Screw City GT Chicago (List thoughts, reports and pictures)
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 3:27 pm
Hi all,
I just got back from the Screw City Grand Tournament in the Chicago area. I've been a bit tired from the long drive to and from (I live in Northern Michigan and it was a family trip for us, complete with a blown tire on the way home), so I'm sorry ahead of time that I don't remember all the details well enough to give my usual turn-by turn analysis, but I will try my best to keep things chronological.
Here's the website complete with tournament results as of yesterday:
http://www.iwfb.net/screwcitygt.html
Closed List Tournament by the way
The rest of this first post, my list building thoughts, were all written up before going to the tournament, so please forgive any times I end up eating my words in the battle reports.
I took a historically large amount of characters in this army, in fact this army is technically illegal because I used a "free hero" provided by tournament comp to actually put my heroes over 750 points. The list totally depends on Teclis and magic, and in case Teclis dies I want enough mages left alive to keep my magic going. This leads to an exorbant point cost, but at least I can partially justify it with how awesome the double-dispell scroll combo should work and how amazingly High Elves can ignore the Forbidden Rod's side effects. Still, high elf mages are very fragile not to mention Teclis, so I need to make a durable front line of characters to "plug" my first rank so that nothing can touch the mages. Usually only ogres pull off this tactic because they only need three troops in front and command provides 2 of them (actually three, but the champion can die), but through sheer expenditure I can do this with my high elf army to protect Teclis and his entourage, and I hope to even justify this expence through hexes and augments, especially Savage Beast of Horros. "Durable" and "High Elf foot characters" is usually an oxymoron, so I would need to commit to High Magic with my two support mages in order to boost their ward saves to a 3+ and hopefully shield their squishy friends. I am going to be hugely outnumbered in every game I play, so my magic phases will have to go according to a strict plan, and I will need to spread out my units wide if necessary to minimize losses to war machines or spell templates. I plan on making some thin (5 by 1) magnetized trays in order to make this a quicker and more tolerable thing to put my opponents through when I reform before combat... but it's just far too few troops to lose a a full regiment of them to a Salamander template and have any chance at winning the game.
LORDS
Thulius (Teclis)- (By my fluff the real Teclis is still the guy from the old book, so I've given the weaker new version the name of a character my brother used for years when we played against eachother at home).
Thulius is the most powerful mage in the Old World, and second only to Teclis and Belanaar on Ulthuan. He was crippled years ago when he saved the gates of Anlec from the Dark Elves when he undertook a mighty ritual to barrage the battlefield with a storm of Comets. For his bravery he was awarded a Staff of Lileath which augments his strength until its powers are exausted.
I expect most high elf players to take the Everqueen when Special Characters are allowed, but I really think Teclis is still better, even with the extra 100 point price tag. For how amazing the Everqueen is, she really doesn't add much to your casting in fact she's worse than a Book of Hoeth Archmage without her special BSB banner. Once you get that things change, but remember it only works on augments on a single unit of yours, so your opponent can still focus on trying to just dispell the spells of yours that are not augments. Teclis has lost a lot of brute force in his casting, he's more of a 1-phase wonder than he used to be, but that one phase can win the game if you choose the right phase to boost. Here are the greatest bonuses Teclis brings to my army:
1. He gives me access to two dispell scrolls (with my backup mage). This is very rare in 8th edition and a huge advantage for me, since by packing so many points into a character bus, I am the perfect opponent for someone who rolls Dwellers Below. Teclis gives me a 50% chance of removing the spell completely, and even if it fails, dispelling it twice should be enough for me to survive into the combat phases where Dwellers can't touch me.
2. He gives me the exact 8 spells I think I am most likely to need. I think augments and hexes really benefit a High Elf player, since we are stuck with 25% of our army at strength 3 since all our core is strength 3. Going for super spells such as Dwellers, Mindrazor and such is tempting, but I would rather go for the cheaper augments that allow me to cast several spells per turn and avoid miscasts by throwing fewer dice at each. Purple Sun is the exception, if you have ever run into an Ogre Gutstar you have wished you had this spell. Savage Beast of Horros should be especially deadly with all the characters in this unit. Spell selection is the one area I feel Teclis got better (I prefer his across the lores selection to his old boring loremaster), but I must admit that in all other areas he got worse. But any fool knows he was overpowered and had to go, and now with Rumination Slanns gone his relative magical power just went way up. I would only consider the Dark Elf magic phase better at this point in the game.
3. Banner of the World Dragon, a free reroll each game (tournament rule) in case he fails a Look Out Sir roll, a stubborn bunker unit, and tons of characters to plug up the front rank means that Teclis should be practically the last model I lose in my army. I have paid a mighty price for this, almost half of my army points are spent on characters (unreal for 8th edition rules which generally discourage this), but with all these augments and hexes on their side they should protect Teclis very well and be quite deadly also.
Cyrus the Grey (Alith Anar)-
Cyrus is Damien's father and the lord of the re-inhabited Old World Elf colony of Dal Quain. His goal is to reverse the High Elves' decline by sparking a new rate of expansion for the race.
250 points is barely more expensive than a normal foot prince. For the price, Alith Anar is an awesome character now, giving two awesome bonuses to his unit and wielding a great bow, but he has one downside, hand to hand combat specifically the damage side. This guy's got a hand weapon, that's it. Fortunately Teclis has four different spells that can contribute to him dealing more damage in spite of this. Swiftstride will be mostly for pursuing, since I doubt I would ever want to miss a turn of shooting/stand and shoot with his bow and the Reaver bow as well.
Heroes (finally some regular characters!)
Daria - Level 2 mage of High Magic, Dispell Scroll
Daria is a wood elf, the spellsinger of a nearby wood elf village who has ventured to Dal Quain to learn more potent magics to defend her people from the various threats of the region. Damien saved her village from a Slann corrupted by death magic.
Usually a far more prominent character in my lists, Daria is a scroll caddy this game. As I said before, the Dwellers Below could totally spoil my plan, and while I would prefer to get lucky and not run into a Dwellers opponent, I can't count on that so having two different dispell scrolls is my best chance to beat that threat. Daria serves a couple other purposes though, hopefully rolling Apotheosis for another heal for my characters (between her and the other mage I have a good chance), and buffing my characters' ward saves up to a 3+. I normally take Khaine's Ring of Fury with this build, but there's no point with access to so many spells already.
Publius- Level 2 mage of High Magic, Forbidden Rod, Golden Crown of Atrazaar
Daria's teacher in High Magic, Publius has been secretly experimenting with the forbidden power of Loec to boost his powers. So far, his protective crown has warded off the deadly consequences, but someday his luck may catch up with him.
This mage abuses three different things: The Banner of Sorcery (which I am fairly sure wards against the Rod), the Golden Crown (just in case a TO rules against me on plan 1, and it always helps to have an extra wound between Teclis and the enemy), and finally he takes advantage of the free reroll a player can have once every game. If I roll a 1 for my power dice on the Rod, that warrants a reroll, as does if I fail my ward save.
The Silent Guardian (Caradryan)-
The Silent Guardian mysteriously showed up at Dal Quain at the same time that Daria began her studies with the High Elves. He has guarded her often in battle. The Guardian is a renegade Phoenix Guard of sorts, in that he has been known to occasionally speak, usually for the sake of slaying enemies of the colony. His active use of his god's power is distained by the other Phoenix Guard, and while they acknowledge his right to choose, they will not allow him within their ranks.
Caradryan almost didn't make it into my list, he costs a fair bit more than a regular hero and I had originally planned on giving my BSB a ward save and plugging up the front with him. This would have allowed me to also field a very accurate Handmaiden with the Reaver Bow in my army to compliment the Moonbow. But then I realized I want my BSB to be one of my last characters to die and that Caradryan actually can relieve me of some of my worst nightmares. He can wound a unit of trolls or an abomination or a hydra before the White Lions, meaning they don't have to worry about regeneration. Those are all big threats and I'm not guaranteed to get Flaming Sword off. His magic resistance will be a waste with the World Dragon Banner, but his d3 wounds if he dies will be awesome especially if the character that killed him has to reroll ward saves due to Other Trickster's Shard. The best part about him though is his d3 wounds halberd. If I can cast Savage Beast on this guy, he has 6 strength 8 attacks that all deal d3 wounds each. This guy could literally kill 6 Ironguts by himself (426 points of monstrous infantry), and not too much of a stretch either! All he has to do is hit on rerollable threes and wound on twos, throw in Harmonic Convergence to help the odds even more . The multiple wounds rolls would obviously hamper this, but it shows the guy's sheer destructive power. Best of all he can accept a challenge with an unkillable chaos Lord or BSB and kill it if he gets a little luck and Damien makes way into base to base with his Other Trickster's Shard (A chaos lord can get Dragonhelm sure, but the more popular BSB build can't afford it).
Acastus- Noble BSB, Charmed Shield, Reaver Bow, Potion of Strength, heavy armor
The treacherous son of a rival noble family, Acastus is earning his prince's rank by serving as the Battle Standard of the armies of Dal Quain.
The Reaver Bow is really good now, I wanted to afford a Handmaiden to use it with balistic skill 7 (and therefore always a 2+ to hit), but the points weren't there after fitting in Caradryan. Potion of Strength makes his arrows strength 8 for a turn, and I can even repeat the effect with a single cast Savage Beast of Horros! If one of my front line characters goes down, he will be the one to nobly step up to the front rank. Every wound between the enemy and Teclis counts, thus the Charmed Shield.
Damien- Noble, Sword of Might, Shield of the Merwyrm, Other Trickster's Shard, longbow, heavy armor (*Free hero, the tournament has a special rule that allows each player to take a single combat character, on foot that cannot be the BSB, free of cost as long as he costs 130 points or less. This character generates no victory points if you kill him.)
Damien is the son of Lord Cyrus and the heir to the kingdom of Dal Quain. He has sworn to protect his mistress Daria from harm during the dangerous missions ahead.
It's a lot easier to justify taking a character bus of epic proportions in 8th edition (an edition that in my opinion encourages infantry blocks over characters) when the tournament rules happen to provide you with one free of charge. The restrictions should make this rule barely helpful to armies like Warriors of Chaos (who need to spend an arm and a leg to get their truly great characters), but it's perfect for me because it's barely enough allowance to totally deck out a foot noble. Acastus, Cyrus and Damien make up my front rank plugs (along with the musician and standard of the rank and file), and keep my weaker characters safe from harm with their 4+ ward saves, that should usually be a 3+ with my brutal magic phases. He needs to stay at least a model away from the other characters so he doesnt interfere with their ward saves, but Other Trickster's shard is the only way I can maybe kill off a Tzeentch Chaos Lord on a disk. Refuse challenges (or accept with Caradryan if I am sure my opponent does not have fire ward), hopefully my BSB gets bumped instead of this guy, everything attacks chaos lord who has to reroll his ward saves. I can dream can't I?
Rare units: NONE! (A couple eagles to speed bump and let me shoot longer would have been nice, but I could only take two with no grand army rules and they would just be cannon kills anyway)
Special units:
21 White Lions (Full command group, Banner of the World Dragon)
Two no brainer choices. With so many characters, I want to make sure they don't run. I also don't want to lose these characters to Death Snipes. It's always a guilty feeling running the World Dragon if you run into a Daemon player, but I need it with so much casting to protect my troops from miscast templates more than anything.
25 Phoenix Guard (Standard bearer, Razor Standard)
Frost Phoenixes are great, but even with Grand Army rules disabled an Empire player could easily take 2 Steam tanks and 3 cannons at this points level. As awesome as a frost phoenix is, it can't do much against that kind of barrage to survive other than roll very lucky. I think cannons are oversaturated in the no-comp Warhammer scene, and silly as this sounds I made this list partly with the hopes of frustrating cannon-heavy opponents by giving them nothing good to shoot at. Phoenix Guard are a lousy target for almost any kind of shooting, especially if you deploy them thin and reform when combat gets close. As a defensive army I will have this option.
5 Dragon Princes (Standard, Gleaming Pennant)
I like to have 5 dragon princes with gleaming pennant in my army, because with good leadership and a rerolled test they can go on the outskirts of the battlefield since they don't depend on the general's guidance. They are the closest thing to a cannon target in my army, and they are practically immune to Skullcannon fire and most of the Chaos Dwarf toys.
Core units:
15 Archers (musician)
These guys are still not great troops, but Teclis should make them great at least for one tournament. Flaming Sword, Withering, Harmonic Convergence, maybe Hand of Glory, all those spells should really increase my damage output in this shooty army.
24 Lothern Seaguard (standard, musician)
Really I can't justify taking these from a competitive standpoint normally. The range and lower price of Archers makes them better in pretty much every way now that they get martial prowess. I'll be honest, I take them because I have a beautiful regiment of old Maiden Guard models that I like an excuse to bring to tournaments. But it must be said that with all the nice damage boosting augments and hexes I got with Teclis they could be made into a decent fighting unit. They have good attack totals and accuracy, they just need an easier time wounding which I think I can usually provide.
5 Reavers (spears, bows)
5 Reavers (spears, bows)
5 Reavers (Spears bows)
I wish I had more of these guys to bring honestly. I doubt any of them will survive any of my games, but as war machine hunters, flank chargers, chaff clearers and sacrificial movement blockers they are incredible.
Thoughts on Spell selection:
Thulius's (Teclis's) spells-
1.Flaming Sword of Rhuin- This is just the best spell in the otherwise weak lore of fire. It sucks that they can no longer make White Lions auto-wound with this, but high elf core still need all the help they can get wounding stuff. It casts on a roll of 3 or higher with Teclis which is hugely efficient (5 of his spells share this benefit of 8+ casting cost or lower).
2. Plague of Rust- At first I was going to take Glittering robe to boost my awful armor saves, but then I switched to the Plague for two reasons: A) High armor save armies are a rough matchup for high elves and B) The low spell cost and permanent effect make it a very economical spell for a shooty army especially if your opponent lets it through early. Glittering Robe is only really good on the fairly expensive bubble cast and I should be devoting my dice elsewhere when combat rolls around.
3. Savage Beast of Horros- A big goal of this army list is to actually kill an unkillable Chaos lord or BSB. The first step in this equation is Damien's Other Trickster's Shard, the second step is Savage Beast of Horros on Caradryan to blast six strength 8, d3 wound attacks into the chaos defiler. Suddenly the chaos character goes from rerolling his ward saves to having to reroll them and a single one of Caradryan's wounds could prove fatal.
4. Pha's Protection- One of the best spells in the game for the High Elves if you can maximize its bubble effect. High elves don't like getting hit, so an obvious answer is to make the entire army a fair bit harder to hit.
5. Harmonic Convergence- Normally this spell isn't great for high elves since we already reroll our missed attacks usually. White Lions don't anymore, so they really appreciate this spell which makes them much more likely to hit, and they also practically auto-wound. This is a spell I should usually single cast on the White Lions only since they gain the most and it lets me throw only two dice on it.
6. Flesh to Stone- Dwellers may well be the best spell in the game, but healing my characters is all-important. The facts that this spell has a nice effect and is cast on a 3+ for Teclis on two dice are icing on the cake.
7. The Withering- This is probably the best spell in the game for a high elf shooting army. It is amazing both in terms of shooting and combat offense and also for magic defense as opponents waste their own power dice removing it from play.
8. Purple Sun of Xereus- I was very tempted to take Soul Blight, which is probably the best spell in the lore overall. I took Purple Sun of Xereus because it is a chance at a jackpot of restarting my magic phase with the Lifestealing perk, and because it makes for near-free wins against Ogres, Lizardmen, Dwarfs, Undead and Orcs and Goblins.
My two lesser mages chose High Magic to gain Lilieath's Blessing (+3 to cast), to boost the ward saves of my "front line plug" characters to a 3+, and to help eachother guarantee spell selection. I hardly intend to use either signature spell ever. The spell order in terms of what I would most like to get are:
1. Apotheosis- I would love to have a second heal spell to help with Flesh to Stone, and boosting ward saves is awesome too.
2. Hand of Glory- Helps my shooting, but more importantly it hopefully makes my characters and even elite infantry harder to hit in combat (stacks nicely with Pha's).
3. Arcane Unforging- Basically if I run into Warriors of Chaos this spell could make my life a LOT better. Otherwise it's pretty nice to have around, but not a must-have.
4. Fiery Convocation- Since I am not taking Dwellers this spell is a nice alternative to taking out large infantry units.
5. Tempest- Usually a drop-down spell, but I will keep and use this if my opponent takes large blocks or has lots of shooting.
6. Walk Between Worlds- I would usually tell anyone that this is the best spell in the lore. But it's useful for offensive armies, which is usually the best way to play high elves but not with Teclis. My units need to stay back and shoot, not be trucked around the field. With that said, this could be nice for setting up my dragon princes to snag a war machine on turn 2.
Unique tournament rules and how my army list attempts to abuse them:
Free combat hero on foot- This is what it says. The tournament allows you to take a free hero from your army book up to 130 points, but it must be on foot and it cant have any spells either bound or selected. If it gets killed it's worth zero points to the game. This was a great excuse to field my Damien character, who is a durable bearer of the Other trickster's Shard and fits the slot exactly at 129 points , basically he is a free "front rank plug" for my Teclis list, which depends on Teclis reaching the front rank of the unit as late in the game as possible if not never.
Free "Oh-sheeit" reroll: If a player makes the full donation for the charity, they get a single free reroll on any single die of their choice in each of the five games. I fully realize that my list being so character heavy means a single stroke of bad luck could cost me the entire game at any time, so the free reroll is something I intend to have up my sleeve for the following situations (in order of importance):
1. Missed "Look out Sir" rolls- A major concept of my list is that any of my opponents who take cannons/steam tanks/ironblasters/skullcannons are going to have nothing better to do with this expensive weaponry than try to snipe Teclis through a failed Look out Sir roll. While this is awesome in that it is a low likelihood event and my opponent should lose more through misfires than I will, it is also bad in that it is an absolute jackpot attempt that my opponents are going to be making, often several times per turn. Having a free reroll if Teclis fails his roll could keep him around for several more turns if not the entire game. This list lives and dies with Teclis, and it's nice to have tournament perks in my favor as far as keeping him up.
2. Bad miscasts- I say "bad miscasts", because lots of miscasts aren't that bad at all when all my mages are parked in a unit with the Banner of the World Dragon. The entire unit has a 2+ ward against the templates. Dimensional Cascade is a huge risk however and should always be rerolled (you can reroll one of the two dice and hope it rolls higher).
3. Undercasts-I made Teclis so that he can cast 5 of his spells on two dice on anything but Snake-eyes (or one if he blows the Moonstaff for the free power die per cast), thus maximizing his staff's advantage for a super magic phase. While this should be incredibly efficient, if I roll double ones early in the magic phase it disrupts the entire plan of magical domination. This is definitely a worthy time to use the one-die reroll for a 5/6 chance to ignore this setback.
4. Bad result on the Forbidden Rod- Forbidden Rod (the way I am trying to ignore its side effect), can either be the best 35 points you've ever spent if you roll a 6, or the worst if you roll a 1. This is a great "pro-active" time to use my reroll because I am a lot less likely to roll snake-eyes on two dice than a 1 on one die, so I should always at least get a better result, and every power die counts in this army...
Thanks for still reading lol. All things considered, I would predict that my army should do well against:
Warriors of Chaos: Purple Sun to kill Throgg and his buddies (which any sane umcomped chaos player takes), likely Arcane Unforging to deal with an unkillable character's ward, buffs and hexes up the wazoo to beat up chaos warriors, and Banner of the World Dragon for the popular Nurgle Death Prince, they have small armies so I am not outnumbered too bad for once. And of course fire to slay the dreaded uncle Festus!
Orcs and Goblins, plenty of shooting to snipe out Mangler Squigs. Their armor sucks overall so it's not a bad matchup for our terrible core. Wounding so often on a 5+ stinks but I've dealt with it for 4 editions. Trolls are dealt with by either Flaming Sword or Purple Sun. I think my guys can always be buffed up enough to beat any Savage Orc horde.
Ogre Kingdoms, Lizardmen, Dwarfs: all these guys should just be trashed by Purple Sun spam. Just two of these getting off over the course of a game should guarantee a win against them. Hellheart will cost me a magic phase since I have so many mages in one spot, but the results shouldnt be that bad since only Dimensional Cascade can ignore my 2+ ward saves. Any gutstar is dead. Dwarf artillery mostly have runes making the World Dragon Banner work against them, and my army is not very vulnerable to cannon fire as long as I have my free tournament reroll each game.
Daemons of Chaos: I don't think there is a single way a Daemons player could threaten me, and it's kind of sad because hosing them wasnt an intention in making this list. It's going to be fun to laugh at their Skullcannons though. My characters will all have a 2+ ward save against their whole army, that should break even Epidemus lists.
However, I might struggle against:
Empire: This should be the worst one, while my army gets nice buffs, they don't really provide armor penetration. I only have plague of rust to help, Withering, Flaming Sword and Harmonic Convergence all don't penetrate armor. So a game against a good Empire player would probably involve surviving Dwellers (which is the bane of my army, hence the two dispell scrolls), and getting a few big Savage Beast casts off.
Skaven: This is one of the few armies whose magic phases could overpower mine. I think a good skaven player would just 6-dice Dreaded 13th every turn at me. At least Teclis gives me a chance at removing that spell. Slave hordes should thankfully be easy for me to clear, but this is just a rough army for high elves to face since they have so many ways to just delete our small units.
Dark Elves: Does this really need explaining? It's the old book too since the new book came out less than a month before the tournament.
I just got back from the Screw City Grand Tournament in the Chicago area. I've been a bit tired from the long drive to and from (I live in Northern Michigan and it was a family trip for us, complete with a blown tire on the way home), so I'm sorry ahead of time that I don't remember all the details well enough to give my usual turn-by turn analysis, but I will try my best to keep things chronological.
Here's the website complete with tournament results as of yesterday:
http://www.iwfb.net/screwcitygt.html
Closed List Tournament by the way
The rest of this first post, my list building thoughts, were all written up before going to the tournament, so please forgive any times I end up eating my words in the battle reports.
I took a historically large amount of characters in this army, in fact this army is technically illegal because I used a "free hero" provided by tournament comp to actually put my heroes over 750 points. The list totally depends on Teclis and magic, and in case Teclis dies I want enough mages left alive to keep my magic going. This leads to an exorbant point cost, but at least I can partially justify it with how awesome the double-dispell scroll combo should work and how amazingly High Elves can ignore the Forbidden Rod's side effects. Still, high elf mages are very fragile not to mention Teclis, so I need to make a durable front line of characters to "plug" my first rank so that nothing can touch the mages. Usually only ogres pull off this tactic because they only need three troops in front and command provides 2 of them (actually three, but the champion can die), but through sheer expenditure I can do this with my high elf army to protect Teclis and his entourage, and I hope to even justify this expence through hexes and augments, especially Savage Beast of Horros. "Durable" and "High Elf foot characters" is usually an oxymoron, so I would need to commit to High Magic with my two support mages in order to boost their ward saves to a 3+ and hopefully shield their squishy friends. I am going to be hugely outnumbered in every game I play, so my magic phases will have to go according to a strict plan, and I will need to spread out my units wide if necessary to minimize losses to war machines or spell templates. I plan on making some thin (5 by 1) magnetized trays in order to make this a quicker and more tolerable thing to put my opponents through when I reform before combat... but it's just far too few troops to lose a a full regiment of them to a Salamander template and have any chance at winning the game.
LORDS
Thulius (Teclis)- (By my fluff the real Teclis is still the guy from the old book, so I've given the weaker new version the name of a character my brother used for years when we played against eachother at home).
Thulius is the most powerful mage in the Old World, and second only to Teclis and Belanaar on Ulthuan. He was crippled years ago when he saved the gates of Anlec from the Dark Elves when he undertook a mighty ritual to barrage the battlefield with a storm of Comets. For his bravery he was awarded a Staff of Lileath which augments his strength until its powers are exausted.
I expect most high elf players to take the Everqueen when Special Characters are allowed, but I really think Teclis is still better, even with the extra 100 point price tag. For how amazing the Everqueen is, she really doesn't add much to your casting in fact she's worse than a Book of Hoeth Archmage without her special BSB banner. Once you get that things change, but remember it only works on augments on a single unit of yours, so your opponent can still focus on trying to just dispell the spells of yours that are not augments. Teclis has lost a lot of brute force in his casting, he's more of a 1-phase wonder than he used to be, but that one phase can win the game if you choose the right phase to boost. Here are the greatest bonuses Teclis brings to my army:
1. He gives me access to two dispell scrolls (with my backup mage). This is very rare in 8th edition and a huge advantage for me, since by packing so many points into a character bus, I am the perfect opponent for someone who rolls Dwellers Below. Teclis gives me a 50% chance of removing the spell completely, and even if it fails, dispelling it twice should be enough for me to survive into the combat phases where Dwellers can't touch me.
2. He gives me the exact 8 spells I think I am most likely to need. I think augments and hexes really benefit a High Elf player, since we are stuck with 25% of our army at strength 3 since all our core is strength 3. Going for super spells such as Dwellers, Mindrazor and such is tempting, but I would rather go for the cheaper augments that allow me to cast several spells per turn and avoid miscasts by throwing fewer dice at each. Purple Sun is the exception, if you have ever run into an Ogre Gutstar you have wished you had this spell. Savage Beast of Horros should be especially deadly with all the characters in this unit. Spell selection is the one area I feel Teclis got better (I prefer his across the lores selection to his old boring loremaster), but I must admit that in all other areas he got worse. But any fool knows he was overpowered and had to go, and now with Rumination Slanns gone his relative magical power just went way up. I would only consider the Dark Elf magic phase better at this point in the game.
3. Banner of the World Dragon, a free reroll each game (tournament rule) in case he fails a Look Out Sir roll, a stubborn bunker unit, and tons of characters to plug up the front rank means that Teclis should be practically the last model I lose in my army. I have paid a mighty price for this, almost half of my army points are spent on characters (unreal for 8th edition rules which generally discourage this), but with all these augments and hexes on their side they should protect Teclis very well and be quite deadly also.
Cyrus the Grey (Alith Anar)-
Cyrus is Damien's father and the lord of the re-inhabited Old World Elf colony of Dal Quain. His goal is to reverse the High Elves' decline by sparking a new rate of expansion for the race.
250 points is barely more expensive than a normal foot prince. For the price, Alith Anar is an awesome character now, giving two awesome bonuses to his unit and wielding a great bow, but he has one downside, hand to hand combat specifically the damage side. This guy's got a hand weapon, that's it. Fortunately Teclis has four different spells that can contribute to him dealing more damage in spite of this. Swiftstride will be mostly for pursuing, since I doubt I would ever want to miss a turn of shooting/stand and shoot with his bow and the Reaver bow as well.
Heroes (finally some regular characters!)
Daria - Level 2 mage of High Magic, Dispell Scroll
Daria is a wood elf, the spellsinger of a nearby wood elf village who has ventured to Dal Quain to learn more potent magics to defend her people from the various threats of the region. Damien saved her village from a Slann corrupted by death magic.
Usually a far more prominent character in my lists, Daria is a scroll caddy this game. As I said before, the Dwellers Below could totally spoil my plan, and while I would prefer to get lucky and not run into a Dwellers opponent, I can't count on that so having two different dispell scrolls is my best chance to beat that threat. Daria serves a couple other purposes though, hopefully rolling Apotheosis for another heal for my characters (between her and the other mage I have a good chance), and buffing my characters' ward saves up to a 3+. I normally take Khaine's Ring of Fury with this build, but there's no point with access to so many spells already.
Publius- Level 2 mage of High Magic, Forbidden Rod, Golden Crown of Atrazaar
Daria's teacher in High Magic, Publius has been secretly experimenting with the forbidden power of Loec to boost his powers. So far, his protective crown has warded off the deadly consequences, but someday his luck may catch up with him.
This mage abuses three different things: The Banner of Sorcery (which I am fairly sure wards against the Rod), the Golden Crown (just in case a TO rules against me on plan 1, and it always helps to have an extra wound between Teclis and the enemy), and finally he takes advantage of the free reroll a player can have once every game. If I roll a 1 for my power dice on the Rod, that warrants a reroll, as does if I fail my ward save.
The Silent Guardian (Caradryan)-
The Silent Guardian mysteriously showed up at Dal Quain at the same time that Daria began her studies with the High Elves. He has guarded her often in battle. The Guardian is a renegade Phoenix Guard of sorts, in that he has been known to occasionally speak, usually for the sake of slaying enemies of the colony. His active use of his god's power is distained by the other Phoenix Guard, and while they acknowledge his right to choose, they will not allow him within their ranks.
Caradryan almost didn't make it into my list, he costs a fair bit more than a regular hero and I had originally planned on giving my BSB a ward save and plugging up the front with him. This would have allowed me to also field a very accurate Handmaiden with the Reaver Bow in my army to compliment the Moonbow. But then I realized I want my BSB to be one of my last characters to die and that Caradryan actually can relieve me of some of my worst nightmares. He can wound a unit of trolls or an abomination or a hydra before the White Lions, meaning they don't have to worry about regeneration. Those are all big threats and I'm not guaranteed to get Flaming Sword off. His magic resistance will be a waste with the World Dragon Banner, but his d3 wounds if he dies will be awesome especially if the character that killed him has to reroll ward saves due to Other Trickster's Shard. The best part about him though is his d3 wounds halberd. If I can cast Savage Beast on this guy, he has 6 strength 8 attacks that all deal d3 wounds each. This guy could literally kill 6 Ironguts by himself (426 points of monstrous infantry), and not too much of a stretch either! All he has to do is hit on rerollable threes and wound on twos, throw in Harmonic Convergence to help the odds even more . The multiple wounds rolls would obviously hamper this, but it shows the guy's sheer destructive power. Best of all he can accept a challenge with an unkillable chaos Lord or BSB and kill it if he gets a little luck and Damien makes way into base to base with his Other Trickster's Shard (A chaos lord can get Dragonhelm sure, but the more popular BSB build can't afford it).
Acastus- Noble BSB, Charmed Shield, Reaver Bow, Potion of Strength, heavy armor
The treacherous son of a rival noble family, Acastus is earning his prince's rank by serving as the Battle Standard of the armies of Dal Quain.
The Reaver Bow is really good now, I wanted to afford a Handmaiden to use it with balistic skill 7 (and therefore always a 2+ to hit), but the points weren't there after fitting in Caradryan. Potion of Strength makes his arrows strength 8 for a turn, and I can even repeat the effect with a single cast Savage Beast of Horros! If one of my front line characters goes down, he will be the one to nobly step up to the front rank. Every wound between the enemy and Teclis counts, thus the Charmed Shield.
Damien- Noble, Sword of Might, Shield of the Merwyrm, Other Trickster's Shard, longbow, heavy armor (*Free hero, the tournament has a special rule that allows each player to take a single combat character, on foot that cannot be the BSB, free of cost as long as he costs 130 points or less. This character generates no victory points if you kill him.)
Damien is the son of Lord Cyrus and the heir to the kingdom of Dal Quain. He has sworn to protect his mistress Daria from harm during the dangerous missions ahead.
It's a lot easier to justify taking a character bus of epic proportions in 8th edition (an edition that in my opinion encourages infantry blocks over characters) when the tournament rules happen to provide you with one free of charge. The restrictions should make this rule barely helpful to armies like Warriors of Chaos (who need to spend an arm and a leg to get their truly great characters), but it's perfect for me because it's barely enough allowance to totally deck out a foot noble. Acastus, Cyrus and Damien make up my front rank plugs (along with the musician and standard of the rank and file), and keep my weaker characters safe from harm with their 4+ ward saves, that should usually be a 3+ with my brutal magic phases. He needs to stay at least a model away from the other characters so he doesnt interfere with their ward saves, but Other Trickster's shard is the only way I can maybe kill off a Tzeentch Chaos Lord on a disk. Refuse challenges (or accept with Caradryan if I am sure my opponent does not have fire ward), hopefully my BSB gets bumped instead of this guy, everything attacks chaos lord who has to reroll his ward saves. I can dream can't I?
Rare units: NONE! (A couple eagles to speed bump and let me shoot longer would have been nice, but I could only take two with no grand army rules and they would just be cannon kills anyway)
Special units:
21 White Lions (Full command group, Banner of the World Dragon)
Two no brainer choices. With so many characters, I want to make sure they don't run. I also don't want to lose these characters to Death Snipes. It's always a guilty feeling running the World Dragon if you run into a Daemon player, but I need it with so much casting to protect my troops from miscast templates more than anything.
25 Phoenix Guard (Standard bearer, Razor Standard)
Frost Phoenixes are great, but even with Grand Army rules disabled an Empire player could easily take 2 Steam tanks and 3 cannons at this points level. As awesome as a frost phoenix is, it can't do much against that kind of barrage to survive other than roll very lucky. I think cannons are oversaturated in the no-comp Warhammer scene, and silly as this sounds I made this list partly with the hopes of frustrating cannon-heavy opponents by giving them nothing good to shoot at. Phoenix Guard are a lousy target for almost any kind of shooting, especially if you deploy them thin and reform when combat gets close. As a defensive army I will have this option.
5 Dragon Princes (Standard, Gleaming Pennant)
I like to have 5 dragon princes with gleaming pennant in my army, because with good leadership and a rerolled test they can go on the outskirts of the battlefield since they don't depend on the general's guidance. They are the closest thing to a cannon target in my army, and they are practically immune to Skullcannon fire and most of the Chaos Dwarf toys.
Core units:
15 Archers (musician)
These guys are still not great troops, but Teclis should make them great at least for one tournament. Flaming Sword, Withering, Harmonic Convergence, maybe Hand of Glory, all those spells should really increase my damage output in this shooty army.
24 Lothern Seaguard (standard, musician)
Really I can't justify taking these from a competitive standpoint normally. The range and lower price of Archers makes them better in pretty much every way now that they get martial prowess. I'll be honest, I take them because I have a beautiful regiment of old Maiden Guard models that I like an excuse to bring to tournaments. But it must be said that with all the nice damage boosting augments and hexes I got with Teclis they could be made into a decent fighting unit. They have good attack totals and accuracy, they just need an easier time wounding which I think I can usually provide.
5 Reavers (spears, bows)
5 Reavers (spears, bows)
5 Reavers (Spears bows)
I wish I had more of these guys to bring honestly. I doubt any of them will survive any of my games, but as war machine hunters, flank chargers, chaff clearers and sacrificial movement blockers they are incredible.
Thoughts on Spell selection:
Thulius's (Teclis's) spells-
1.Flaming Sword of Rhuin- This is just the best spell in the otherwise weak lore of fire. It sucks that they can no longer make White Lions auto-wound with this, but high elf core still need all the help they can get wounding stuff. It casts on a roll of 3 or higher with Teclis which is hugely efficient (5 of his spells share this benefit of 8+ casting cost or lower).
2. Plague of Rust- At first I was going to take Glittering robe to boost my awful armor saves, but then I switched to the Plague for two reasons: A) High armor save armies are a rough matchup for high elves and B) The low spell cost and permanent effect make it a very economical spell for a shooty army especially if your opponent lets it through early. Glittering Robe is only really good on the fairly expensive bubble cast and I should be devoting my dice elsewhere when combat rolls around.
3. Savage Beast of Horros- A big goal of this army list is to actually kill an unkillable Chaos lord or BSB. The first step in this equation is Damien's Other Trickster's Shard, the second step is Savage Beast of Horros on Caradryan to blast six strength 8, d3 wound attacks into the chaos defiler. Suddenly the chaos character goes from rerolling his ward saves to having to reroll them and a single one of Caradryan's wounds could prove fatal.
4. Pha's Protection- One of the best spells in the game for the High Elves if you can maximize its bubble effect. High elves don't like getting hit, so an obvious answer is to make the entire army a fair bit harder to hit.
5. Harmonic Convergence- Normally this spell isn't great for high elves since we already reroll our missed attacks usually. White Lions don't anymore, so they really appreciate this spell which makes them much more likely to hit, and they also practically auto-wound. This is a spell I should usually single cast on the White Lions only since they gain the most and it lets me throw only two dice on it.
6. Flesh to Stone- Dwellers may well be the best spell in the game, but healing my characters is all-important. The facts that this spell has a nice effect and is cast on a 3+ for Teclis on two dice are icing on the cake.
7. The Withering- This is probably the best spell in the game for a high elf shooting army. It is amazing both in terms of shooting and combat offense and also for magic defense as opponents waste their own power dice removing it from play.
8. Purple Sun of Xereus- I was very tempted to take Soul Blight, which is probably the best spell in the lore overall. I took Purple Sun of Xereus because it is a chance at a jackpot of restarting my magic phase with the Lifestealing perk, and because it makes for near-free wins against Ogres, Lizardmen, Dwarfs, Undead and Orcs and Goblins.
My two lesser mages chose High Magic to gain Lilieath's Blessing (+3 to cast), to boost the ward saves of my "front line plug" characters to a 3+, and to help eachother guarantee spell selection. I hardly intend to use either signature spell ever. The spell order in terms of what I would most like to get are:
1. Apotheosis- I would love to have a second heal spell to help with Flesh to Stone, and boosting ward saves is awesome too.
2. Hand of Glory- Helps my shooting, but more importantly it hopefully makes my characters and even elite infantry harder to hit in combat (stacks nicely with Pha's).
3. Arcane Unforging- Basically if I run into Warriors of Chaos this spell could make my life a LOT better. Otherwise it's pretty nice to have around, but not a must-have.
4. Fiery Convocation- Since I am not taking Dwellers this spell is a nice alternative to taking out large infantry units.
5. Tempest- Usually a drop-down spell, but I will keep and use this if my opponent takes large blocks or has lots of shooting.
6. Walk Between Worlds- I would usually tell anyone that this is the best spell in the lore. But it's useful for offensive armies, which is usually the best way to play high elves but not with Teclis. My units need to stay back and shoot, not be trucked around the field. With that said, this could be nice for setting up my dragon princes to snag a war machine on turn 2.
Unique tournament rules and how my army list attempts to abuse them:
Free combat hero on foot- This is what it says. The tournament allows you to take a free hero from your army book up to 130 points, but it must be on foot and it cant have any spells either bound or selected. If it gets killed it's worth zero points to the game. This was a great excuse to field my Damien character, who is a durable bearer of the Other trickster's Shard and fits the slot exactly at 129 points , basically he is a free "front rank plug" for my Teclis list, which depends on Teclis reaching the front rank of the unit as late in the game as possible if not never.
Free "Oh-sheeit" reroll: If a player makes the full donation for the charity, they get a single free reroll on any single die of their choice in each of the five games. I fully realize that my list being so character heavy means a single stroke of bad luck could cost me the entire game at any time, so the free reroll is something I intend to have up my sleeve for the following situations (in order of importance):
1. Missed "Look out Sir" rolls- A major concept of my list is that any of my opponents who take cannons/steam tanks/ironblasters/skullcannons are going to have nothing better to do with this expensive weaponry than try to snipe Teclis through a failed Look out Sir roll. While this is awesome in that it is a low likelihood event and my opponent should lose more through misfires than I will, it is also bad in that it is an absolute jackpot attempt that my opponents are going to be making, often several times per turn. Having a free reroll if Teclis fails his roll could keep him around for several more turns if not the entire game. This list lives and dies with Teclis, and it's nice to have tournament perks in my favor as far as keeping him up.
2. Bad miscasts- I say "bad miscasts", because lots of miscasts aren't that bad at all when all my mages are parked in a unit with the Banner of the World Dragon. The entire unit has a 2+ ward against the templates. Dimensional Cascade is a huge risk however and should always be rerolled (you can reroll one of the two dice and hope it rolls higher).
3. Undercasts-I made Teclis so that he can cast 5 of his spells on two dice on anything but Snake-eyes (or one if he blows the Moonstaff for the free power die per cast), thus maximizing his staff's advantage for a super magic phase. While this should be incredibly efficient, if I roll double ones early in the magic phase it disrupts the entire plan of magical domination. This is definitely a worthy time to use the one-die reroll for a 5/6 chance to ignore this setback.
4. Bad result on the Forbidden Rod- Forbidden Rod (the way I am trying to ignore its side effect), can either be the best 35 points you've ever spent if you roll a 6, or the worst if you roll a 1. This is a great "pro-active" time to use my reroll because I am a lot less likely to roll snake-eyes on two dice than a 1 on one die, so I should always at least get a better result, and every power die counts in this army...
Thanks for still reading lol. All things considered, I would predict that my army should do well against:
Warriors of Chaos: Purple Sun to kill Throgg and his buddies (which any sane umcomped chaos player takes), likely Arcane Unforging to deal with an unkillable character's ward, buffs and hexes up the wazoo to beat up chaos warriors, and Banner of the World Dragon for the popular Nurgle Death Prince, they have small armies so I am not outnumbered too bad for once. And of course fire to slay the dreaded uncle Festus!
Orcs and Goblins, plenty of shooting to snipe out Mangler Squigs. Their armor sucks overall so it's not a bad matchup for our terrible core. Wounding so often on a 5+ stinks but I've dealt with it for 4 editions. Trolls are dealt with by either Flaming Sword or Purple Sun. I think my guys can always be buffed up enough to beat any Savage Orc horde.
Ogre Kingdoms, Lizardmen, Dwarfs: all these guys should just be trashed by Purple Sun spam. Just two of these getting off over the course of a game should guarantee a win against them. Hellheart will cost me a magic phase since I have so many mages in one spot, but the results shouldnt be that bad since only Dimensional Cascade can ignore my 2+ ward saves. Any gutstar is dead. Dwarf artillery mostly have runes making the World Dragon Banner work against them, and my army is not very vulnerable to cannon fire as long as I have my free tournament reroll each game.
Daemons of Chaos: I don't think there is a single way a Daemons player could threaten me, and it's kind of sad because hosing them wasnt an intention in making this list. It's going to be fun to laugh at their Skullcannons though. My characters will all have a 2+ ward save against their whole army, that should break even Epidemus lists.
However, I might struggle against:
Empire: This should be the worst one, while my army gets nice buffs, they don't really provide armor penetration. I only have plague of rust to help, Withering, Flaming Sword and Harmonic Convergence all don't penetrate armor. So a game against a good Empire player would probably involve surviving Dwellers (which is the bane of my army, hence the two dispell scrolls), and getting a few big Savage Beast casts off.
Skaven: This is one of the few armies whose magic phases could overpower mine. I think a good skaven player would just 6-dice Dreaded 13th every turn at me. At least Teclis gives me a chance at removing that spell. Slave hordes should thankfully be easy for me to clear, but this is just a rough army for high elves to face since they have so many ways to just delete our small units.
Dark Elves: Does this really need explaining? It's the old book too since the new book came out less than a month before the tournament.