Am really struggling to finalise my list for convic. At the moment am thinking down two different paths
Firstly I have what I see as the sensible but dull option
Archmage- Lv 4, Folariath's Robes, Silver Wand (Shadow)
Noble- BSB, Great Weapon, Dawnstone
14 Archers- Mus
10 Archers
34 Spears- FC
19 Phoenix Guards- FC, Banner of Sorcery
14 White Lions- FC, Flame Banner
White Lion Chariot
5 Silver Helms- Shields, Mus
5 Silver Helms- Shields
2 Bolt Throwers

Lots of deployments. But nothing really uber. If I was a really good player I could probably do ok but with my tactics it should play fairly averagely. Against any sort of deathstarry unit theres not much I can do. Against MSU armies I should be able to hold my ground fairly well. Am thinking swapping life to shadow on the archmage as what I have been finding most annoying is single very tough enemy units so rather than buffing my small unit of white lions debuffing their big unit of doom may be more effective. And Mindrazor works better with the spears and phoenix guards.

The second list is a bit more crazy.

Prince- Barded Elf Steed, Heavy Armour, Shield, Giant Blade, Dawnstone
Archmage- Lv 4, Folariath's Robe, Silver Wand (Shadow)
Noble- Barded Elf Steed, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, BSB, Helm of Fortune, Other Tricksters SHard
Noble- Barded Elf Steed, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (Beasts) Luckstone
50 Seaguard- Shields, Full Command, Flame Banner
14 White Lions- FC
19 Phoenix Guards- FC, Banner of Sorc
7 Silver Helms- Shields, Std, mus.

Beasts noble takes Wildform. Making the three Elf heroes very scary. Thats 10 S7+ ASF, WS6+ attacks re rolling any ward saves. If I cast Miasma and withering and mindrazor for a bit more OTT this small unit should be able to crush most things. On the other hand 2 doom divers can wipe them out fairly easily. So it's a fairly silly list. But could be a bit of fun and will allow me to use my new Princess on Tiger model.


Unfortunately I don't have any more White Lions so can't do a white Lion horde which i think would be most effective. I also only have 8 Swordmasters. And I don't have any eagles. Making building an effective list a bit more challenging.

I like this one, given your Mini limitations. With Shadow and Wildform you will be able to take most enemy units with your Helm bus! Definitely a different play style to most other HE armies you see. I would run the PG as the mage bunker as 4+ ward vs miscasts is always handy. Lions I would use more as a detachment supporting the PG and Seaguard Anvils. Of course with Shadow everything in your army can hit super hard. This is a really solid list except for a lack of eagles. I think you may facea bit of a hit with comp (50 seaguard and shadow) but would be a lot of fun to play. I see your cav running up the board, smashing face then turning to hit flanks etc while your other guys advance and take their own stuff on. Seaguard work well because it allows you to play defensive and wait for them to come to you, but also march up the board if there isn't much to shoot at. In fact I'm looking at swapping my Archer Horde for seaguard for situations where Shooting is a bit of a waste ie. all high armour armies.

Just a thought. Why not drop the WLs and go for a Horde of PG? They stick around for long enough that eventually you will get Mindrazor off on them. When that happens they kill way more than the WLs would and they die much harder. Then you can up the Helms or if you can borrow and eagle gets you one of those (almost)

Its defintely a very different list I'll give it that, a few thoughts though.

Why no Dragon Armour on the characters? for the marginal extra points you get a 2++ vs flaming attacks and breathweapons, is a no brainer in my book especially since its not a magic item and therefore can't be nullified in anyway.

The Silverhlem bus isn't big enough, it only needs to lose 3 rank and file before its open season on the Prince and Nobles. To that end none of them having ward saves is a bit of a problem, watch out for death snipes etc.

And then it comes to the findamental problem with the list. You have what 5 deployments, you are going to get out deployed 99% of the time, so you'll be lucky to get the matchups you need unit for unit.

Also your Prince and BSB will go running off with your bus while the rest of your army is left with non LD 10 bubble or BSB reroll so I can see those juicy juicy toughness 3 expensive infantry being panicked off the board or at least out of the battle in any meaningful way.

As tempting on paper as it is to have 50 Seaguard (and it certainly would make a mess of anything with Mindrazor) I think unless backed up by RBT and arrow attraction, HE bows of any description are best off killing chaff. By focusing all your firepower in one unit makes it much less well equipped to handle that role. One casting of chillwind and you will cry, Hell Cannons, Trebs and Magma Cannons will also make you cry. well you get the picture.

Having said all that the easest thing you could do to make it much more effective is to add 3 or 4 eagles. whatever you had to drop to fit them in would be worth it. If your wondering about models, Ebay has an almost constant supply of old Wood Elf War Eagle models, they also used to be sold as HE great eagles too back in the day. To my mind they are much better sized more appropriately and cheaper to boot.

Al

Any reason for the Silver Helms over the Dragon princes? I'm sure you could tweak the models to represent the latter if necessary. I know its more points but they are so superior I'd endeavour to find the points. 40 Sea guard is still a large enough unit for example.

Admittedly you wont be getting your second ranks second attack but is one bus so good that running two units and thus increasing the chance of flanks is a bad idea?

Dragon Armour makes sense. I'll put that in.

Limited size is also true was initially going to have 12 to make three ranks. Could drop some of the sea guard to do that. None of them having ward saves stems from taking the other tricksters shard. ANy ward saves I took would be half as effective. Hopefully with my speed and +5 to dispel and Ld 10 I can avoid too many deathy snipes.

This is the main problem I have seen with the list as well. Perhaps I should re split the core into spears and archers. Although small units of archers still seem to fail to kill much for me. It's usually like 10 shots, 7 hits 3 dead warhounds. Damn theres still two more. WHich is depressing when my unit is four times more expensive. While sea guard horde is much scarier than ten archers and allows me to concentrate fire and mindrazor in one place.

Will try to get some eagles.

Silver Helms just because I have 16 Silver Helms and I don't have any Dragon Princes. I would much rather take the Dragon Princes. They are heaps better although at least using miasma you can help make up the difference by dropping enemy WS and I and the leadership is redundant by having the heroes in the unit. Then its only the extra attack.

A few things come to mind.

1-use the Silver Helms as Dragon Princes. If you only have one unit, no one will hare. Barely half the room would know the visual difference between models and when their is only one unit of cav, no-one is going to be confused in the slightest. Unless those Seaguard look like cav. Or Perhaps those mounted nobles are actually Dragon Princes attached to a unit of Silver Helms!!! Hax!

2-Archers killing 3/5 Dogs is still a panic test, only rather low Ld. And they are doing their job; 10 archers are for killing chaffy stuff.

3: A Dedicated Death mage will still get spells through. Even with 6 dice if he has too. Miscasts are not the worst thing in the world compared to killing off some points in exchange for a wound.

4: I read your post as coming across as magic reliant. Using Miasma to help your silver helm deathstar and mindrazor on the Seaguard. Mindrazor can be stopped.
Magic is fickle. Your wizard is easy points for a death mage. 6 dice caress. If it goes off he is gone.
Lore of Beasts would be 10x better IMO for this list. You have gone for a cav death star via characters - beasts makes those characters brutal. Life is another good option, to get some saves/resilience.
I also recommend Illyrian Reavers for this setup. The speed is worth it. I used it once, massive results but boring playstyle. (For me)

Either way you NEED more cav. That unit is where your points are. And the Wizard. Lore of Death, Lore of Metal and template weapons will give you a very, very hard time.

Sea Guard are pretty crap, I would rethink them. They can both shoot and fight, but are not overly good at either. Archers and Spears are the way to go, especially archers.

You need some form of machine hunter/ redirector. Whether thats a couple of eagles, some fast cav or some Shadow Warriors.

My thoughts re: the second list.

In terms of magic buffs for the pain train, you only really need one thing - toughness. You have insane grind ability there otherwise, and you just need to be able to survive to dish it out. Basically that means your choices are beasts with your level 1, or life (far better) with your lvl 4.

Reason why life is a winrar.

Ignore miscast on 2+ - i.e. negating the only way High Elf mages ever die. +4 toughness on your big fellas. Regen wounds (lore attribute) to the guys in the pain train. Dwellers.

Shadow is good for High Elves, but is often a trap. There is usually only one spell you want to get off, so it's basically a roll off. Life also gives you something to throw your dice at for the first two turns when Shadow is a bit "meh".

I like beasts on the Noble. Gives you two chances to get a good buff off on them. You are however, missing a magic missile. Consider Ruby ring somewhere.

Folariaths Robe seems like a trap to me. My mage has NEVER died in combat, because he doesn't ever see combat. If he does, you're doing it wrong imho. Ignore miscast staff (for the 6 dice dwellers/mindrazor) or annulian crystal would be much better - however YMMV.

50 Seaguard are a bit average too. You've also gone 85 points over your tax threshold. In the same way you wouldn't give the ATO extra money just 'cos, don't do it with the HE either.

35 Spearmen, FC, 10 Archers mus, 13 Archers mus is a nice set up. You can push the spearmen up to break steadfast for the pain train, and shoot chaff/protect flanks with the archers. You also have enough points left over for an eagle. This gives you 3 more deployments as well.

I agree with all your thoughts
Except perhaps for the archmage
I like him to see combat as then he is close enough to my fighty units to buff them while if he is with the archers he can become out of range. I have found him to be fairly safe in there. Plus it is fun when you run into something without magical attacks.

I had been going with Life but I wanted to give shadow a try as I have been facing a lot of enemy shadow magic and I want to have a go at it. Only one spell to get off? I have wyssan's, miasma, mindrazor, enfeebling and withering. I will probably be only able to cast three with the dice I have.

Sorry I wasn't very clear - what I meant is that with Shadows you will usually only have one spell that is important to get off, so your opponent will often save all his dispel dice for that one (at least, I do).

My thinking was that if you had flesh to stone AND wyssans you should be able to get at least one off every turn.

Does the mage cruise with the seaguard? That's around 995 points that is a Ld9 check away from running off (you will find your BSB will not be as close as you'd like when running cav). Gleaming Pennant can be a game winner there. As long as you keep close you should be ok. Be aware though, that will be most people's primary target.

No mage is with the Phoenix Guard. Helps a bit if he miscats in not killing everyone around him.
Seaguard are sort of a distraction. If the enemy aims everything at them then they will just succeed in killing my core component which is roughly the same as one spears and 2 archer blocks which would not normally be seen as a targetting threat. This may allow the prince and friends to escape attention and they are the real threat.

I also found last time I ran the guard horde. Sure they may run off but as long as one of them is alive I keep all the points.

Well as everyone suggested that didn't work too well.
The army definitely has potential but I found it quite hard to actually use any of it.
Miscasts, failed spells, dangerous terrain tests, ethereals the list goes on.
But it was good fun anyway.

So, who'd you play, how did it go? what performed?? Spill!

Mouse

Ok the long run down for those interested in enjoying other people's misfortunes.

Game 1 vs David Lowe
High Elves with 2 mages on dragons, 2 small units of swordmasters, dragon princes with a BSB, some seaguard and archers.
I didn't really have to try very hard here. The Silver helm bus was charged by the dragon princes and valiantly wiped them out using the heroes high strength and then overran through some archers.
Cast withering on a unit of swordies and then stuck them full of arrows before charging the enemy seaguard. Being almost twice their size I was able to win that fairly handily.
His archmage and dragonmage charged the phoenix guard. My ethereal archmage challenged and his dragonmage was forced to accept and not do a great deal. His moon dragon killed some guard but they held. His archmage then decided to blow himself up and in my turn mindrazor ion the guards made short work of the moon dragon. The sun dragon fled and was cut down.
My white lions sacrificed themselves against the other swordmaster unit letting the phoenixguards finish the last few models off and we called it a game.
20-0. Never a good start as that meant I would be playing some crazy awesome list.

Game 2 vs Chris Sedgman's Lizards
Lizards are one of those armies I have always really struggled against. You can't catch the skinks and the saurus warrors are way better in combat than pretty much every warrior model I own. or at least it seems that way.
Unfortunately we were also playing watch tower and i won to deploy in the tower but my only core unit was too big allowing chris to get into the tower first with a unit of saurus warriors and the frog. Being stubborn on leadership 10 I couldn't really see anyway to get them out? So I thought I'd focus on taking down the rest of his force.

Magic saw a giant pit drop down on the big saurus killing 16 of them. YAY!

The silver helms decided to have a go at his other big unit of saurus warriors but the marshes prooved too much for all four riders which had to cross it.
Phoenix guards also attempted a charge but failed very dismally.
In combat i killed one scar vet hero but the other one who was I 10 resisted all my attacks repeatedly.

In Chris' turn he death sniped my archmage which was unfortunate.

My White Lions managed to catch some skinks and promptly butchered them and then turned around and got a salamander as well. I think this was the only game they survived and killed something.

His big saurus block killed off the BSB, Wizard noble and all the silver helms with ease and my general broke but lived. The sea guard charged across the marshes losing a few of them but it was irrelevent as the game ended at the end of turn 4. So I still had quite a bit of stuff left but the 1000 for the watchtower really swung it 18-2 or something like that. But a good game despite Chris' dodgy unkillable BSB.

Game 3 vs Troy Anderton's Orcs and Goblins
Lots of the standard orc and goblin stuff- Doom Divers, Mangler, Arachnarock, Wolf Chariots, Boar Chariots, huge night gobbo unit with spider banner, savage orc biguns, trolls.

This game started off looking good. The silver helms charged forward avoiding the mangler squig and got the jump on the boar chariot smashing it to kindling.
I got off pit of shades and killed like 20 night goblins or something silly.

But then disaster. The savage orcs fail animosity and then roll a "we'll get em' result allowing them to pivot and charge the silver helms which had been comfortably sitting out of sight nearby. Needless to say being flank charged by a horde of angry orcs did not end well. Lost combat, fled and was run down.

On the other side of the battlefield the sea guard withstood a charge from the arachnarock and double wolf chariots with steadfast and then in my turn I mindrazored them and wiped out everything withy little trouble.

The phoenix guard tried to take on the trolls but failed dismally. My mage sucked majorly at actually casting anything for a turn or two.

The white lions got hit by some doom divers, fanatics, panicked and fled off the board or something like that.

The sea guard attacked the trolls with the phoenix guard but just couldn't do anything with a generally lame lot of dice rolls.

Thye night goblin horde then hit the sea guard and netted them and by this point there were just not enough of them to do any damage and both units were broken and run down.

17-3? and a fairly sad end to the day but another great game, troy was a great opponent.

Game 4 vs Daniel Bird
Some of the most pretty wood elves I have seen! and battle for the pass... Double giant trees, treekin, Highborn on eagle with the annoyance of netlings, lots of archers.
Wasn't really too bad though as he didn't just deploy right back as much as he could have.

The game started off well. I cast withering on one of the treemen and then set it on fire with the sea guard and it burnt merrilly away.
The silver helm bus charged his Highborn on eagle. As he had the annoyance I declined his challenge sending the lord to the back and proceeded to attack with ASf.
6 S7, 6 S6 attacks later. The Highborn was still completely unharmed. His ward save that you can only fail once made like 6 saves.
This combat then proceeded to drag out at the silver hems were butchered by shield of thorns, my lord was then killed, my wizard noble was then killed and then finally in turn 6 my BSB was left holding on to dear life while his Highborn was still perfectly fine. I was not particularly impressed with the high elven elites needless to say.

The White Lions decided to take inspiration from the silver helms and after losing several to shooting just turned tail and ran off again.

The Phoenix Guard though decided to show the rest of the army how it was done and charged a unit of dryads. With 10 attacks i killed like 1 dryad but they did no damage in return and charging off a hill with lots of ranks and banners broke them allowing me to hit the treekin in the flank. In the ensuing combat I did 1 wound to the treekin and they did a couple back but they lost by 1 or 2, decided to flee and were cut down. WOOHOO! First unit of treekin killed ever!!!
The victorious phoenix guard then walked into the nearby building to watch the sea guard get pincushioned by wood elf archers.

I should take a pause to say i made a fairly big mistake. I wanted to cast withering on his big unit of archers with mage and bsb but they were too far away and I didn't have enough dice for the boosted version so i decided to cast at the treekin. Daniel managed to dispel it. So my sea guard were left with no easy withered targets for some reason I decided to shoot at the treekin anyway thinking the archers had earthblood cast on them, completely forgetting earthblood is regen and I have flaming attacks. If rather than doing no damage to the treekin I had killed of 10 elves from the big block I would not have then lost so many sea guard and might have been able to do more with them in the final two turns as it was. It came down to one single Seaguard proudly holding aloft his banenr while the rest of his unit lay dead and dying around him. PHEW. 685 points saved. That was really lucky.
10-10 all draw after comp modifier

Game 5 vs Chris Wilcox's Vampires
After watching several of chruis' other games i quickly realized he is perhaps one of the most conservative players i had seen and when you are playing vampires and raising 20 zombies a turn this is quite tricky to beat. So I thought I would just stay back and make him come to me rather than racing over to get lost in ever increasing zombies.

This plan was sound except for 2 things.
1. Trying to cast pit of shades to get some points and maybe get lucky and scatter over the black knights backfired when my mage decided to blow herself and 13 sea guard up.
2. Chris got irresistible force twice on gaze of nagash at my white lions who were unfortunately in a blood forest neatly wiping them out.

I should have pulled the sea guard back more but they got stuck in combat with spirirt hosts which i could do nothing to same with the phoenix guard. Even with 4 static combat res they were doing a wound or two and then just heaing due to the necromancers. Unfortunately this let the hexwraiths in and the black knights just squeezed in as well to break my steadfast so all the sea guard died.

The silver helms and lord did absolutely nothing all game. But I didn't really know what to do, they were useless against zombies, would have done okay against the black knights but was no way to get to them.

In the end 14-6. I think Chris could have easily got 20-0 if he simply charged forward as there wasn't a lot I could do against his ethereal units or his zombies.

Game 6 Alexander's Lizards
Lizards again this time with 2 stegs and only 1 saurus unit. 3 Salamnders, 5 Terradons
Alexander was a great guy and i wish i could have given him a better game.
The white lions got shot to pieces.
The Silver Helms tried to fight the saurus but couldn't manage to pass anything remoely resembling an armour save.
My Archmage miscast and blew himself up again.
Phoenix Guard then got shot to pieces.
Finally the Seaguard got shot to pieces.
Salamanders didn't misfire once and single handedly wiped out almost all my troops. Which was fairly devastating. I was completely outmaneuvered and outgunned. So few deployments really hurt.

The only bright side was in turn 5 or 6 his slaan miscast on 3 dice and blew himself up as well.

So ended up somewhere in the 40's . Convic always seems to be my worst tournament for the year for some reason but was still lots of fun, very well run, great opponents, great armies and look forward to next year.