SpellArcher wrote:Cythis wrote: I would drop the Lvl 2 for a BSB
The problem is defence I think with four dice and no scrolls.
Cythis wrote:The thing is they are not really faster than our msu shock units, but are easier to kill and much less effective at anything else besides harassment.
To some extent with Reavers. Shadow Warriors though are a different animal entirely. I'm amazed to see a WE player argue against skirmishers!
1. Well yeah I would probably drop BOH for seer or sw + scrolls, and then either RoF or Dragonhorn or Sacred Insence ( Dragonhorn saved literally 3 units in one of my recent games). I don't rate the book that much specifically because it requires both a BoS unit and a support mage who probably won't be casting very much. Its an awesome item sometimes but it is really damn expensive.
If I were to take the book, I would take the second mage as a lvl 2 with seer + scroll and cast spells with this mage first. This way the opponent can choose to stop or let through a good spell, and then the lvl 4 can cast on normal amounts of dice if the opponent has burnt dispel dice, or throw a bunch of dice to try for IF when the lvl2 is let through (or if facing Hotek or the puppet. That f%^^%ing puppet has killed my archmage 3 times literally in 1 miscast. Sucked into warp, sucked into warp, Miscast and hit with a comet on my opponents ensuing turn
.) This is for a friendly list though, and it is possible to make 4 dd work vs a friend who isn't going to be a dick and have 12 pd counts or DE.
2. You are also correct here I am drastically oversimplifying. There are numerous tactics available to both fast cav and skirmish scouts respectively that tiranocs and MSU DPs
cannot do. With fast cav you can get into weird and annoying places so that you can set up flee moves where your opponent will in no way be able to catch you. You can also use the added movement to completely prevent charges at a choke-hold where the opponents troops would need to wheel through one another to charge. With skirmish scouts you can march block early, WM hunt, and redirect into terrain etc. I guess I think that with high elves one does not really have the luxury of purchasing said units because of the expensive nature of the army and the semi-overpointedness of high elf harassment units. I mean, with dark elves you would be insane not to take shades and dark riders with rxbs unless you were trying to be friendly. The thing is, though, that dark riders are core, and shades are under-priced and fulfill both shooting and combat roles better than most armies' mainline units (dark riders do this too actually). With high elves if you take these units you do not get units that can fight in combat or shoot in any significant way, and you also have to buy expensive core, and your specialized infantry is very expensive as well.
I think that high elf chariots/ msu knights can fulfill a lot more of the roles performed by fast cav or scouts than, conversely the scouts or fast cav can perform the roles available to the knights and chariots. This is not true of every army (see dark elves), and I think it is an especially big deal in an army with expensive units like high elves.
3. Hehe yeah it is funny seeing how I've played with primarily fast cav and skirmishers for many years. Maybe I'm biased against them cause i want to try something new
lol. But wood elves are a different thing altogether really. They are a pretty weird army that does almost nothing in a straightforward fashion. Like, the skirmishers in wood elves are actually the mainline units. They are ITP so they couldn't be used for harassment roles even if you wanted them to. Largely ranked glade guard are the multi-role unit that serve as harassment/redirection/screening/ etc and skirmishers are there to kill things.
Wood elves are a good example of what I am talking about though. Even if one takes a lot of combat units with wood elves, one is not paying all that much as ranks are not required. When the army primarily consists of fighty infantry that cannot flee and doesn't break the bank, overpriced units like way watchers, scouts, and glade riders are a very viable option because its not like one has to make the choice of fielding them instead of the combat units. One actually kind of has to field them in order to actually get good charges off with m5 infantry vs a decent opponent.
With high elves, however, it
is an either or decision, zero sum, decision.