The Cavalry Prince - List Design, Tactics, Battle Reports

[Ferny]

RE: Silver helm standard or high helm, what's your thinking behind this?

In my list (very different to yours) I've got 2x5 reaver spears (mus) and 2x5 helm shields (mus). The logic on mus for reavers is pretty obvious; Ld 9 to rally independent of the general...as I expect them to be doing a lot of rallying.

But why mus on the knights? I'd put them in on the same logic, but actually, while I do use them for flees against tough opponents this isn't their main role. I remember you saying somewhere that on the charge a banner doubles their static CR which against the sort of things they might be charging is pretty good so I'm going to try that switch, even though it costs me more points if they break from combat.

But what would your thinking be on having the high helm? To accept challenges from DP types?

[Ferny]

PS - looking forward to seeing your response

[SpellArcher]

I believe that high elves struggle against high point cost "super-men" types of characters, such as demon princes, greater demons, chariots, frost heart phoenixes etc. due to the lack of hyper reliable artillery. Neither sword masters nor phoenix guard are strong against those enemies.

I'd argue that SM's and Lions are fine against all of these except chariots because they'll have World Dragon, PG less likely. I agree with your other points though ED.

[finreir]

I think a lot of this discussion comes down to how folks are playing the game. A lot of people are focusing on ETC deny builds where nothing is risked. In such cases, you would have to work very very hard to get those swordmasters into fights they want to be in. Beyond that, do the sword masters out perform phoenix guard over the long haul against those same targets?

I'm thinking specifically of skaven slaves and chaos warriors, two thing that white lions are bad against. In both of those cases, I think that the 4++ of the PG is safer, leading to increased damage output over time.

This is, to a degree, an academic discussion. I believe that high elves struggle against high point cost "super-men" types of characters, such as demon princes, greater demons, chariots, frost heart phoenixes etc. due to the lack of hyper reliable artillery. Neither sword masters nor phoenix guard are strong against those enemies.

A majority of people here will read this expecting to fight nothing but 1+ saves, beasts of nurgle or super-characters. Based on your reports, these are not the types of games you play. As such, the discussion will be skewed with Seredain operating in one type of environment and those that disagree operating in the other.

think you hit the nail on the head for me the longer i play this edition with the new book if i take infantry i figure it should be phoenix guard but im not inspired by any of them in the current meta. They cant get to what they want to fight quick enough and the stuff that wants to fight them either shoots or can make distance quickly, loss of rerolls was massive i played vs sm and at the weekend gave them 2 volleys and i rolled badly then smashed then up with 5 dp and the annointed very very easily if im honest, same would have happened to whitelions but at least they wouldnt have run off. The debate we should be having is what does high elf infantry do anymore in a meta of m/c etc

[SpellArcher]

But don't you find the army's already got tools against MC Ian?

RBT, Reaver Bow, Lore of Metal, Mounted Characters? A foot unit with World Dragon will hose Skullcrushers and should beat Demis if it's a decent size. Sure, you don't want to be charged by Mournfangs but that's what the redirectors are for.

The infantry block does something your other units can't do but I feel it needs the other arms working properly around it to be any good.

[Syleth]

Hi Seredain,
nice hearing from you again and from your stategies. Looking forward to reading the post you are preparing

i have been using quite a lot your fighty characters setup in silver helm bus since last edition. However i'm finding every time more that there are enemies they can't tackle (loec was such a great loss..as the double rerollable 1+ for both). And if I am doing the investment, they need to be able to cut through anything.

Have you also had this experience about the fighty characters no longer being the kings of the arena? any thoughts?

Because of this reason, i am going to try moving them into a DP bus with the BotWD:
- The downside is having to drop the OTS, the cost of the DP bus, and not having the BotWD available for infantry.
- The upside, a 2++ against any magic attack, including death spells and characters weapons, and extra protection for the bus to make those bodies last longer; and the extra hit power of the DP!

As infantry, without the BotWD available, only option i consider for a big block is a PG block w/razor banner. WL and SM won't last without the banner. Actually, i am more than happy of having that PG block: good output damage and excellent durability.
As for magic, still debating debating between a high archmage, for a perm 3++, or shadows for the needed boosts on the PG and DP i know you are a firm defender of high magic, but what is your thinking about the magic lore in a list like this?

You can find the full list here:
http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=58500

any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. And keep those good posts coming!

[Drakova]

Quick Mention:

Swordmasters do great at punishing chaff or wounded monsters who dare flank or rear up on them. It can be a really big deal if you kill a wounded monster off before it thunder stomps or gets to attack.

[Seredain]

Chaps,

Thanks for bearing with me so far - the pre-Christmas rush is punishing me at work into the late nights of most work days. So, I've been working on a response in my lunch breaks. I haven't had direct reference to Ulthuan as I've been working at my desk (somehow my office got round to blocking it - not my fault I swear). As a result, I've covered the main points made by the collection of your posts (most of which were very helpful or otherwise containing good questions).

Anything I've missed, I'll come back to (there are some posts in particular that need dealing with head on... I'll leave you to guess which ones), but, for those wanting to share their experiences with this sword brick, or else other unit combos they're trying out (Ferny you mentioned Swords + Phoenix Guard), by all means share them in whatever detail you can. I don't often get a chance to sit down and type, but I read stuff on my phone and always enjoy it.

Again, it leaves me only to say a big thank you to the community for the quality of the responses. I look forward to reading more.

In my first post on this subject, I was really attempting to stick albeit with the odd rhetorical flourish...), to the relatively narrow point that swordmasters are the best elite infantry unit we have for all-purpose model-killing. Apart from touching on the significant advantages of WS 6, I left their defensive qualities alone. But of course many of you are right; you need to look at defence if you’re going to look at table-top combat performance in the round.


Stubborn is not the only way to win combats

Plenty of you are bang on about the effectiveness of stubborn and, stood in isolation, a fight with 3 ranks of Nurgle warriors is exactly the kind of situation where it pays off: the warriors have enough ranks, unlike skullcrushers, that ordinary steadfast doesn’t work here if luck goes against us (on averages 18 warriors 6x3 will do 7.9 kills Stormie, so we can say from the off that swords have a much better chance of winning than lions, with averages of 8.05 vs 6.10 kills). However, the limits to this isolated example (and why I was focussing only on kill scores), is that, in practice, an unlucky combat wouldn’t end well for the lions either. The lions hold, then get chopped up and have to keep holding until they die. In my list, where the general and BSB’s leadership may be elsewhere at the time I want to commit to an attack, this isn’t a reliable tactic.

We'll come back to this specific combat later. For now, widening our focus, it's worth recognising that we have a few choices as to how we win this combat with our 3-rank elite brick:

1 - Lose combat, hold, and counter-attack with another unit;

2 - Combo-charge for the immediate win;

3 - Use non-combat support to tilt the combat in your favour (er, cheat).

1 – Hold and Counter-attack

Stubborn means, of course, that white lions have the intrinsic advantage over swordmasters in Tactic 1. Shove them forward, watch them hold and ride to the rescue with other units (or… just spend all your points taking loads of them and filling them with characters). Swordmasters will never look good if you think the primary quality of infantry is to be able to shove it the face of a large collection of enemy units without it running away.

But this is not the only tactic available to win big fights. For myself, I don’t like running this tactic much with a brick-sized unit, because it tends to involve it taking a beating in the process. Since I’ve only taken one big brick of elites (without wanting to go into deathstar levels of investment), I’m averse to losing the models if I can avoid it – I might need them later. If we’re looking to hold and counter-attack without the pain, then, we can use units other units. Typically, I force counter-attacking opportunities with eagles, which give you pin-point redirection and don’t cost anything. For example: even if you allow the charging enemy to overrun over your eagle and straight into your swordmasters, the fact that the combat won’t happen until next turn gives you this turn’s stubborn for 50 points and no casualties.

Or you can use the core helm bus, with which it’s pretty easy to shut down an enemy’s active combat res (a 3 frontage lance with a champion and the characters making way to useful positions from the 2nd rank), and which holds well with two standards and re-rollable leadership 10. Or, indeed, you can use a supplementary smaller unit of white lions. I use 15 full command with the flaming banner. If you’re worried about casualties, use your musician and reform to a small frontage. Challenge out enemy characters with the guardian. The point is that there are lots of ways to mess up enemy charges, and set traps, with a High Elf army other than by shoving your expensive infantry brick into someone’s face.

However, although not the ‘fire and forget’ stubborn solution that lions are, you can do this with a unit of swords too, or indeed any unit of infantry, in many circumstances. If you want to stay steadfast for a turn and then counter-attack, reform your ranks into 5x4, hold, and widen your formation to increase your attacks when the cavalry come in. Against single-ranked units or monsters, a unit of 21 is big enough to hold in any event – stubborn is irrelevant until you’ve lost combat and lost enough models to lose regular steadfast. As infantry, large units of swordmasters will have a defensive advantage that mimics stubborn without having the pay the points per model. You don’t need to worry about breaking with swords against chariots, for example, until you’ve got fewer than 5 models left. In the meantime, the stubborn possessed by white lions offers you no advantage against units without any static res which don’t all-but wipe you out.

For example, to get knocked down to less than a rank in one turn by chariots would require you to be charged by at least 3 chaos chariots at once (assuming you’ve taken no defensive measures whatsoever, magical or otherwise, they kill an average of 16 swordmasters on the charge, so they’d need a pip more than average luck to break you). This would, I suggest, be rather careless. Saying “white lions have stubborn so allow you to be” is fine, but it’s not a style of play I’m looking to emulate where I’ve got other cheaper options like eagles, or other flexible tools to swing combats like hard & fast cavalry and great ranged power supported by magic.

2 – Combo-charge

Nothing much needs to be said about this without starting a whole new topic about how to engineer combo-charges. You can pick and choose your unit combinations to counter-act each other’s weaknesses, so pretty much any of our elite infantry works. It’s worth saying that Cav Prince lists like mine enjoy this tactic because getting overwhelming force at a particular point is that much easier if you’ve got a manoeuvrable cavalry unit, movement boosting spells in High magic (Hand and Walk), and lots of elven board dominance from BS shooting, eagles and a bit of MSU from other elites, reavers or heavy cavalry. In my case the latter, in particular, have ASF and so are a perfect way to thin high initiative enemies before you chop up the remainder with great weapons.

Certainly, however, ‘overwhelming force’ combats are ones you’ll be winning so, where you’re able to engineer them, all-comers damage output from the swords is a more useful contribution to the ‘overwhelm’ than stubborn from the white lions. In this context it’s worth noting again that more attack rolls always gives you the chance to do better even if averages are roughly the same. It’s like the difference between a 4-8 and a 1-12 weapon in Diablo.

3 – Cheat

My army has a limited number of powerful units. There will be times when I am heavily engaged elsewhere on the field to the point where my medium-strength brick will have to operate without close combat support for much of the game. Holding with stubborn is a great thing in this context, but instead of standing there not dying, I’d rather try and win these combats with my elites where at all possible.

Sticking to the warriors of chaos example, it is much easier for us to influence a single combat with other elements, i.e. magic and shooting, than it is for them. No core shooting, more limited spell selection, hell cannons seem to have dropped off the face of the Earth; plus no Book of Hoeth, no Banner, no Shield of Saphery and no flexible rare selection which allows us to take a frosty for defence and additional powerful shooting units. Lots of elements of our army, therefore, allow us to win combats without using a second powerful combat unit to ride in and rescue the one we’ve already committed but which seems to be losing.

I would argue that swordmasters benefit from this kind of support better than white lions do. I've already covered, above, why Hand of Glory opens more options for the swords with their improved WS, but I think the same is true for many other combat buffs too. Iceshard Blizzard gives me a chance to double up on the Hand of Glory effect against WS3 hitters. At the other end of the spectrum, fans of shadow magic will find the additional attacks of swordmasters will get more benefit out of Mindrazor, or the Withering, than white lions would. Then there are the spells boosting to hit rolls, to wound rolls, granting armour piercing… Spells which improve the quality rather than quantity of your attacks. White lion fans have Light Magic, but the vast majority of spells out there increase the effectiveness of your attacks rather than their number.

For me, however, it is the free defensive boosts of Shield of Saphery which really make swordmasters my brick of choice.

The High Heavens Buff Phase

In respect of my own phase, I should emphasise the reliability of getting at least a 5+ ward up in combat from Shield of Saphery.

1 - The Book of Hoeth. In small phases, the +1 to cast High magic and the re-roll combined tend to dominate my opponent's defence (max-channel Lizzies are the biggest headache here, but even they struggle with spam casts which all get re-rolls).

2 - For defensive buffs, Heavens and High mesh very well together because of Iceshard Blizzard. In every game I’ve played to date, I have had Iceshard Blizzard and 4 shield-generating spells. The defensive redundancy of a spell set-up like this is just fantastic.

3 - A level 2 with other decent spells reliably draws dice. Against chariot-heavy lists in particular, Comet or chain lightning act as a very distracting threat. Because of my unit choices, other Heavens spells work in the same way. Harmonic Convergence bubbled onto the repeaters and archers, or Midnight Curse on a unit about to see combat, are nasty propositions. Thunderbolt hurts monsters and small elite cav units. The fact that the mage gets +2 to cast instead of 5+, and has no re-roll, further tempts your opponent to get his dispel in where he knows he can succeed. This opens the door for your High spells to start generating your shield.

4 - Keep your High spells cheap. I usually pick only one expensive High spell per game (assuming I roll one – if I roll two, I swap one for Drain Magic). If my level 4 is deployed in the swords, I never pick the magic missile. This means I have a wide selection of spells to cast with minimal targeting restrictions. It also means my opponent has fewer attractive targets for his scroll: three of my spells will be 1-dice cheap, and any High spell improves the Shield.

5 - The big High spells are intimidating. No chaos warrior wants Fiery Convocation going off on the Nurgle unit we’re discussing and ruining his next magic phase. Unforging is obviously even more useful in the warriors context. Chucking it at a level 2 is, for example, an easy way to all-but guarantee the removal of his scroll in an early turn - prizing your opponent's defence open for when you hit important combats and need your spells to go through. In the absence of a scroll your top High spells, or the threat of them, will see your opponent holding dice back for fear of losing his lord’s ward save.

High Heavens – Conclusion

Ignoring the particular spells which I might be able to cast in a given scenario would, technically, be unfair. A high archmage with Book of Hoeth has perhaps the most reliable and (since most spells are cheap) safest spell-casting ability in the game, eking more power out of casts on fewer dice. Small phases do not stop it but, in normal phases, being backed up by a level 2 with a complementary lore gives you good buff redundancy with Hand / Iceshard and great defensive redundancy with Shield/Iceshard (and Hand again against WS3 troops and, possibly, WS4 troops if you’re base WS6).

Even allowing for no spell effects at all, however, you can see that generating the Shield is nonetheless very difficult for your opponent to stop. I haven’t yet seen an army which reliably shuts it down (see below), at least without letting Iceshard Blizzard through.


What about the Swords’ weaknesses?

Shooting

Finreir, you mentioned that swordmasters just melt against shooty enemies. The fact is that this just isn’t borne out in my experience. Ignoring Empire cannon-lines and Skaven shooting for now (the former are not well designed to take out infantry, and the latter bumps off BotWD), the shootiest armies I see are skink-heavy lizardmen, other elves and greenskin war machine spam. Against all three, core heavy cavalry can neutralise their light shooting/harassment troops, and our archers out-range their support units and slay them in droves. Bolt throwers and sisters obviously work wonders too with their accuracy and/or range. Our access to Hand of Glory / WBW / Harmonic Convergence, and additional ranged support from damage spells, means we can punish them hard using the magic phase too.

Deploying the swords in the centre of your formation keeps them safe while the support battle rages but, in any case, Shield of Saphery makes a massive difference to their defensive abilities. Just imagine yourself having no re-roll on your dispel attempts and facing an opponent who had +5 to cast and a free 1-dice re-roll on all his spells, most of which he could cast on 1 dice if he had to, and where any cast would grant +1 to the Shield. The only defensive phase I’ve seen stand up to this is a Slann with 3 channels, the Channelling Staff and the ability to re-roll one failed dispel attempt per phase, and even then he mostly didn’t manage to prevent a couple of High spells going through each turn (see below).

Even in a pathetic 2v1 phase, you can get 1 spell off for sure, or a decent chance of 2 spells with +5 to cast and Book of Hoeth. We’ve discussed already the distraction value of other spells during larger phases. The point is that getting the Shield up from even my least valuable spells is very hard to stop. It is, in fact, as reliable as magic gets in this game. Starting off with a 6++ from the parry / Ironcurse icon makes my swords’ defence very good against shooting.

Combat

As SpellArcher has already picked up on, so many of the units that our infantry is so vulnerable to, and for which lions are described as a decent solution, are already neutralised as a major threat by the Banner of the World Dragon. We’ve already seen, above, that the difference between white lions’ and swordmasters’ performance against skullcrushers is minimal. The Banner makes Stubborn more or less irrelevant (even assuming normal steadfast wouldn’t be enough). Daemon Princes? It would be a complete waste of their talents to throw themselves into a Banner unit, regardless of the elites it contained. I’ve held one up all game and destroyed the rest of the chaos army with my current list because my opponent made that mistake (below). Magic weapon-toting characters likewise bounce off the Banner elites regardless of their type. The point is that skullcrushers and (most) enemy characters are not enemies we need white lions against if we’ve got the Banner.

Shield of Saphery has a similar (more generalised) effect on the number of “white lions only” combats. If you’re reliably warding wounds, you’re either maintaining your ranks to hold on to steadfast against chariots/monsters or single ranks of monstrous cavalry, or you’re turning the combat from a loss/draw into a win. No, this doesn’t mean you can just shove the swordmasters in any unit’s face and forget about it – but that’s a false comparison for a non-stubborn unit in an army containing eagles and so on. You don’t pay points for stubborn (swords aren’t swiftstride either – doesn’t mean they’re not good), and you don’t need to use expensive infantry like this. Instead, you can use your flexible support elements to ensure you either:

a) stay steadfast against small but tough opponents (ranked up infantry can do that, as discussed); or

b) turn combats decisively your way against opponents that the white lions would struggle against, and to which we have fewer dead-cert magical solutions (hordes, WS5 elites, infantry generally).

The Warriors Scenario – Take 2

So let’s look again at the halberd Nurgle warriors calculation. I’m assuming a combat with 18 warriors and that our elites stay 7x3: I maintain the formation for simplicity’s sake – as SpellArcher mentioned swords are free to shift formation to increase the number of attacks in the front rank where lions are not). The swords make 8.05 kills and white lions make 6.10. The warriors make 7.94 kills. That’s a minutely advantageous draw to the swords, and a stubborn loss to the lions. Of course, bad luck means the swords lose on less than stubborn; good luck means a more crushing victory than the lions could manage, making it more likely the enemy breaks. Since it’s simple and isn’t advantageous to either unit, however, we’ll stick to averages.

In-game I won’t want to rely on averages, of course, so I’ll use my list to cheat. I’ll assume my repeaters and fighting heroes are all distracted by chariots and monsters (they would be), and ignore whatever effect my archers might have (FYI, with an average HoG on them, archers kill 3.19 Nurgle halberdiers per volley at long range – they’re decent, and even better if you get Harmonic Convergence…). Magic however, can count. Stormie, since we’re ignoring the actual effects of my spam spells and massed shooting, granting myself a 5++ here is a very minor way, given my spell selection, casting advantages, shooting phase and harassment units, for my list to tilt this combat.

With a 5++ on our elites, the 18 warriors now only kill 5.26 elves. They lose to the white lions by 0.84 and to the swords by 2.79. The warriors are not steadfast, so here the extra -2 leadership to their break test from the swords is massive. If the warriors hold on Ld7, the white lions’ damage output for the next round falls by a little more than 23%. In the next round, they make 4.75 kills. The warriors (making the same number of attacks in 2 ranks as they did in the first round), make another 5.26 kills and win the combat even with our shield up.

They’d be lucky to hold against the swords on Ld5 but, if they did, they would manage a reduced 4.74 wounds, having lost 2 attacks from the second rank due to casualties. The swords (having lost only 17% of their attacks), make 6.65 kills and win the combat by 2 again. As combat goes on over the course of the game, the gap in fighting quality between the swords and lions starts to widen. White lions are stubborn, yes, but against a wider variety of opponents, they’re more likely to need to be.


Some examples – my last 3 games

Lizardmen

My opponent had a Channelling High Magic slann with Wandering Deliberations and 1 free dispel attempt per phase in 3 rank unit of temple guard carrying the AP banner, a big bus of 12-ish kroxigor (I’d seen them chop up a warriors of chaos army the week before – ouch), 3 salamanders, the laser-dino, some chameleons and upwards of 40 javelin skinks. The magic phase was a dual, as they go, but even then his skinks and sallies either melted to arrows or got run over by my cavalry before they could get close to my swordmasters, who advanced on turn 3 and butchered his combat units in conjunction with my cavalry characters running in the small unit of helms (my large unit having drawn his krox deployment by dropping on the opposite flank). Hand of Glory and Thunderbolt helped pick off single beasts and, when it came to combat, I ensured the kroxigor were only hitting my swordmasters on 5s because I had the Iceshard/Hand of Glory double (the latter guaranteeing the necessary WS 7 for the WS6 swords – this made a big difference because once cast, I rolled a 1or2 on the d3 roll).

I never intended to stand there and accept a 1-on-1 charge from either of the big lizzie units – I just used support units to hold them off (both eagles and my 15 white lions occupying a large tower near the centre) until I was ready. My large elite block never needed stubborn.

Warriors of Chaos

The typical tournament build (cough *no scenarios* cough). Nurgle DP with Lore of Nurgle (for the stat boosts – and boy did he get them), core made up of all chariots plus a couple units of marauder horse and one unit of dogs, two chimeras with regen and breath weapons, a 3++ BSB on disc and a Level 2 also on disc with scroll and also a decent ward save, plus two units of skullcrushers. My opponent got the regen spell and a bunch of damage spells from Nurgle and… didn’t do much casting with his level 2 because he chucked 4+ dice at everything and miscast with the DP 3 times (always managing to roll a 7!). I had Walk Between Worlds, Unforging, Hand of Glory and Drain Magic. My level 2 had Iceshard Blizzard and Comet.

The DP had taken the anti-elf prince ability to make one Str10 attack allowing no armour saves and doing a billion wounds. His whole plan was to sit infront of my helm bus and grind it out while he overwhelmed me with chariots. But he hadn’t taken any shooting, so I was free to run my prince solo far away from my bus, and this messed up his plan. The 9 helms + BSB deployed on my right, casting an exclusion zone for his chimeras to the front and right of my shooting units. A large hill in the centre of my deployment zone held all my bows and 2 machines. The swords deployed on the plain at the foot of the hill with the archmage, in range of all the units about him. The Prince, 15 white lions and the 6 helms deployed left with a repeater and the eagles. Opposite them were 2-3 chariots and a unit of skullcrushers. Another unit of skullcrushers in the centre, near chimera number 1 and another chariot or two. Chimera number 2 deployed against my far right. His DP hid behind a small building on the centre so I couldn’t shoot him. No easy charges for him as a result.

Turn 1 – he didn’t manage to dispel WBW because of my Book re-rolls, so I moved the sisters forward, flamed a chimera and then shot it down with bolters. My archers panicked one unit of marauder cav and my 6 helms charged off the others. He bombed everything forward. Small helms fled to rally behind my prince. Turn 2, Chimera number 2 goes down to shooting, but without magic assistance this time. I pull dice with Unforging and then put a comet down infront of the chariot/crusher cloud on my left. Archers either kill or panic the hounds. My swords bomb it forward to the (my) right of the DP’s building with a 1 dice WBW, and form a wall in front of the central unit of crushers. Either I charge them next turn or he charges me. 1-dice DM gives me a 5++ against mundane attacks.

My opponent was in trouble here: a single rank of crushers was toast against the sword unit and, at the moment, with comet down on the left, as well has there being two eagles to block chariots / the other crushers, the prince to charge anything and the 15 lions to hold ground, he couldn’t break through on the left before my swords would be overrunning into his rear. So he charged the crushers and the only other thing else with a charge on – the DP – just to hold them in place for his other units to go to outmatch my left flank. Bad plan. BotWD holds the DP all game, swords (albeit slowed down by two irresistible regens cast by the DP) kill the crushers. Large helms run over a chariot or two, the prince kills another, white lions kill another wounded chariot having held its charge. Second unit of crushers gets shot up, hit by a second comet and then finished by the solo prince or shot. End game sees his BSB try and get a lucky break on my archers with level 2, but they hold. Think this is the 4th armour list I’ve played… honestly the ones with Nurgle warriors were scarier because it meant I couldn’t just put the Banner into a unit of crushers and forget about them – I had to put arrows and the swords into the warriors instead, and deal with the crushers some other way. Chariots are relatively easy to separate and pick off. Once they start charging by themselves, they tend to just bounce.

Orcs and Goblins

Finreir, my last game was against the Orc and Goblin opponent you played in Round 1 of your last reported tournament. Here he played much the same against me as he did against you: holding back with a couple of powerful infantry regiments, refusing to move out and trying to bombard me with war machines and greenskin spam as I inched forward. He had a savage ward horde with orc BSB (tank build, I think), BO warboss (also tanky inc 4++), savage level 4 (shrunken head). 20 night gobbos with bows and two level 1s (hex scroll and flaming ring), a unit of 6-8 trolls, doom diver, 2 rock lobbas, spear chukka, and a cloud of small units including two single trolls, a couple of chariots, a boar-riding hero with 2++ vs flaming, wolf riding hero with 2++ vs flaming, a couple of squig herds (once decent, one chaff only) and a mangler.

Hand of Glory on the archers was the star of the show: as I advanced my swords and lions to pen his infantry in, they got to keep pace by moving 7” and hitting things on 2s or 3s anyway. All those arrows plus the sisters and bolts tore up the chaff while the eagles and all my silver helms rode through the remainder and ate his war machines, while Iceshard Blizzard nobbled the doom diver (Arcane Unforging on his characters consistently drawing dice and clearing the hex scroll on turn 2). With flaming arrows from the sisters next door, the archers then tore through the trolls from about turn 4 onwards and finished them off. The savage horde, seeing itself surrounded, stayed right back in his zone and cuddled a tower to prevent a flank charge from my bus (which had to work its way around the back to do anything). But he didn’t want to come out towards my infantry either because he would have been surrounded (FYI swords and lions in 3 ranks do a similar number of kills on 5++ savages – 8.6 for swords and 8.14 for lions – until the casualties kick back (5.74 with a 5++ on us), and the swords’ kill difference stretches away). So to prevent me marching up and using an eagle to make the surround anyway, he sat there all game and fed me chaff and shamans to keep me away. Eventually he killed my eagles (doom diver did one in combat – ! – and night gobbos shot the other – I had to put my bus into the doom diver to kill it and use arrows instead of the knights to finish the trolls), and he ran the 6 helms off the board with a troll, so made a dash out with his horde. I was so far ahead on points that I fled everything and rallied, sacrificing the sisters to hold him up. With the bus unavailable for combo-duty, there was no point in engaging the savages even with my stubborn unit. If luck went bad I’d just be taking Ld tests for a couple of turns, and there was no reason to risk a general engagement (although I was tempted to triple-team it with my swords and lions to the front and archers from the left).

I never got the surround I wanted this game – I could have put the helms into the doom diver two turns earlier and kept the eagle alive for late-game redirect duty, but the point about this example was that I was able to maintain a dominant stand-off with a magic, shooting and chaff-heavy O&G list without my swords being in any serious danger to either damage spells or the rock lobbas (I think I lost 5 swords over the course of the whole game). This because I had t least a 4+ ward save on the swords every single turn, except one where I rolled three 1s and a 3 to cast a large WBW… re-rolled… got another 1. Even then I got one spell off and had a 5++ against the machines. Shield was, then, tremendous. By allowing my swords to hold the centre ground with impunity, it meant they:

1 - Prevented the savage horde from turning left or right to deal with my knights eating things on the flanks;

2 - Forced him to feed me points all game to prevent me closing in on his horde for a combo-charge;

3 - Gave close support to the archers, preventing a charge to freedom by the trolls before they were shot into insignificance and then death;

4 - Prevented a savage horde breakout until it was too late.

Of course any of our elites could have performed a “penning” duty like this. But the point is that even as a purely defensive board control unit, swordmasters work well because they get Shield and the Banner: their traditional weakness to ranged attacks just isn’t there in a High magic list.


Conclusion - all-comers means all-comers

None of the games above was designed specifically for swordmasters. Each featured variously low WS armoured infantry with spam-shooting, 1+ save magical moncav and massed war machines. And yet in each game the swords played a pivotal role, because their items and magic support filled in their weaknesses and allowed me to use them flexibly. Even so, if white lions could have performed all of the jobs that the swords did in these games with the same kind of support, why do I use swords? Because my next game is against infantry warriors – I have better support and swords kill more of them. The game after that is against dark elves featuring an executioner brick, my swordmasters can tackle it head on, meaning my cavalry can safely avoid all that KB. And the game after that is against Skaven, where the massed Str5 attacks and guaranteed -1 to hit double from Hand of Glory + Blizzard makes them a reliable rat blender. Swordmasters with High magic and the Banner cover all the bases.

My own experiences aside, however, the question “who fields infantry anyway” heads a silly argument if you’re building a list that can have a crack at anybody, as opposed to only your local tournament scene. 8th Edition Warhammer is also, as we’ve said many times before, a scenario-based game with a great variety of possible terrain combinations. For no other reason (and I argued a couple of pages back that there are many), infantry need to be part of the mix if you don’t want to auto-lose at least 1/6th of your games. Even if you escape the Watchtower, your board can still end up rammed full of buildings.

Indeed it is ironic that people who use elite infantry like, say, white lions, would find it unusual that other players might do the same. I operate under the assumption that anyone, at any time, might show up in front of me with some skilled, multi-attack or multi-rank, infantry. I’m looking at ogre infantry, dark elf executioners, O&G trolls and savage ward-horde big ‘uns, black orcs (any other kind of orc!), massive horde gobbos, empire halberdiers toting priests and buff-wagons, Nurgle warriors and chaos trolls, beastmen, daemons, high elves (fielding white lion bricks and no High magic), all Skaven infantry (but especially plague monks and Storm Vermin). All of the above are (with the usual combos) powerful choices, albeit not the only infantry you need to account for in an all-comers context. The high elf general who doesn’t count them as relevant is not interested in building an all-comers list.

So to my list. I have anti-armour/monster covered by powerful (anti-regen) shooting, including 3 bolt throwers and shooting-buff spells from High and Heavens. Against the same enemies I have high strength attacks from 15 white lions, my prince and resilience from a M9 (non-stompable) cav bus. At the other end of the scale I have massed shots and ASF attacks from archers, filleting unarmoured infantry and chaff along with a small unit of helms. A mass of WS6 Str 5 attacks from the swords slots between the two wings of my army, and therefore supplements its other abilities perfectly against basically anything. And against the worst infantry-mashers out there, High magic and the Banner keeps them a safe choice.

As ever, thanks for reading.

S

[Azaireal]

Your battles are exciting.

[Dartanelo]

2 – Combo-charge

Nothing much needs to be said about this without starting a whole new topic about how to engineer combo-charges.

I haven't had a chance to read the entire post you made as I'm just on lunch, so I will hold off commenting until I have. That said, a topic about engineering combo charges is something I would be VERY interested in reading.

[RE.Lee]

Very interesting tactical comments Seredain, as usual. Thanks for sharing such a thorough analysis, I hope I can implement some of the ideas when I field Swordmasters

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Seredain,

After your first post about Swordmasters and replies of the other players I was really concerned about another SM vs WL endless "discussion". Although there were a lot of good points it still steered towards "who is better" type of topic. When it was obvious that it all depends on the approach of the player, his play style and the role particular unit has to play in that configuration.

I was really hoping for a more tactical rather than math hammer based posts and I am very happy to see you delivering that. I guess one can always count on you to post your ideas in a very well structured and thought provoking manner. Thank you for that!

Since it is an army list topic it is no surprise you describe usefulness of Swordmasters from your own point of view. It is great to see how the warriors scholars perform with the support of the High Magic. How fluffy is that?! But at the same time I think one can take some inspiration for his own approach as it shows that even in the game of dice it is possible to direct unstable winds of magic so that no matter what there is always some aid from them. Probably the best example is using the Lore Attribute to grant ward save to Swordmasters. You might not be able to cast it all but using the tools you chose you can make a great use of them.

Another great utility is combining two lores of magic. If you can cast Hand then you further improve Sm's advantage in the form of higher WS. If you further combine it with -1 to hit penalty from Iceshard, then it is even better. But if you cast only one or the other there are some benefits anyway. That makes the decision making for the enemy very hard. And that is also very good thing to have.

Here are the main things I learned or was reminded of by reading your posts:

It is a team effort

While Swordmasters are great on their own (I know, I know, I am heavily biased ) they are still part of the team. Wizards support them with spells so they are more efficient in their duties or more resilient to the enemy fire/magic. Other regiments co-operate to so that Swordmasters can deliver their deadly attacks in favourable combats. Etc.

You need to know what you want to achieve with them and then proceed to do so. While pushing miniatures forward and rolling dice is part of the game you use the whole army to let certain units to be pushed where you want and roll such amount of dice that can give you better odds even if the enemy interferes. And they will!

It is never isolated combat

But it is never in a vacuum and even in the situations where you are one on one combats there is always something you can do to improve your odds. You have nicely demonstrated that High Magic and its Lore Attribute almost always can assist you. It is important to find out how you can plan the magic phase in order to achieve some benefits. It is nice to have them all but at the same time if you can achieve some it can be good too. I really like your examples as it shows how sophisticated High Magic is. There is a benefit from the spell itself and there is stacking of ward save at the same time.

What I want to point out is overlapping with the team effort too. But I simply want to highlight the fact that there are always additional factors and interaction with elements of the army that creates required result. Hence, it is kind of pointless to argue that one unit is better than another without taking into account what is the composition of the army and what that unit has to do in that particular configuration.

And I need to add that the way you presented your ideas and approach made it very appealing despite using these horrible items like book or banner. Damn, I have even started thinking about the Book myself

Cheers!

[Marshal]

I have been using a mixture of WL and PG for a good 6months because i lost faith in the ability of the swordmasters after the loss of ASF. This thread has made me adopt a whole new play style which i have come to love. I run a Cav Prince in a helm bus and 20 SM in a 3x7 formation with a Lvl4 High Mage (BoH).

Last night i played against Empire and I am quite shocked at how well i did, the swordies carried the game completely combined with an awesome magic phase each round.

Swordmasters + Walk Between Worlds is devasting! There was only one turn where i couldnt get the spell off because they were still engaged for a second round of combat but in total my Swordies done 1/3 of the damage in total the whole game taking out a Greatsword unit + WP and a Halberd Horde + Mage. I lost 7 of 20 SMs the whole game on the return attack from the Greatswords in round 2 combat. Boosted by ethereal could have helped any unit but i dont think that my WL or PG wouldve cleared up as quickly as the SMs did so i could then get the WBW spell off as often as i did (they averaged around 11 wounds per turn with 16 attacks so the loss of ASF wasnt as bad as thought it would be).

I am now wondering whether i need to even have the AM in the unit and the BOTW, if i am as lucky as i was this game to get this spell off then ++ and Magic defense can be used elsewhere.

[Sinsigel]

Not a meaningful question, but how do you HE generals find special infantry block numbering 20 or so like Seredain's SM block?
I face skaven quite often which means infantry block of such mediocre size is almost worthless in the face of 13th spell.
That's why in my meta most HE generals(including me) almost always field special infantry in 30+.

I'm not trying to criticize Seredain's list but i just couldn't keep questioning when I see most lists in the site with 20-ish special infantry block.
Is it just a problem of respective meta or am I lacking some serious tactical insight?

[GhostWarrior]

Sinsigel,

I think in the broad scheme of the meta you'll find that Skaven are having trouble dealing with the Warrior and Ogre armies that tend to be out there. Not sure how they matchup against Daemons (though I assume its not too well, especially if Nurgle is involved).

If the Skaven player knows he's only going to have to play against Elf armies and similar (T3) then he tends to have an easier time of it.

Either way, that spell is just ridiculously good against our elite infantry, pretty much regardless of the unit size.

I guess what I'm saying is that, in a tournament setting, it would be possible to see a Skaven player in an early round, but harder to see one later, if you've been doing well in your games.

[Axiem]

Not a meaningful question, but how do you HE generals find special infantry block numbering 20 or so like Seredain's SM block?

It certainly is a meaningful question - in fact it's pretty well the heart of the discussion. While Seredain has certainly been able to get such infantry blocks to work for him, such infantry units are rare to find in 8th ed. Warhammer. The reason isn't only the 13th spell, but the game in general, which now promotes conserving points or winning big; there isn't a middle ground, and such units often appear as an attempt at a middle ground.

Even in previous out-of-the-box Warhammer, in 7th ed, there were many different kinds of victories (minor, major, massacre) which helped differentiate victories (and eventually gave way to the 20-0 system). Currently, winning by 100 points is the same as winning by 1000 in a win-loss-draw system, which means there's a lot more of an incentive to not lose points than there is to go for massive wins. Moreover, the 20-0 and similar systems support the idea that if you lose a game (even by a large margin), you can later move back up the ranks by taking risks and consistently going for 16+ wins the rest of your games. Both systems are the same in this manner.

All this encourages larger units that a) don't give up points as easily and b) have the potential (even if only in certain circumstances) to walk over your opponent and help you swing your tournament placing. Really, it's not a threat of getting 13thed off the table, it's the chance of dropping a game, and bringing it back the other 2-4 that really has shifted the mindset of tournament players. More importantly, this shift in mindset works, and players who win larger tournaments often have a dropped game, followed by a near flawless record where before, they would have had to have gone for medium wins (12-14) 5 games in a row, which is arguably a lot harder.

Axiem

[Cealyne]

Hello there! Not sure if I am late to the party or not, but I have a few points on the current subject matter. I know others have said similar thoughts and opinions on the matter. But I'll start...
I have used swordmasters in about 10 or so games since our new book came out. I know that isn't a huge amount, but I can say it is enough to form an opinion on the matter. I will view this and break it down in several parts.
First I believe our army as a whole needs magic support. In the form of hexes/buffs, missiles, and direct damage so on and so forth. That being said let's look at all 3 elite units to see what support they require from magic.

PHOENIX GUARD
They are our solid anvil unit. 4+ ward makes them able to hold in the face of all attacks. Only having heavy armor is tragic, but the 4+ helps against shooting, CC, and stomps. Which is great. Their only concern is The Other Tricksters Shard. So in the form of magic, they don't require support to keep them alive. They need the support to kill stuff. Wildform, mind razor, I a well places withering. Add in razor standard to help with the choppy choppy. Helping them with the grind. Minor grind but still able to grind it out. Giving this factor, they only require support to kill stuff. Easier to worry about. Less worry on keeping them alive. Moving on to.....

WHITE LIONS
They are solid with defense against non magical shooting ( giving help with banner if world dragon ), in the form of heavy armor plus pelt. Also a great anvil unit with the stubborn. These guys are opposite of the guard because they need magic to stay better protected. And not just from spells, but the Banner helps greatly. Other spells help out, such as earth blood, shield from high magic, iceshard.... And others. Grinding is also made possible by their high strength and stubborn. Meaning the lions need magical support for defense. But even then that's smaller when out of combat due to pelts and banner. Next up is....

SWORDMASTERS
I bieve that GW had the intent of making them a cross between the guard and the lions. But in my opinion they dropped short. Let's take a look... Heavy armor and a small 6+ ward against non magical and non template shooting. Which puts them not as good against either I the other 2 in comparison. And 2 WS 6 attacks at strength 5 are great, but struggle against higher armor save troops and can't grind against those same troops so easy. There are things that help this. Razor standard for the grinding and armor saves, though they still will struggle with T4 because they wound on a 3+ where as lions wound on a 2+ and damage the same armor. But this hurts them with protection against magic due to no banner of world dragon. So my testing of swordmasters has led me to believe that they require magic for both offense and defense. Sure in a vacuum we could say this or that about them. We could do the math and pretend that math hammer is how games play out. Unfortunately, that has not been my experience.
In my conclusion, I have found swordmasters to be okay. In my play testing they have trouble holding up to a light sneeze, and can grind it out with slaves or gobos with ease. And with banner + lvl4 high Mage they can stand for a bit. But that's a major points sink in my opinion. Also, take my opinion with a grain of salt as always. This game is all about different play styles and different choices. Glad I could add to a grey thread. Bang on!

[English 2000]

I have a game linned up against DE tomorrow. I'm going to give the SM a test and report back here.

[finreir]

@seredain

ok I didn't use high magic i used a loremaster but i took 28 swordmasters to a major tournament, the reason it was Christmas and i wanted to try the suboptimal stuff and have fun (que no scroll with only a loremaster, que the noble on griffon with no ward and bsb on eagle the same) it was my lowest finish since feb 2012 by a distance
here is what the swordmasters did,

game 1 needed help beating up 10 coldone knights and a bsb, yes they were getting battered and the coldones were a better combat for them than the witches

game 2 they hid from a star dragon, and 2 elf cav busses

game 3 they hid from a gut star terrified of the firebelly moves out and kills half of them manuvere

game 4 as vps didn't matter for the scenario they charged into some guts without a firebelly they killed a butcher and a champion and with 3 sms left they broke

games 5 they got shot up a lot, killed a kharibdyss ( apparently they needed the flank as from the front it would have hit back), and then the whole unit was deleted by a dark elf bsb on peg and 5 warlocks in flank.

conclusion
even in favourable match ups with no templates and with many big threats to stop them getting shot they didn't work. I think I know what im doing with them they have been my favourite model in the army for years, but tbh im rapidly coming to the conclusion without massive magic the infantry we have struggles. Im looking at phoenix guard and skill razor for next year but will likely then play our faster brethren either dark or wooded, but basically i don't think infantry are quick enough to push games on other people where they want to fight, so high elf infantry then becomes primarily a bunker for which i would rather not use swordmasters they are to damn expensive for no ranged save.
Ill continue to take them to the local club as i do ok with them there but my thoughts were realised at tournament as i expected tbh

your thoughts on high magic i consider much btter and yes i may experiment with this but swordmasters for me and most people i have spoken to are considered the friendly option.
the battle reports you gave above were reference archery and high magic winning games they didn't involve swordmasters 1 jot so i don't see why they were linked to me tbh.

anyway dude keep your tales coming i enjoy the read

[Seredain]

Finreir

The first conclusion to my posts above is that my sword unit in my army utilizes specifically the Shield of Saphery and a Book High Heavens phase. It does not surprise me that a horde-sized swords unit, rellying on a Level 2 caster without access to the Shield (even forgetting the units supporting it), has not worked for you. This sword-horde is not a unit I would ever field, as much as it sounds like a unit you would ever field again. Certainly this is not a unit I would seek to justify as a reliable component of a combined-arms list.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick on the batreps I mentioned. Their whole point was to provide examples of battles involving enemy units against which swordmasters are meant to struggle. The point is, with our free lore attribute and a 50 point flag, they don't. I can take a unit which excels against infantry and diesn't have the weaknesses it's meant to have (I believe massed ahooting was your example). For an all-comers list with other anti-armour elements, this is a very good thing.

Chaps generally,

On a train and using my phone so I'll be quick. something to remeber about shield, for me, is that it's free. Most of us spend 300 points on an archmage, and afterwards think about where we deploy him. To deploy mine in the swords, I've only gone to the extra expenditure of 30 points for the ward save.

A theme has emerged , on this point, that MMU units as a whole are expensive but fragile. This is probably where we're headed here, though when I get my next chance to sit at a laptop, I'll get some specific replies going.

Thanks,
S

[Ferny]

Might your list struggle vs dwarves, where you're less likely to get the necessary spells off. Not all WM are runic, notably organ guns, gyros, but also vanilla grudge throwers...

[Beregond]

Don't all High Elf armies have the same liabilities against Dwarfs?

I have a similar list to what Seredain is using; Dwarfs are a tough ( and not fun) battle. But if you are patient, concentrate on the war machines, and draw out their infantry, you can do OK. Your troops get mauled, but the dwarfs have issues actually taking out units. If there is reasonable terrain, you can keep the Dwarf player from gaining many points.

[Ferny]

I raise it specifically here because the context in which this discussion is being set is with 1-2 spells min being successful, which against dwarves is doubtful IMO. Not saying that WL would be better in this context, though I suspect they would as they could better withstand small arms fire without magical support...although again, that depends a bit on target saturation!

[Beregond]

Do you see small arms fire from Dwarf armies these days? The rare occasions when I see Dwarfs on the table, it's all war machines and warriors of various types with great weapons.

[Ferny]

I do, but I've only played them a few times. I'd build a list with xbows/gw, hammerers and war machines happily enough I think if I were playing as dwarves (might be a bit boring to play though?).

[English 2000]

I have a game linned up against DE tomorrow. I'm going to give the SM a test and report back here.

As promised, I tested the Swordmasters in my last game.

It was pretty much a non-event.

I rolled 2,2,4,7,4,5 for winds of magic, still managed 1 or 2 spells most turns to keep a small shield up. Ironically on my 7 dice phase my lvl 4 and lvl 2 failed to roll their first spells. Snake eyes for the book mage, reroll... Is another 1. *sigh*

We both killed each others' chaff, shooters and war machines. I lost the game because I over extended silver helms and bsb to kill a bolt thrower and failed to overrun off the table (needed 7 with swiftstride) and got caught by a hydra. Terrible winds dice aside, it was my mistake that ultimately cost me the game.

He kept running away with his main blocks (Executioners and Corsairs) so we didn't get into any real fights all game.

All in all a very frustrating game where I was forced to hold my combat blocks back due to lack of magic buffs. It did demonstrate that even with terrible winds of magic it is possible to keep a small shield up.

Despite my terrible magic I almost snatched a win when my Frostheart made a desperate turn 6 charge into Executioners to attack his level 4 general. Took her down to 1 wound. Out of 6 hits in 2 rounds I rolled 3 1's to wound. Grrrr.

I suspect that with average magic phases 2-3 spells isn't going to be that hard to pull off.

I'll definitely give it another go, sadly I lost my 8th ed book undefeated record against our most hated foe.

Sorry chaps.

On a side note, if a DE player ever complains to me about the Banner of the Crutch Dragon or the Book of Alway Casts, I'm going to beat them with their Warlocks.

Holy crap are they ever good. 25 points for fast cavalry, 4++, 2A, ASF, poison, S4, hatred, MP.

Seredain, my support caster had shadow. Although due to my winds dice of 2,2,4,7,4,5 (I still can't believe that happened) he played no role.

What are your thoughts on shadow instead of heavens? Debuffing movement with Miasma has won me games in the past so I'm very fond of the spell.

What about beasts? Wyssans also seems like it would be awesome.

[Seredain]

Thanks for the recent posts guys - R.E. Lee your support is valued, as ever; Ferny your questions are good ones; Beregond I think your points about Dwarfs are on the money (and do we ever see un-runed grudge throwers? We might now, I suppose. In any case, a trickle phase with the free re-roll has good chances to get at least a +1 up for a total 5++). English, your battle sounds interesting (and a little frustrating..?) Definitely worth talking about.

But I ought to start back with Tethlis' post on p.46, and then work my through, since I owe some of you recent posters some direct responses. I hope I have covered most of the major points already, so I will stick with those issues that I’ve missed or should have addressed more directly. Ferny, you're next!


Tethlis - You’re absolutely right that my decision to use swords rests, to some degree, on the fact that I don’t have enough points at 2,500 points to field decent-sized units of white lions and phoenix guard who, in terms of killing power, can together basically deal with most things that are out there. Swordmasters with the Shield+Banner provide something of a middle-ground unit that I can use against any opponent: reliable damage output, sustained over multiple rounds of combat, and a good defensive unit with High+Heavens. Not requiring the AP banner as much as Phoenix Guard also allows the World Dragon to go in my one big elite unit – a potentially game-changing item as we all know, for remarkably few points.


Do Swordmasters need High Magic, or does a High Magic list need Swordmasters?

In the round, though, my need for this one flexible infantry unit is something of a chicken and egg situation. On the one hand, I want High magic because the Shield of Saphery is so brilliant for a T3 elf army. This allows me to take a large unit of swords without worrying about the shooting-heavy armies that have traditionally punished them. On the other hand, I want swords for the all-comers damage output, which encourages me to take High magic because they need the Shield more than other units. White lions aren’t rocks in combat, but against shooting they at least have the cloak. Swords have the 6++ - tremendous if added to by the Shield, but underwhelming by itself. The temptation to get a high mage in there to add to it, carrying the Ironcurse, is a nice little piece of book design I think (looks like they wussed out of giving us a parry in combat, which would have been better – b^stards). Once you’ve done this, as I have, the need for Phoenix Guard starts to drop off simply because you replicate the ward save which is their great strength. Better for me, if taking High magic, to invest my points in the extra attacks, strength and weaponskill brought by the swords (although ASF still owns against dark elves).

Perhaps the principle reason I’ve taken swords, though, is about points cost as you say. As ever, in this book, I started off with the prince and his cavalry unit. With him in mind, the spell I really wanted access to was Arcane Unforging – a unique ability to screw over enemy lords and prize open those deathstars which rely on particular items (Banner of the World Dragon being a wonderful example), or powerful units which make the most of others (eg black guard carrying the AP banner). The movement buffs available are also tremendous for a cavalry commander: if you’ve got a bus that can move 38” on Turn 1, you’ve got some tremendous attacking options, especially against the gunlines that traditionally cause elf infantry so many problems, or counter-attacking options where you can set up a flank charge on an opponent who is attacking you.

So I take High Magic. Now what? Well, the spell selection on High magic is sorely lacking when it comes to spells that impact on close combat (at least until your characters have taken wounds). It also has very little high strength ranged damage. So I pick a lore with has both of those things, Heavens. The fact that Iceshard Blizzard is a sig spell and nobbles war machines adds to its appeal for a combined arms elf army, and the -1 leadership gels nicely with Apotheosis. Comet and Chain Lightning both punish MSU hitty combat lists, such as the warrior chariot list, which might put elf infantry under pressure. Harmonic Convergence is excellent for an army with archers and repeater bolt throwers. It all fits. Importantly, the second caster also allows me to take the Book of Hoeth – amazing in defence and so useful for generating the Shield – without sacrificing the dispel scroll. Now, I’ve spent 906 points on characters.

I also want to take a powerful shooting phase. In fact it’s almost a given for me because I want to (1) force my opponents to advance as often as possible and (2) win the chaff war as is so important for free movement of heavy cavalry. Also it is a given for me that archers are excellent core infantry, that regenerating beasts encourage the spending of rare points on sisters, that repeaters are cheap and that my magic lores, aforementioned, work so well with shooting units.

After all is said and done, as I mentioned initially, I only have the points for one decent-sized infantry unit. Why do they have to be decent-sized? Because martial prowess rewards us for investing in more models per unit, and that rule is the principle way by which we compensate for the loss of damage output caused by our downgrade to regular ASF. Since I’m building an all-comers army, I want this unit to be able to successfully kill all sorts of enemy models (as ever, I prefer to stand off with my infantry and attack when ready). Phoenix guard don’t wound the tough stuff, and white lions don’t do enough damage to large infantry units. Since I have the excellent defence from a Book of Hoeth + Heavens magic phase, compensating for the chief weakness of swordmasters, they become the natural choice as my single large elite unit.

What does this leave in special and rare? Enough points for 15 white lions full command, flaming banner. With their cloaks they can survive without the Shield, and with Stubborn they can stand their ground without (two thirds of the time), needing my general or BSB to be close by. Thus I can give them the flaming banner and have them run individual missions to bring down regenerating beasts, hold a flank or storm a building. They are my special forces unit.

Support and synergy in High Magic Combined Arms

This last point – the benefits of Shield for an elite infantry unit, is also a bit chicken and egg. On the one hand, if you’ve plumped for swordmasters as your all-comers damage dealer of choice, it makes sense to put the archmage with them and give them the protection they need – especially against shooting. On the other hand, the archmage wants to be deployed in a position where he can keep contact both with the helm bus (close to whom the swords typically march in support), and the archers (typically deployed near the swords as part of my infantry base). Hand of Glory is a fantastic spell above all when cast on archers, but the prince bus needs to be in range for Apotheosis and Walk Between Worlds to really shine (though the latter is great for moving up infantry support too). Arcane Unforging can snipe enemy characters before my knights hit them – but is useless if I need to attack with my knights and my archmage is camping on the backline.

Deployed with my main elite infantry unit, the archmage can apply his High spells wherever they are needed, and the swords don’t even need to be the target in order to feel the benefit of all of them. Accentuated by the Book of Hoeth, this setup gives you so much bang for your power dice buck and heightens the support my three main units give to each other. The knights provide mobility, heavy armour and super-high strength attacks from the prince, supported by magic. The swords provide massed medium-high strength attacks to clear away units that might bog the knights down (or else add weight and static res in their own right to break smaller armoured units), shielded by magic. The archers (themselves backed up by sisters, repeaters and Heavens damage), provide good shooting support and bodies for static res where I need it, boosted by magical buff(s). The archmage becomes, effectively, the central lynchpin for the synergistic triad of these units and they, in turn, become much greater than the sum of their parts. They all get access to important benefits because, with the Shield, the archmage is effectively always casting two spells at once.


Scorpio

Thanks for your comments. I like the idea of fielding a loremaster in swordmasters, but (as my comments to Finreir, above, suggest), I don’t think I’d like to rely on him as my main caster to single-handedly make the unit tremendous. I certainly have fewer single game-changing spells coming out of my archmage, but I do get the Shield and an extra +3 to cast and +2 to dispel, which is huge, for fewer points spent. I think if I did run a loremaster as my only lord-level caster, I’d absolutely have to take Book of Hoeth on him to make the most of his magical output and compensate for his low level. For it’s his spell selection, surely, that you pay the points – not his 3 attacks at WS6. With the right support, however, I see no reason why a loremaster/swordmaster unit couldn’t work in its own right (I used to field swords back when they had no magical defence at all, after all, and I loved them), and your inclusion of an archmage as well covers defence pretty nicely, I imagine.


Dealing with less elite elites – unit structure in the new book

Swordmaster - Haha, judging from the rather mixed reviews that swordmasters have been receiving of late, I think it’s fair to say we won’t see a tide of people rushing to field them just yet! But that’s a shame. I look at the things I could do with my old unit of 14 (with ASF but no defence), and I look at what my new unit can do (without ASF but fighting in an extra rank and with great defence), and I think what gives?

I don’t think, however, that I’m your man for arguing for the use of swordmaster units in all their forms. My unit is a very specific build in a rather specific type of army (heavy cavalry, heavyish magic, heavyish shooting). It explicitly goes out of its way to exploit many of the shiny new gifts granted by the new army book: I have 3 ranks for martial prowess, I have High Magic for Shield, I have the Book of Hoeth, I have the Banner of the World Dragon. By using these tools, I have a powerful, damage resistant, all-purpose melee unit. As such, it isn’t really anything like the swordmaster unit I used to field, which was an ASF re-rolling glass cannon.

The contrast is telling because it shows, on reflection, that I’ve effectively decided our GW elite infantry are not the creatures they used to be (Phoenix Guard have just gained martial prowess, of course, albeit they have less to gain from our new magical toys). And surely you’d have to say that they’re not? Losing re-rolls, without extra attacks coming from the back rank, sees a straight fall in damage output. That’s bad. What’s worse is the fact that we no longer automatically go first. That doesn’t feel like a big deal until you hit Initiative 5+ opponents, and then all of a sudden the same models that used to tear things to shreds before thinking about getting hit, have themselves to take a pounding before they can kill elite models and reduce attacks back. For T3 elves, this is absolutely terrible. The result is that, unless we’ve shot up an opponent a lot, or successfully cast a hex or buff, a high initiative opponent will tear our MSU GW elites to pieces and, by the time they’re done, we won’t have enough attacks back to make a difference. Even attacking at the same time is usually bad news. I’ve deployed my white lions on a flank before, without really thinking about it, and expected them to do what they’ve always done – chop stuff up before they get hit and stand there. 12 lions got charged by 2 skullcrushers and, because the chaos riders were initiative 5, I lost so many models in the first round of combat that the second round just wasn’t a competition (this was a bad situation anyway, of course, but my inability to carve up enemy models before they hit me was a horrible wake-up call). This is why a spell like Hand of Glory is so important. Sure we have good initiative already but, if we don’t have the initiative, close combat is often a complete disaster, far more than a 2 point drop per model might suggest.

My point is that, although our elite troopers have the potential to be more powerful than they used to be, they need a greater level of support to achieve it and, without this support, they see a big drop in performance compared with the last book. The new book gives us all these elements in abundance, and we can support these infantrymen either with more of their own fellows in the form of a third rank, or with a High magic ward save (without or without the Book), or with our new support characters, or with our new Banner, or with our new (and cheaper old) shooting units, or with our new access to core cavalry to improve our harassment and/or charge through enemy chaff. But without any of these elements, even just a third rank, I think it’s fair to conclude that our GW elites are no longer the close-combat power houses they use to be.

It’s difficult for me to say to people, therefore, that they should just go ahead and use swordmasters because they’re amazing. Because now they don’t have re-rolls, and the threshold between a ‘tremendous combat performance’ and ‘death’ has switched from receiving impact hits to being hit by attacks made at Initiative 5+ - a much, much lower threshold. As a result, I think our current GW elites can be part of a much stronger composite force, or unit, than in our old book but, individually, they’re not as great as they used to be. Give them the right support and they’ll win games. Leave them by themselves and… not so great. This does nothing, of course, to question the inherent advantages of using multiple drops to out-deploy and outflank your opponent, but it does mean that each individual unit, thus fielded, strikes me as being weaker than its predecessor to a degree beyond the difference suggested by a small drop in points.


Why use Banner of the World Dragon when you have the Shield of Saphery?

Paricidas, To a certain extent I agree that the Banner of the World Dragon nets diminishing returns for a unit that already has the Shield of Saphery. For sure the AP banner would be a brilliant replacement – a significant improvement on base str5 which has often led me to think about dropping BotWD (or shifting my level 2 from Heavens to Beasts for Wildform).

But I take BotWD anyway because, in practice, although we might expect to get two High spells successfully cast from my current set-up, relying on much more than that would be placing an over-reliance on our magic phase. Of course, even if I could cast all 4 of my High spells successfully, that would still only give me a 3++ against magical attacks. 2++ is literally twice as good, for one, but also you’d have to ask yourself if you wanted to be forced to cast High spells in order to max out your shield, rather than have the opportunity to throw some other spells into the mix with your support caster. In this context it’s also important to remember the fact that the archmage doesn’t always need to be tied to the swordmasters. Against many opponents, armies without shooting or daemons in particular, the swords don’t need his protection and so you might decide to move the mage somewhere else. A mage stuck in a non-banner unit has to stay put or else the unit gives up all its protection entirely. Even against mundane armies, having the banner there against their damage spells is nice insurance for 50 points.

Finally, miscasts. It’s fine trickling through a Shield phase, but sometimes you’ll want to throw 6 dice at Unforging or Convocation, and it’s amazing to feel safe doing this knowing you're not going to blow a crater in your elite unit. Oh sweet, sweet piece of mind.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Seredain,

Thanks for the elaborate answer and additional comments!

I really understand players when they want solid choices where the strengths are well defined and weaknesses are not that prominent. Swordmasters are not that choice really. Elven armies seem to work when different components co-operate for the greater good. Even more solid choices need that. Your example of PG + WL is very good one.

From that point of view almost any choice in the army list would need some kind of support. Be it magic, or shooting or other character/regiment.

It still seems Swordmasters need more of it to be not only useful but kill enough of the enemy to balance out all these efforts to keep them alive and allow them to do damage.

So the decision has to be made weather one can judge the potential of Swordmasters high enough to provide the help they need. It may or may not be justified, depending on the players style and his army list. Kind of obvious.

What I like about your approach is that you identified what you need them for and how to make it happen with support you already have in the army. And while you do relay on magic and cooperation with other units it can work regardless of the winds of magic strength.

At this stage we can do 2 things. Either mourn the loss of the special rule that made GW wielding troops in our army so formidable or focus on how to make them work with the new book. What I am happy to see is that people do try to make it happen.

Your example inspires to look at a broader picture and the way different elements can work. I really like the way you use High Magic as I like augments and hexes the most. I have even noticed I use Loremaster more like a magic missile battery when he has so many nice spells to help out. Your stories prompted me to try and redefine his role in my own army and reminded me I took him for his flexibility.

I think it is about time for some battle report of yours to see all that in action!

Cheers!

[Ferny]

this setup gives you so much bang for your power dice buck and heightens the support my three main units give to each other

I don't know whether you just get more luck with your dice, are more confident than me, manage your trickle phase well (although even one dicing with book isn't foolproof), and it does seem to be working out for you in game, but my chief concern isn't that you get so much synergy from your magic, but if it fails you so much falls through!

Have you had a phase where you fluff your 1-dice re-roll? When you one-dice spells, do you keep the 1-dicers til last or do them first? Do you have any particular approach to avoid losing concentration? I suspect I'm to cautious with the book because of poor luck early on with one-dicing, but it's so frustrating if most of the spells you wanna cast are on your AM and suddenly you just have dice for a Lv2 (though thank goodness for the back up mage, eh!).

[Seredain]

Hey Ferny,

Good question and pretty much on the same topic as my last post, so we should probably just cheat being chronological for the moment and deal with it straight away.

The simple answer is "it depends how many dice you have, and how much you need the ward save". Sometimes I'll only 1 dice my last spell (it doesn't do to tempt fate too often). But at others it's waaay too tempting and I'll 1-dice the last two. Unless I critically need a ward save and I've just rolled a 3-dice phase, however, I'll only 1 dice my last couple of spells, and use at least 2 dice for my first set of spells. Obviously, if you fail to cast at the beginning of your phase, it's much worse than if you fail at the end.

I've had some epic fails, for sure. I once 6-diced Arcane Unforging, failed to cast (amazingly), re-rolled one of my four 1s and... rolled a one. During the same game, the same thing happened on 2 or 3 other occasions when I was trying to dispel my opponent's spells - I've never seen anything like it. In the end, it didn't matter as much that my own spells didn't go up: my swords went into a unit of skullcrushers and broke them anyway (I had a 6++ then). It was much, much worse that I failed the dispel attempts. Tzeentch magic is horrible.

So the decision has to be made weather one can judge the potential of Swordmasters high enough to provide the help they need. It may or may not be justified, depending on the players style and his army list. Kind of obvious.

Swordmaster - thanks for the input. This pretty much sums it up nicely! And also, if you're choosing particular magic for other reasons (I like High magic in its own right), swordmasters might step up as a good infantry choice to best take advantage of it. As it ever was, our unit choices will depend on the rest of our army, and vice versa.