Heeeeere's
Johnny!
Well, I'm back. Slightly fatter (thank you Wendy's) and jet-lagged to Hell, but very impressed by the South of the USA. Very friendly people, good live music, interesting weather (tornadoes anyone?) and good drinks. Excepting "lite" beer, which should be damned forever. Met a nice Kentuckian called Joe who told me the following: "
What's the similarity between lite beer and having sex in a canoe?
They're both f*cking close to water."
Funny, and very true.
Bolt Thrower wrote:
...are you bringing your army to prey on enemies across the pond?
I didn't take the army, no. Girlfriend would've had me walking home! It was only two weeks - not exactly long enough for High Elf cold turkey. And then, on the sly, I did take the odd look at some of the excellent battle reports and army list development threads that have been cropping up. I'll have a proper look through in due course now that I'm back, but it seemed to me that there's some really good stuff been going on!
Cython wrote:
Anyway. Down to business. I had initially had a similar idea to grix, since I've never really been a fan of Silver helms - although this thread has given me ideas
... I think if we ask enough about DP'S, eventually we might even convince Seredain :p
Cython,
Thanks for the comments! You and Grix will have no trouble convincing me that a DP bus can be a powerful tool but, at 2000 to 2500 points, it's a big points investment
if you're also adding characters to the unit. 8 dragon princes with Full Command, items, Prince and BSB would be a mighty unit indeed, but the rest of your army will suffer from the amount of points you've spent here.
I've looked at my reasons for taking the helms on page one (and probably elsewhere), but I feel KnightSanguine covered things nicely (thanks for that, KS). A good summary would be that silver helms make a cost-effective choice for larger knight units led by an expensive character or two. With the character capability and the amount of points already spent on my bus, a DP upgrade isn't really necessary, especially considering the downgrade I'd have to make to another unit. The cheapest upgrade (8 DPs with musician) is 58 points and that'll lose me 4 elite infantry. In principle, if I wanted to field a large unit of dragon princes, I'd take them without characters. They are a good solution, for example, if you wanted to take a hitty cavalry bus whilst going the Archmage + Infantry BSB route, as has been discussed.
SpellArcher wrote:
Cython wrote:
However, I was thinking, since the DP's have slightly more hitting power, that the BSB might be better off with, say, the unit of spears (unfortunately this would mean keeping him on foot, although it would mean he would stay with the majority of the other footslogging forces).
Have you seen Swordmaster's thread on this forum? He began with Seredain's list and has made this change. Obviously you lose slightly on the Bus (especially in extended combats) but you steady the Spears and probably get better re-roll coverage.
This is an important consideration for any High Elf list to make. I prefer my BSB on a horse since he provides the greatest tactical flexibility. He has better mundane armour (better armour altogether against shooting), so he can afford an extra item (the Amulet of Light), and he's faster so he can be earning points more quickly and more often with his skills as a fighting noble (it isn't all about the BSB upgrade).
There's no getting over the fact, though, that an infantry BSB will usually give you better coverage (unless I choose to deploy the mounted BSB with an infantry unit - possible against armies without cannons), but there are ways to compensate for this in deployment and manoeuvres of the helm bus itself. Ultimately, if I'm worried about lots of leadership tests, there's nothing stopping me deploying my knights with the rest of the army, as in my last game against the Daemons, where the silver helm unit really was the cornerstone of my defence.
Cython wrote:
No, I haven't seen the thread by Swordmaster. I guess I should read up on that then. I wouldn't be too fussed. One issue I thought that seredain might have is simply a little bit of "all your eggs in one basket", what with the prince and noble in the same unit...
Once you get into combat, your eggs are all in one basket: if the unit breaks and is run down then it'll hurt! Until then, they're not really. You've got to watch out for the big spells but, otherwise, it'll remind you to keep your options open by remembering that the silver helms and the characters are separate units. My opponent won't earn any victory points for my characters by killing the knights and vice versa, while the characters are free to leave their unit if they need to for whatever reason or, indeed, deploy separately against certain opponents.
I need to get some sleep now but I'll get back to the rest of you guys soon- thanks for your interest. In the meantime, I'll leave you with news that my next campaign game is going to be against the Skaven. Sounds like an army made up of massive blocks: so far I've heard that I'll be looking at 80 slaves, 2 x 40 clanrats, 2 x 36 storm vermin, 2 x WL cannons, jezzails, fire throwers, doomwheel... Haven't heard anything about the characters yet, or about the presence of an HPA.