IV. Character choices
Characters primarily provide two things to a HEASA - leadership support and a different spectrum of damage dealing from the
rank and file. Leadership support is the same as most other army types and need not be covered here. The spectrum of damage
dealing is an important consideration in character selection. One other important consideration is how they contribute to
having most of your army's points be mobile.
HEASA characters primarily fall into three categories: shooting, melee, and magic
Shooting characters include Alith Anar, Prince with Bow of the Seafarer, and Noble with Reaver Bow. Shooting characters
provide penetrating ranged damage at a high price. They are good for filling holes in your ability to damage highly armored,
high toughness targets. Although not as cost effective as most other shooting options, they are usually highly survivable.
They also provide good melee and leadership support. Mobility is essential to these characters. Remember that 8th edition
rules mean that fliers cannot march and shoot unless they are skirmishers (not an option for us). However, flying mounts are
still good - you usually only need to march once per game, shooting up the rear the rest of the time. Sadly (unless FAQ'd
later) Alith Anar cannot march and shoot, even if skirmishing.
Melee characters are a great option to provide the missing melee power in a HESA. Like melee units, they should serve as
hammer, anvil, or hunter. Good hammer characters include Prince on Dragon and Prince or Noble accompanying Dragon Princes.
Good hammers must do enough damage in an initial charge on the rear of an infantry block to reduce the unit to a manageable
level when it reforms to face them. Combined with an eagle flank charge (so the block can't reform) they are especially
deadly. Good anvils include Prince or Noble with Crown of Command and the special case of Mage with Folariath's Robe. Anvils
just need to keep alive while delaying a block. Good hunters include Tyrion, Noble on Eagle and Eltharion on Stormwing.
Hunters are very helpful for destroying hard-to-shoot or inefficient-to-shoot units such as skirmishers in woods, monsters, or
that one last survivor from a unit of 40. Like eagles, they are a general utility unit, but unlike eagles should not be
sacrificed.
Magic characters are usually a bread-and-butter unit in a HESA. This is because they easily contribute to the spectrum of
damage that an army can deal out. More on this is below. Unless they are Teclis, magic characters are usually mounted for
extra mobility. Teclis, while still great, is not an automatic best choice because he is just a little too easy to catch,
especially as he is such a big target for your opponent.
Unlike most armies, a BSB is not mandatory. If you are getting so shot up that you are failing panic checks, you are already
in serious trouble. However, if you have the points for it, a BSB can make a great melee or shooting character.
V. Magic
Magic fulfills a very important role in a HESA. Essentially magic is a replacement for what other shooting armies take
artillery for: damaging things which are relatively immune to lots of low strength shooting. These targets can include: highly
armored targets like Chaos Knights, low cost hordes like Night Goblins, and high toughness targets like dragons or demons.
Just like most artillery, magic is unreliable. Cannons can misfire and blow up, so can Archmages. However, one thing that
Archmages can do that cannons cannot is move and fire.
High elves have many advantages when it comes to magic. We have the widest choice of spells. We get +1 to dispel. We have
arcane items which allow us to pick spells (and therefore take more than one of a devastating spell), get extra dice (jewel of
dusk) and get more extra dice (banner of sorcery). Our dragon mages can get even more extra dice. And then there is...
Teclis. Magic is one of our strongest phases. Being so strong in magic, we must use it effectively with the rest of our army.
When deciding on what magic to take, it is best to first look at what your expected targets are, and what your deficiencies are
in shooting them. For example, if you play against Dark Elves, your archers shoot fine against most of their units except for Cold
Ones and Hydras. RBTs work decently against Cold Ones, but only so-so against Hydras. In this case, your magic needs to take
up the slack. Pick magic that works well against Hydras, and perhaps against Cold Ones too. This might mean Fire or Metal.
Against different opponents different lores might be best. But don't we need to pick our lores when we make the army, often
before we know who are opponents will be playing?
One of our most common shooting deficiencies in 8th edition games is against the big block of cheap infantry. Don't worry
about shooting expensive infantry; you'll do fine, points-wise. But cheap infantry comes in such numbers that even concentrated
fire will not remove more than one or two blocks, leaving the other 4+ blocks to run rampant. This is where magic can offer
effective firepower. Nothing is more effective against big blocks of cheap infantry than spells such as Flames of the Phoenix,
Dweller's from Below or Final Transmutation.
One of the other common very hard-to-kill targets with HE shooting is characters hiding in units. It is quite common to
destroy a block around some high-value characters, only to see them jump into a fresh block. Since up to 50% of an army's
points can be in characters, this can make getting enough victory points difficult. Character's hiding in units are your
opponent's most effective form of points denial. Magic can help immensely in this regard. Not only are there sniping spells
like from the Lore of Death, many of the unit-killer spells have a chance to kill a character in the unit. In addition, the
magic phase goes before shooting, so if magic damages a unit enough, your shooting can mop up the rest (including the
characters) before the characters get a chance to jump to a new unit.
Movement control spells, such as Melf's Miasma, Flame Cage, and Gust of Wind are helpful for preventing units from making it
across the board to you. This reduces the number of targets which you absolutely need to kill, and thus helps focus fire.
With enough of these, you can keep an army at bay indefinitely, by simply slowing all the units but the closest one and then
focusing fire upon that one. However, magic is unreliable - you shouldn't base your battle plan on all your spells going off.
Protective spells should always be chosen secondary. In this army, the best defense is usually a good offense (and plenty of
distance).
Here's a brief review of the Lores:
High: rather good, with Curse of Arrow Attraction and Flames of the Phoenix, it fits most of our needs perfectly at low casting
cost. Fury of Khaine is a useful addition to firepower also. Most of the other spells are situational; helpful sometimes but
often not.
Fire: decent at adding additional firepower. The +d3 when casting another fire spell at an already flamed target is quite
helpful at increasing dice efficiency. Flame cage is great, because generally it is a unit stopper rather than another flames
of the phoenix, which improves movement control extensively. The only problem with the Fire lore is that the attacks it dishes
out resemble the attacks the rest of our army do, so it doesn't fill a hole in our firepower spectrum. Is a 135 point mage
doing 7 S4 hits per turn (if the spell goes off) that much better than 12 archers doing 6 S3 hits per turn more reliably and
without using spell dice?
Metal: fills our deficiencies well. Against highly armored opponents this lore is incredible. Since one of the opponents that
arrows hardly hurt are units with a great armor save, this synergizes well. In addition, Final Transmutation is one of the
best spells in the game for us: long range, great against blocks, can kill characters in blocks, and causes stupidity tests,
slowing down the army. Metal is possibly best for Teclis - since his lack of mobility is a problem in this army, he needs the
ability to lay waste to large units at long range.
Beast: great at buffing, but not really the best fit with this army unless playing with hammer units or melee characters. The
only two remote damage spells are decent, but there is no great reason to pick this lore over other ones.
Life: one of the best, this offers many of the things we need. It has one of the best anti-large block spells in the game
(Dwellers) and with throne of vines you can get it off relatively safely. The toughness buff is helpful for making sacrificial
troops survive (or win!) their inevitable combats. The healing ability of life makes it easier to keep your mages, or their
mounts, alive. Probably the best for a dragon mounted archmage.
Light: great vs many opponents, but weak vs hordes (e.g. orcs or skaven). The best spells in the lore for this army are
Banishment and Net of Amyntok. If you take 4 light mages, stick them in a unit, and use banishment, you can throw out 2d6
ward-re-rolling S7 attacks with a 48" range for a casting cost of 13+. You can use the seerstaff so that 2 of the mages can do
this each turn. You know that giant horrible Thing that your arrows just bounce off of? Just banish it. It's quite possible
to remove a greater demon per turn with this trick, even with half the banishments getting dispelled. Net of Amyntok can delay
a block or stop shooters, which is nice. However, it can also stop a mage from casting. Cast on a warmachine (which always
fail strength tests), it always stops it from shooting - this is much better than the 50% chance of stopping it that other
protective spells offer. The base spell is just as good as fireball. These advantages make it worthwhile to pick the lore of
light even if you aren't playing against demons or undead - have mercy on your opponent if you are. The disadvantage of lore
of light is that it has nothing to help with the points denial that is large infantry blocks.
Heavens: You might think this would be great, but it is only mediocre. Uranon's thunderbolt adds much needed high strength
range damage, but not in quantity. If Uranon's had been the default spell it would be different. The wind spell is useful and
interesting. The one which allows re-rolls on all ones for all units within 12" can be quite a good buff, but unfortunately
your army will likely be spread too far apart for this to be super-effective. The comet is quite powerful, but not very
useful. Your enemy will likely already be on the move, and area denial works against you more than your opponent.
Shadow: quite useful. Melf's used to slow movement is awesome for the casting cost. Since you can take it more than once,
you can slow multiple units. Gimping a unit's toughness is actually more effective than Curse of Arrow Attraction at improving
shooting results (except for RBT single shot). Steed of Shadows is helpful for maintaining your movement advantage, as is the
Shadow ability to swap characters. The other firepower spells are helpful but not super in this army.
Death: quite devastating. Sniping characters in units is always good, and one of the hardest targets for this army to kill
without spells. Purple Sun can be devastating, although it is a bit random. Using your maneuverability to set up a close shot
with the Sun is easy with this army. One spell not to be overlooked is the one that can reduce the S and T by 1 of all enemy
units within 24". This is almost as good as an army-wide Curse of Arrow Attraction. CoAA increases hits by 50% on average;
Soul Blight increases S3 wounds by 33% vs T3 and 50% vs. T4.
A word or two about buffs: spells like Mind Razor may seem like a no-brainer - why not shoot them half to death and then finish
them off with S8 archers? However, the timing of most buffs is that you have to cast them on your turn. This means you can't
just take their charge, but must instead charge on your turn or expect them to charge your S8 archers. Charging is generally
unwise, first because it means you lose a turn of shooting, second because you lose your stand and shoot, and third because
Mind Razor might actually not go off. So in selecting spells, it is best not to go for unit buffs which could conceivably make
your non-combat army fight like a combat one, but instead go for ones which enhance or complement your existing strengths.
Note that remains in play buffs like Flaming Cloak are still helpful, but as secondary spells, because most opponents will let
them through thinking that they will dispel them when needed. However, when that time rolls around, the best case scenario for
them is that they will have less spell dice to use at a critical time, and the worst case is that they will lose a unit in
combat with an RBT because of a cheap 5+ casting cost spell.
Magic defense is very important to a HESA. Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake...
I learned this lesson against
Dance-spamming undead in 7th, then learned it painfully again in 8th against Wauging orcs. The absolute most dangerous kind of
army to face as a HEASA is big blocks of infantry that move as fast as cavalry. So, when facing an army like this, shutting
down their magic phase is life-or-death. Against other armies, magic is the most likely ranged weapon for them to still have
after the first turn or two. So, it is important to have some additional magic defense. It is my experience that just a lvl 4
doesn't cut it. How much depends upon what you can fit in to the army.