the most spells as he is best at casting them and this also makes sure 9 times out of ten he gets the spells he wants from the lore.
Shadow, High and Life I think are the best lores for him.

Personally i think the scroll is fairly optional. If your opponent is going for uber spell of death approach then 1 scroll is just a speedbump. Many opponents go for trickle of magic and casting lots of little spells. In this case scroll is worthless.

BSB- No stick with Dawnstone Armour of Caledor. You have a better chance of saving unless your opponent is S7 or ignores armour which is in my opinion fairly unusual.

50 Seaguard are fun. I have tried them and they can kill stuff but they arent really worth the massive price tag. If you want efficiency spearblock and two archer blocks is the way to go.

27 Phoenix Guard is too many. No one ever kills them all they just fail a break test eventually. So I'd drop seven of them for some other cool stuff

For white lions and swordmasters I'd go seven wide with champ. Potentially drop the muso if you need points.

[Aevin Thornchanter]

Personally I don't rate the hoards for HE, spearmen are bad enough but Seaguard just makes for a horribly expensive and super vulnerable unit. You will lose at least 10 before the reach combat if your opponent has any template weapons or spells.

I think paying the core tax, (cause we all know its something we have to not really want to do) with HE is much more effectively done with multiple small units of archers with musos and one decent 30 ish block of spearmen, as something to plug the line, help break steadfast when your heavy hitters go in. Of course can also be very handy if you get mindrazor too.

If your going with an archmage I think it helps to have at least one supporting mage. High magic makes a great choice here, all the spells are useful apart from courage which is too situational in my experience. After all i really don't want any of my mages within 12" of a combat i'm expecting to lose.

I would also highly reccomend some more calvary and or chariots. An almost all infantry HE army is just really vulnerable to war machines/Dreaded 13th/ Ogres and other things that stomp you into the ground. Plus calvary and chariots can give you the speed and ability to project some hitting power which can help to pick your fights, which you have to do more so with HE than any other army.

finally find some other opponents, Don't know about you but I've always found HE vs HE to be the biggest snooze fest of a game I've ever played.

Al

[Thorn]

Thanks for the ideas I'll probably go with the foot list so that I get a better feel for 8th ed.

As far as magic defense goes I think it tends to be an all or nothing approach. I want my AM to be casting the whole game but don't want to waste 100pts babysitting him in a bunker. This is why I have gone for the unkillable version, he will probably end up in the horde and be using life to keep its numbers up. I have steered away from a combat character as I want to outnumber my HE opponent, I feel that with the same quality troops if I have the numerical superiority I will prevail. I'll look into dropping some numbers on the PG to bolster somewhere else in the list, I may even squeeze in enough to get a lev 1 mage.

[Samanos]

need annulian

dont drop musicians!!


-7 PGs

take out d6 fireball bound from champ and put +1 MR