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Work in progress.
To start with, one should consider how to make an army. I don’t believe in tailoring, so I’ll only be providing a rough sketch to army composition.
In essence, with high elves there are 4 army types. There is the fast offensive, a balanced offensive, or a defensive list. An offensive list relies on fast elements and fast marching infantry to engage the enemy and decisively beat them in melee. Most standard builds are made around this style these days simply because the star dragon is so popular. The second kind relies on slower moving infantry, less cavalry and modest shooting. While they can remain static in defense, they must position to charge in the latter half of the game to gain any serious points. The last relies on a strong position to sit back, as well as ranged threats to draw in targets. If they don’t have enough firepower going out, they will fail to force the enemy into positions they want you to be in.
The fourth and final type is the perplexingly common poorly focused army. That one with 20 archers, 3 bolt throwers then a star dragon and dragon princes with maybe an elite infantry unit trying to keep up with the main clash. This army is designed to counteract its own strength, wanting to shoot as much with the powerful bolt throwers as well as the few archer units, and it also wants to get into melee as fast as possible. Due to the high elves specialist nature, high points cost and the draconic point sink, this is typically only passable due to the inability of some generals to deal with the star dragon.
A high offense army should contain only enough shooting to reduce a unit of 5 flanking fast cavalry down to 2. Typically, a bolt thrower and a unit of shadow warriors will do. You should not send your expensive hammer units chasing down fast cav, though a chariot, if one is included, can be decent in this role. There should be 2 small units (though stronger than 10 strong) of spear elves moving rapidly to either pin elements in place for short periods of time while your cavalry, dragon and chariot mow through the enemy, or to eliminate threats to your flanks. This army should have 3 eagles and a bolt thrower, using the eagles to harry shooters. Even if the eagle only holds one round in melee against that dwarf cannon crew, it did its job, preventing it from firing at your dragon. If it dies to a hail of Empire bullet spam, it prevented your knights from getting chewed up. If it gets run over by a unit of chaos knights, but gets them in a good position for you, it did its job.
A medium offense army should be worried about positioning, presenting enough fire to weaken hard elements (monsters, heavy cavalry) and seriously diminish enemy shooting. Lothern seaguard are the ideal for this purpose, taken in two fairly beefy units. They can severely injure monsters and can decimate shooters posted on hills while remaining a viable part of the strategy past the mid game, providing the same benefits to the army as the spear elves above. This army should not feature longbows, as they provide no late game benefit, and give away easier points than the seaguard in ranged duels or against fast elements. The elements must also be supported with various high strength, high power units such as a flanking unit of dragon princes with the banner of Ellyrion, swordmasters or white lions. Chariots are less desireable as this army presents fewer cannon targets making them essentially tinder, though they can be effective when facing armies without strength 7. This army needs to delay the enemy a little through use of great eagles. A 2/2 rare mix is pretty much the ideal.
The last desirable kind is the defensive list. Ideally, this list will have 20-30 archers, some anchoring elite units (phoenix guard and white lions are ideal) and will likely focus on Teclis. 3 bolt throwers and an eagle are the ideal mix for this one. It’s also the only army that I’d find shadow warriors relevant. Chariots in this army can be held behind terrain, because unlike the other two lists, you likely won’t leave your half of the board.
Now when deploying against daemons, you need to consider your style of army. If you took a dragon with the princes, you’ll be looking to hit his heavy support elements (daemons are the case where support doesn’t mean cheap, and certainly doesn’t mean a waste of time.) and then envelope his slower moving elements.
When using an offensive army, I like to position around a few turns, since he can’t really effectively retaliate with shooting. Magic should be nearly ineffectual due to high leadership, unrealistically high cost of getting a good nurgle magic offense, or the fact that you’re ridiculously mean to a tzeentch army, as at least 2/3 of your points should be immune to fire, and the rest should be further back. As such, the dragon should be dancing around flaming units for a turn or two. When against Slaanesh, keep him back a bit more, such that both he and a unit of dragon princes have the same field of vision most of the time. If the dragon is forced to charge, so do your dragon princes.
A trick I like to use vs. Slaanesh is to have my dragon princes pointed towards the section of the board I want to take out, say, that section has a unit of flamers, and I need to take them out. I move my unit of princes such that they can readily see the flamers, and then I move and eagle to block my charge arc against the Slaanesh portion of his army, keeping my eagle’s eyes averted as well. This prevents Siren song from pulling my units when I don’t want them to be pulled, or it forces him to move his fast elements with the siren song into a position less central to his army as a whole (which in turn means I don’t have to worry as much about getting flanked) Other than this, the highly offensive mobile army should basically move in quickly destroying fast support, then moving in to kill the main units via mass charges.
The big obstacle I find in these games is the greater daemon. Whether my star dragon prince kills it, or it kills my star dragon is basically a crap shoot. I can usually eke out a bit of an advantage by throwing a suicide unit at it to knock off a wound or two, but other than that, it may result in them in a deadlock and our armies squared off otherwise. Alternatively, they ignore each other and you both lose gobs of troops to the monsters.
The middle style army relies on its lothern seaguard and bolt throwers to take down the big nasty in a couple turns. You likely won’t actually kill it in two, but you will force it into a combat it can’t win, or will prevent it from popping out until the game’s already mostly over. Basically, focus fire on the big bad, and if you’ve shaved off 4 wounds over 2 rounds of shooting/magic, he won’t be able to frontally charge any of your infantry units (because this list cannot have “soft” targets like archers or reavers.) By the third round, you’ll either be dealing with an injured, rushed greater daemon in melee, which will likely die of attrition if you can keep his supporting elements from assisting it meaning you should advance your army, or you’ll want to hang back and shoot one more round. This army should have medium-high magic, which is generally considered sub-par. I use2 level 2s, Eltharion and a BSB with the radiant gem of hoeth. I put the mages into elite infantry and Eltharion and the BSB into my sea guard, which makes every unit a significant ranged and melee threat, though of course, my mages bail before they get into melee vs. daemons because they’re unlikely to get sniped outside of units.
In this army, dragon princes with the banner of ellyrion are basically essential, as is a battle standard bearer. The dragon princes in the difficult terrain are nearly impossible to root out for a daemon army (what with their fire immunity) and they can provide devastating bullshit flanks ™. This is the ideal for eliminating hound units. Even without a commander this unit will plow straight through a unit of hounds, even if they only kill one with 9 attacks. (which is the average)
Infantry should advance slowly, always moving for a better position, not just to get closer. My buddy commented that the most infuriating thing is that m6y line is never straight, but frankly Hannibal’s line wasn’t straight at Cannae either, so nyah nyah. Eagles should be put in front of enemy units at funny angles, forcing them to either present a flank to their forward units, or walk slowly up to your lines. This is doubly important in that it stops you from having to charge units with the siren song.
Your units should be able to go toe to toe with the daemons in melee, holding out long enough to grind them down to nothing. Remember, you have ASF, which means their fragile troops go down just as hard as your fragile troops, but you get to do it first. The only real problem for that sort of thing is a nurgle heavy army, but I generally only see 1-2 blocks of that tomfoolery, which gets into melee a bit later than anything else. The point of them seems to be denying you their points, and to hold up your big crucial unit, but this style of army shouldn’t have one. All you really need to do is insure you have a unit that’s immune to fear up against them, or that you whittle them down with magic enough to outnumber them. If I see big blocks, I sometimes take lore of fire to try and spam their numbers down with fireballs.
_________________ As far as I know, there are only two things that deserve the fear of humanity. Uncertainty, and certainty. The fear of what is certain, one can come to terms with, while the uncertain, one cannot. I seek knowledge because I am a coward.
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