Uber-powerful End Times List

[Ladril Caledor]

Host of the Eternity King

Dreadlord on Dark Steed, Heavy Armour, Sea Dragon Cloak, Shield, Ogre Blade, Dawnstone (242)
Lvl 4 High Archmage with Book of Hoeth and Golden Crown of Atrazar on a barded steed (312)
10x Dragon Princes - full command with Banner of the World Dragon (370)
(3x4 formation, archmage in the middle of the second rank)

Lvl 3 Supreme Sorceress with sacrificial dagger, lore of metal (210)
Master BSB with heavy armour, sea dragon cloak, shield and halberd (109)
14x Black Ark Corsairs with full command (156)
6x4 formation, sorceress hiding in the second rank)

24x White Lions (312)

18x Darkshards with shields and musician (244)

15x Darkshards with shields and musician (205)

Frostheart Phoenix


I've run this in some test games against two other armies, one built around Malekith (based on an evil-looking list posted on another thread by Curu Alannon) and the other based around the new Alarielle. It won both games by massive margins.

The sorceress bunker stays hidden and can easily get off the Metal End Times spell every turn you want it.

The archmage usually starts every phase with a deadlock attempt. Whether or not it gets off, he then can easily one dice a string of Hand of Glory on the Darkshards (66 shots hitting on 2's with armour piercing), one dice soul quenches, one dice drain magic. Either the opponents mage is deadlocked or they eventually run out of dispel dice. Arcane Unforging is the bane of super characters, while Fiery Convocation is even better under these new rules, once it is in play its so difficult for your opponent to get enough dice to dispel it in subsequent turns.

I thought the lack of chaff would be an issue, but opponents chaff is easily soul quenched or shot to pieces, and one dice hand of glory spells are so easy to get off to make the necessary tactical moves.

I also found I always had a 3+ ward on the Dragon Princes, its just so easy to get off a load of high magic spells under these rules. This makes the unit very powerful indeed, particularly the Dreadlord. He has a 1+ rerollable armour save with 3+ ward, 4 S6 attacks with always strike first and murderous prowess. Not bad for 242 points. This also meant I could use meteoric ironclad on the White Lions most turns, as the cavalry bus was already close to invincible.

[Andrei_Warrior]

My one concern to this End Times list would be Teclis Banishment. Now that you an cast it multiple times, its a little overpowered. Think about it, 40 WL, 5 wide, with Alith Anar, Caradryan, a noble, and 4 lv 1 light mages. You wait until you get a good magic phase, use Teclis' staff, and cast banishment enough to probably wipe half your army off the board. This is just a theory list, but i think the concept sounds good.

[mcmulligan]

How do you think the list would fair against non-elves?

Looks to me like it would have a hard time with heavy armour. Even if you're hitting on 2s, those cross bow bolts aren't going to be doing much to anything tougher than T3, and/or sporting a 1+ armour save.

Volume of attacks is definitely in your favour, but I think you're also pretty reliant on getting first turn. Magic Missiles against all your lightly armoured low toughness shooting is going to be devastating.

[Ladril Caledor]

The bolts have armour piercing, but spammed searing doom is my main solution for heavy armour. With the dagger its easy to get long spam-chains with this spell.

The darkshards are vulnerable to shooting and magic missiles, sure, but what else could go in core? They have a 5+ save, the only core with a better save would be silver helms, and I think the sheer volume of shots these darkshards can fire before they die outweigh the impact of helms.

Banishment with a light coven is certainly a concern, for this and every other army, shield of saphery and meteoric ironclad make this army more resistant to the coven than most (even though I would have to reroll successful ward saves). I plan to test this army against a coven of light soon but I'm fairly confident of victory. As elves are such low toughness, I consider spam soul quench to be more dangerous against them than spam banishment, as with book of hoeth you can one dice each attempt and cause a far greater number of hits.

After careful examination of the Sacrificial Dagger, I'm now convinced that only one 'successful' sacrifice can be made per casting attempt, so its not as overpowered as I thought. The end times metal spell is not the autocast I thought it was...but you still have a very good chance of getting a 15+ spell through with the dagger, and as I said before the dagger is really great for searing doom spam.

After realizing this is how the dagger works, I'm forced to downgrade my 'uber-powerful' label to just 'powerful'. It's a strong army but not quite the broken cheese-fest I thought it was yesterday. Good news! Broken combos are no fun for anyone...

[pk-ng]

Not even powerful list; I would peg this at average at most probably just below average.

[Axiem]

Not even powerful list; I would peg this at average at most probably just below average.

I concur. The strongest lists for End Times are Light-magic, High Magic, or Undeath (very skewed towards Undeath) Magic focused with flying monsters. High + Undeath is, IMO, the strongest for the points. This assumes you're leaving the special characters at home.

The Lions and Princes are better as Bolt Throwers and Helms respectively. It doesn't make sense spending many points in Special with access to tons of great Monster-character options, and plenty of Bolt Throwers.

3v4 formation is also terribly risky to run the Dragon Princes in. I would further consider adding another Master to your list and pushing the Mage to the second rank safely.

Ideally, you want Helms + Shards/Glade Guard/Darkriders/Witches in Core based on preference, with plenty of Bolt Throwers to counter Monsters, and the rest going into Monsters, Characters, and Magic.

My two cents. Hope it helps!

Axiem

[Ladril Caledor]

I'm not sure the lore of Undeath is that powerful. Great with Nagash, but otherwise it doesn't seem as good as Metal. I've not actually used it though or seen anyone else use it with Elves, so you could be right. But I've found searing doom and meteoric ironclad be game changing. I'm also not all that comfortable using Undeath with elves, it just wouldn't feel right...

A lot of good points by Axiem, so I've adapted things a bit and here's the updated list:

Master with Ogre Blade, Dawnstone, heavy armour/sheild/cloak on Dark Steed
Noble with Reaver Bow, Potion of Strength, Dragon Armour, shield and lance
Noble BSB with Banner of the World Dragon, Dragon Armour, shield and lance
Lvl 4 High Archmage with Book of Hoeth and golden crown
Lvl 3 Metal Archmage with Dispel Scroll and dragonbane gem
10 Silver Helms with full command
(3x5 formation, mages and BSB in the middle of second rank)

21 White Lions with standard (3x7)

24 Darkshards with full command (3x8)

2 Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers

2 Great Eagles

Frostheart Phoenix

I've lost my love for the dagger after carefully readings its rules, so I decided to keep both the High and Metal mages in the cavalry bus, mainly for the protection of shield of saphery and miscast/magic protection from Banner of the World Dragon. Dropping the dagger also allows me an all-important Dispel Scroll...this makes me a bit less afraid of Dwellers Below.

The cavalry bus is now built much more for ranged damage, mainly through soul quench, searing doom and the reaver bow. Its highly mobile anyway but Walk Between Worlds and Eagle chaff can help keep things at a distance I expect the bus not to charge until late in the game when the enemy is sufficiently weakened. It's still pretty devastating on the charge with all those lances, but it can also take a charge quite nicely (pop the potion of strength, stand and shoot with reaver bow (3xS7 shots at high BS), always strike first with S6 ogre blade and S7 potion noble, watch opponent try to get through 2+ armour and 3+ ward).

I put the Darkshards in one larger unit so I can use Hand of Glory and Meteoric Ironclad on them, as the white lions are already pretty survivable at range. I'd then put Ironclad on the White Lions when they get into combat. I expect to get it off at least half the time (my lvl 3 would need 12 power...on 3 dice that happens just under half the time, with excellent odds on 4+ dice, no dispels of course). On the turns it doesn't get off, I'm not that bothered as I it's just a few dice lost and I have so many other great spells to play with (same with Deadlock). I see no reason to put Ironclad on the Helmbus as I've found the one dice book of Hoeth High magic spam easily gets me a 3+ ward every turn.

To me it now looks like it has all the tools for great survivability, board control and massive ranged damage against all types of opposing forces, what do you think?