Ulthuan

Heading to a big GT in the Summer, 110 players. Got plenty of time to chop and tweak lists, this is my first draft.

Comp is pretty light, no End Times stuff is allowed except for very few exceptions like lore of undeath.

Tournament is in the W/L/D style, not 20-0. where 500pts nets you the Win. To this end I plan to build a list that is hard to get big points from and that can play a patient, long range game in necessary. No need to smash people 20-0 to get a good finish, just get the 500pts and the secondary missions.

Anyway on to the list:

Archmage – Total 285
General, Level 4 Wizard, Lore of High Magic, Crown of Command, Talisman of Endurance

Archmage – Total 255
Level 4 Wizard, Lore of Shadow, Dispel Scroll, Golden Crown of Atrazar

Noble – Total 157
Battle Standard Bearer, Dragon Armour, Halberd, Obsidian Lodestone, Charmed Shield

29 Archers – Total 310
Standard and Musician

5 Ellyrian Reavers – Total 105
Spears, Bows, Musician

5 Ellyrian Reavers – Total 105
Spears, Bows, Musician

5 Ellyrian Reavers – Total 105
Spears, Bows, Musician

24 Phoenix Guard – Total 405
Full Command, Lichebone Pennant

24 White Lions – Total 392
Full Command, Banner of the World Dragon

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower – Total 70
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower – Total 70

10 Sisters of Avelorn – Total 140
(because 4 bolt throwers is comped out)

Army Total: 2,399


The plan is to put the high wizard in the PGuard, the shadow wizard in the WLions and the BSB in the Archers. Giving me 2 Stubborn 9 blocks and one that will likely be steadfast 9. plus 3 units that are quite resilient to magic.

Magic gives me a good spread of threat counters, Mindrazor for armour, Fiery Convo for hordes etc etc. Plus have good ability to cause damage at range to make up for my lack of mobility.

I plan to play the list rather defensively, picking off the points that I can and wait for the opening to push for it. I think that should help me to not throw cheap points away and be generally hard to break down and get points from.

All in all a pretty standard Infantry based HE list, but let me know what you think and let me know if I have missed anything glaringly obvious that should be in there.

Cheers
SteVie

Looks pretty good. I'd probably change one of the archmages to a level 2, I find two level 4s to be magic overkill (unless it'd Khaine magic). I'd also consider changing the BSB noble into a Sea Helm. Very versatile way to protect your mages. If the archers get charged you can reform them 2 wide before combat, and they will bog down any opponent, especially with crown of command and shield of saphery, allowing other units to get side and flank charges.

Sadly the seahelm gives you a reform after the enemy has moved his unit into base contact. So you cant rly change your formation from 7 wide into 2 wide :/

those wizards are not up to much if you get poor winds, forbidden rod or powerstone maybe?

book of hoeth over crown on the high mage all day, PG will have a 3+ ward save, if they lose combat, just give up warhammer!!
IMO id take razor standard on them all day too.

I wouldn't bother protecting the archer with a lodestone bsb, if someone is putting magic into killing your archers, great, your phoenix guard and lions are untouched and kicking ass. id put either armour of caledor and halberd or armour of destiny and a halberd and into the phoenix guard with him for a tasty 3++
if you are keeping the bsb in the archers id suggest a champion, don't want a minor character coming in and claiming your BSB!

just my ideas/thoughts!

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Hey you are right, I looked it up and it's just a normal combat reform. A guy did the 2 wide reform thing to me the other day and I lost heavily. Good to know that won't happen again

First of all thanks for reading and commenting!

I have to disagree on the double lvl 4 wizards though. When every sees 2 lvl 4's i think they automatically assume that the player is going for magic dominance and to just bully their way through each magic phase. In truth, I have 2 level 4's for the versatility and redundancy they offer. High and Shadow complement each other tremendously (ask any GT level Wood Elf Player) and dropping one to a lvl 1/2 doesnt give me the spell spread I want/need. Just my thoughts, but the 2 Archmages are staying

Took the advice on the BSB, he was kind of wasted baby sitting the Archers, so he has the following kit now:

Noble - 149
-BSB
-Armour of Caledor
-Halberd

And he will sit in the PGuard with the general.

The point about the Book of Hoeth. I fully agree, but the comp doesn't allow the book and the banner in the same army (rightly so) and the banner is much more important imo. Crown of command is kind of debatable, its nice having 2 stubborn blocks but I could always revisit that choice if something more worthwhile comes up.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

SteVie

Agree with that logic 100%.

With the pick of two Lores you pretty much always have at least one spell your opponent just can't let through. Or you can pile on buffs and hexes like a good'un. Especially useful playing under 50% L&H. Tried it for the first time last weekend, it rocked. Plus if one goes down you still have a magic phase.

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Yeah that's exactly right. Especially with Shadow and High, there will always be spells the opponent has to stop. Be it Withering or Unforging or whatever it really puts the opponent in a tough spot and make bad/hard decisions.

I'm intrigued to try out double Archmages myself at some point. My problem with the traditional Archmage + Mage is that the Mage simply doesn't cast as well and often won't roll the right spells, so I usually end up feeling that the Mage is just there for the scroll. I would really look at giving one of the Archmages a Powerstone, the Forbidden Rod or a Power Scroll though, if the Comp allows it, simply because it'll let you cast more spells in that one crucial magic phase. The Power Scroll is particularly interesting because it forces the other player to make hard decisions with their dispel dice. The threat of Powerscrolled Mindrazor cast on 2 dice into a crucial combat at the end of the magic phase...

You might want to look at the sisters. Why have a unit of 10 instead of 2 units of 5? Unless want to cast Hand of Glory on them or reduce your number of deployments, I'd go fo the 2 smaller units, because it'll allow you to cover more of the board.

I'd also consider getting a champion into the Archers. They're a big block, worth enough to really make a difference under W/L/D, so being able to challange and hold up flying lords for a turn might be very helpful.

The list has been re-worked with the changes made to the Noble so the Archers are now at 30 and have a champion. I have dropped the CoC for the Ring of Fury but the power scroll is an interesting option, that's the one that lets you halve a casting value right? but cant be used on boosted versions of spells? Could be worth a dabble.

And I agree with your points on the mage, usually just ends up being a very expensive scroll caddy.

The Power Scroll (after the Errata) was changed to a one-use item which allows you to have the casting cost of a non-boosted spell. This is somewhat unhelpful for shadow (which has lots of spells that can boost for range), but if you take a bit of care with movement, it should be quite effective. Another useful point is that because you can use less dice (2-3 for the Shadow Spells), your chance of miscast is much lower then it would be for something like a 5-6 dice Mindrazor.

Yeah just had a quick look through the Errata as I remembered there being something in there for the Power Scroll.

2 dice Mindrazor might be quite funny after WBW and Unforging has pulled their dice

Pit of Shades on a Gutstar (or any other Deathstar which has taken boosted Miasma earlier in the magic phase) might also be a good use for it.

+1 to Shadow Power Scroll

Pit on the Gutstar could run into Runemaw.

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Cavalry Prince Reloaded
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I think 2 lvl. 4's can be really solid. However I think your list needs something to make up for its lack of mobility. Sure you have a lot of shooting, but very mobile armies will quickly take out those elements leaving your big blocks alone.
I think I would take metal over shadow and if you don't then at least give the phoenix guard the razor standard.

Finally aren't you afraid that your mages are just gonna be killed in the first round of combat? Your bunkers wants to fight, but then again not really, because you give up so many points when both lvl. 4s die.

I'll look forward to see how it went on your channel .

That's the trouble with the list, but ideally the lack of movement can and should be accounted for in deployment. In the end you have a very defensive and reactive army which I'm not sure is the way I want to play. I am either taking HE's or Ogres. My Ogre list is 100% set if I go down that route, for HE i have 3/4 different lists that I am toying around with, some conventional, some not so much.

Stay tuned!

And thanks for watching the channel

I'm not sure how your meta is, but mine not characterized by big infantry blocks. Their is a lot of high mobile dark elf madness, wood elves that can't be caught, empire knight buses, flying chaos lords and so on. I played a tournament recently where I fielded big blocks, but I don't think it actually make for a fun game, because you are just rolling to swift reform all the time, so your mages can see stuff and things are within charge arc. Also you'll probably never dictate when combat happens, thus it will be on your opponents terms, which is never good.

Recently I have tried with only one big block, which has worked very well.
I've had some luck with a big block of phoenix guards with high archmage and loremaster. It is an almost impossible block to beat, when it is 3++ and then you also have the loremasters buff on top. I was running along to phoenixes for the extra mobility, which was good fun .

Do you have a link to the comp pack btw?

Yeah the lists I am moving to are more mobile and harder to pin the points down. I wrote this one as its something I have never really used before, but the more I look at it, it just doesn't appeal to me. Building a Star Dragon + CavBus list that will be much more potent.

the tournament is this one, pack is in the OP

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic ... 3&t=128022