How you do select your Hero / Lord Choice?

[sladie]

Hi All,

Firstly, I extend a warm hello to everyone! I have been lurking this website for about two months now and I have to say that I've found the site's material great.

This is my second shot at the hobby. I started with Marines (sigh) when I was about 13, and got involved again approximately two years ago with Tau. I had never started a fantasy army, but High Elves always fascinated me. Anyway, about a year ago, I decided to start my High Elf army. For most of the year my small collection sat there as I prepared my Tau army for my first ever tournament. Now that my Tau army is finished, my full attention is on my High Elves, but I find myself with a dilemma that I wish to gain your advice on.

From what I can tell of my limited experience so far, the role of a Lord / Hero varies greatly from that of the average HQ choice in 40k, and in this, I am absolutely stumped as to what to field in my army. My question is, how do you choose what you will field in these slots? What consideration do you give, and how does your choice complement your army?

My current army composition is as follows. I guess it is worth noting that I am actually yet to play a game with my High Elves, but anyway, here it is:

16 Spearmen
16 Archers
8 Silver Helms
2 RBT's
1 Great Eagle
10 Phoenix Guard (including command)
2 Chariots (Lion / Horse as yet undecided).
Prince/Lord Command Box
Mage/Archmage Box

I intend to play at the 2250 point level, as that is the most common tournament size in Australia at the moment. I look forward to your input!

Cheers,

Sladie

[Griffon Prince]

Welcome to the forum!

There's a number of ways you could do it; Ask yourself if you want to go magic heavy or magic lite. Do you want a defensive, shooty list or a cav heavy army? Defensive lists work great with magic support whereas fast moving armies tend to work best with a mounted prince and/or noble present. You can either choose your units first or your characters, trimming off any excess once you're ready to finalize your list.
Looking at what you have, I'd say you need to grab more models. Spears are good in groups of 20. Archers work in units of 10. PG most definitely need numbers in order to work properly.
Skim through the army list section to get an idea of the kind of force you would like to field.

[Citizen Militia]

Really I think you need to build your army simultaneously unit by unit rather than doing all the characters, then all the troops or vice versa...

If you go for Cav like griffon prince said then you will probably want maybe just one level one mage with a couple of scrolls. You would want 3 units of dragon princes (since they are a lot better than SHs), but all Cav suffer from 'rubber lanc syndrome' where they become really weak if they dont break their enemies in the 1st round. Hence its sometimes worth sticking warbanner on one of them... and I always put a BSB with battle banner in there too, if you stick helm of fortune on the drakemaster in the unit he goes in it gives him brilliant protection and the unit just steamrollers anything it touches. Then most combat heavy tournament lists take a prince on a stardragon, but with that you get lots of options. Also taking skeinsliver on a dragon prince champion means you are much more likely to take the first turn.

If you decide that you dont fancy going combat heavy then the other route is to go magic heavy; take teclis, banner of sorcery and at least another mage to support. I dont normally play this way so I dont know how much advice I can really give you with it, my gut instinct tells me that SWs and WLs would both work well if they were advanced early with the intentions of slowing the enemy down. I know people tend to use PG as a bunker for teclis.

Whichever route you go down all tournament armies have a minimum of 3 RBT, normally 4... the only reason I could see for picking 3 is that you just love eagles... Anyway so yeh my advice on how to pick your lord; do it as your selecting troops, just read through the book a couple of times and decide which way you would like to take things.

[SpellArcher]

Tourney armies vary depending if they're comped or not. Here in the UK a cap of 2 RBT seems to be coming in for comped tournies, plus these almost always ban special characters. In the US it seems there's more leeway about SC's. Get the impression Australia is fairly comped also?

With HE I think it's crucial you choose characters to support your army build. So yeah, you need to decide what level of magic you want, if you need a BSB, whether you're going to use a Dragon etc..

As an example, a popular and effective character build for magic-heavy is Archmage, Mage, BSB. The Archmage is your main caster, supported by the Mage. The BSB fights a bit but crucially gives break re-rolls to hold your centre together, aided by the Ld9 Archmage general. A fourth character is often not taken as he doesn't contribute enough compared to he troops he stops you buying. There is rarely enough points for troops in a HE army.

Speaking from experience, you'll miss the jet packs I'm afraid!

[Musashi]

It IS a pity we don't have Swooping Hawks.

However, an interesting upgrade for Silver Helms would be a Laser Lance.

[soulweaver]

From your title my answer to tht question would be whatever you prefer if you like magic (like me) you go archmage if you like killy killy you go prince on star dragon

It IS a pity we don't have Swooping Hawks.

However, an interesting upgrade for Silver Helms would be a Laser Lance.

that would be quite a strange game to play

[Morgen]

Special characters here in the states have a varying amount of hate or love. Most of us at my shop accept them as part of the game even if we don't always like particular people.

Never had anyone complain about Korhil after all.

[Alathenar]

Special characters can be a lot of fun to use occasionally. They can add to a theme and have some damn cool abilities. But then again, some SC's seem to just ruin a game.

[WarpPhoenix]

Be it a friendly, tournament game or whatever I have no gripes over special characters whatsoever. If the character is hardcore and costs a lot then good, they spent points on it and ts now a new barrier for me, I get to spend the game learning. If my list falls short I'll change it or change my tactics (most likely) and try to play that game again, I'll learn and get better. I really dislike peoples hatred for special characters.

[SpellArcher]

It just depends what kind of game you want to play. To some, Special Characters distort the game and get in the way of the best general winning. Others disagree and feel as you do.

[geoguswrek]

what about kairos? unless you have an SC of your own or you are using dark elves, kairos is damn near untouchable.

[Alathenar]

I'm not to familier with some SC's but what's so broken about Kairos? He's a Daemon SC im presuming?

[geoguswrek]

he picks his spells, but not liek we do, one head picks four spells from one list of four lores, the other from the other four lores.
Both also know all of tzeentch.
he flies, has rerolls, a ward save, +2 to cast...
oh and he can maintain a remain in play spell because he swaps to the other head.

[Alathenar]

wow, and i'm guessing Daemon players get all that for an absolute bargain price.

[Griffon Prince]

Kairos can be dealt with via Pit of Shades. He won't get his gross 3+ Ward.
Charge some Dragon Princes at him (his attacks are flaming) just watch out for his spells.
Another fun trick is to launch a BSB wearing dragon armor at him via Steed of Shadows. The BSB will eventually beat him, just watch out for other daemon units coming to his rescue.

[geoguswrek]

two of your plans involve casting the spell you want against a tzeentch daemon player, which is anything but assured. the third involves charging a flyer. (you may as well charge kairos with whatever, whenever you get the chance, because he is a bit poo in combat.

[Griffon Prince]

I never have trouble with my standard Archmage and hero setup. I'm not saying it (Pit of Shades) will work against the most cheesied out Daemon lists, but it gets the job done against the standard torunament fare.

[sladie]

Thanks for all your help everyone. It's definitely a bit more involved than choosing a HQ for 40k as the Lord/Heroes seem to have much more ability to influence the game in fantasy from what I can tell at the moment.

I have decided to go with the following set up for 2250 pts - it seems fairly common but I think it should do alright.

Archmage
- Silver Wand
- Ring of Fury

Main magic provider. Flexible given my disliking of the fact you have to roll of spells, and also Fury of Khaine is pretty sexy.

Korhil

Korhil's role is fairly simple really. I add him to the PG, get stubborn all round. Yay!

BSB
- Dragon Armour
- Reaver Bow
- Banner of Sorcery

This guy will get added to my archer block to act a shield but to also help deal with those pesky skirmishers - my main opponent is wood elves.

All in all I'm fairly happy with the set up and I have been able to hit 2250 on the head. Feel free to give feedback if you like.

Cheers!

[Seawhisper]

Unfortunately, if you give your BSB a magic banner he can't have any other magic items.

[Fwum]

You could always give the PG the Banner of Sorcery, and keep the bow on the BSB as it is one of our best magic wepons. The wand/ring Archmage is a really good choice, but I would throw in a scroll or two. If you don't desperately need the points it is often a good idea to buy all your character items to the limit, as they often are really good. Personally I'm no fan of special characters, but if everyone is okey with it I see no problem there.