To begin, I will say, shooting will not win battles alone in Warhammer. If you want that kind of game, play 40K. However, shooting can be highly useful, and even though High Elves lack the formidable firepower other armies posses, it is still useful and important to a balanced army. Shooting can perform several roles. Bear with me-

1. Large Target Elimination

There is nothing worse for elves with limited combat power to take down a Blood Dragon Vampire riding a Zombie Dragon, kitted out with magic items and Bloodline powers. However, the normally difficult job of killing this beast can be eased with shooting. Large targets cannot hide easily, and all shots directed at them receive a bonus to hit of +1. Thus, they are prime targets for your army’s missile fire. A couple of good Bolt Thrower hits can seriously weaken a monster or kill it, an otherwise difficult proposition for a combat oriented High Elf army. Even those strength 3 arrows can do damage eventually. Remember, it is better to concentrate all your firepower on a single target, to reduce their effectiveness. Even if the chances of wounding aren’t good, it is better to fire at a critical target that is difficult to damage, than shoot at a less concerning, but softer enemy. There are of course exceptions to this principal, but concentrating shooting on a single target increases it’s effectiveness.

2. Elimination of Flankers

Flanking units of cavalry or exotic units are a concern to all armies, ours is no exception. They can disrupt your plans and pose a serious danger to your soldiers. That is why I often take archers in a balanced force. Their issues with toughness and armor are not so severe, as most Fast Cavalry targets have only T3 and a 5+ save, making them ideal for this purpose. Bolt Throwers are even better, and can take out heavily armored knights as well. The vaunted (and often highly overrated) Elven ballistic skill comes into play here. Hitting on a better number than their Dwarven and Goblin counterparts with a Str. 6 bolt that ignores saves make Repeater Bolt Throwers utterly deadly. Volley shots are still deadly effective against scouting skirmishers, and will seriously damage Fast Cavalry as well. Archers are also at an advantage against these targets, where terrain and formation makes being able to hit as important as wounding power.

3. Weakening Enemy Units

Often during deployment, units of similar strength will be deployed as to attack one another. A fair fight, and the outcome will be generated by chance. But no one ever won battles by committing to completely fair fights and waiting for fate to determine the victor. To win combat we need to have several points of combat resolution to win convincingly enough to break an enemy unit. Missile fire can help. Consider you and your opponent have deployed 2 units of roughly equal size opposite another. Both have a standard and 3 ranks. If nothing intervenes, the outcome is a stalemate, no one can win by enough points to tip the balance in their favor. However, a couple volleys of missile fire into the unit can severely hurt it’s combat potential. The unit will lose ranks, and the outnumbering bonus may shift from their favor to yours (Outnumbering is actually worth 2pts of combat res. As generally if you don’t have it your opponent will). Now your unit has the edge.

4. Protecting your Units

Elven units are lightly armored, as unfortunate as it is. They are very vulnerable to any missile fire directed at them, and Handguns in particular are murderous. These casualties generally can’t be fully prevented, but the damage can be lessened with your own missile armed soldiers. In general, missile units and artillery are lightly armored, and so can be hurt with your shooting. Shooting back at T3, unarmored handgunners often prevents your cavalry from finding themselves riddled with bullet holes. This works to a lesser degree against artillery, but since most archery will actually hit the warmachine itself, more conventional methods are often more effective. Still, if the need is great. . . .



Now that the basic roles of missile armed soldiers has been described, we can move onto the units involved.

1. Archers-

Archers are a unit often eschewed by High Elf players in favor of more cavalry. This is easy to understand, as we they pay 3-4 points more per archer as the next race, with only an increase in BS as a notable upgrade. The unit can still be highly useful in several roles, if you are willing to pay for it. To begin, archers are great for dealing with light units of Pistoliers and Mounted Squires that pose a threat to any unit if allowed to get in a favorable position. Of course, one can just adapt their formation to counter an attack, but this is of course the point. Also, against lightly armored infantry, even those strength 3 arrows can pose a threat, and are useful in reducing the target’s combat potential. At 12pts/model, you cannot afford to have Archers in the rear rank shooting nothing. They are most efficiently used in a line formation on one flank, or deployed on a hill in ranked formation. Please note that there are battles were it is not wise to use archers. Armies such as Chaos Warriors and Dwarves are well armored and tough, so will resist most arrow fire. Archers are meant for light targets. On a final note, Archers can perform well as “detachments” for larger units, if you want to add missile fire to your battle line. See Ryo's article on the subject http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=100

2. Shadow Warriors


Strangely enough, I never buy Shadow Warriors for their ability to shoot, but they serve many other purposes. First of all, they are only marginally more expensive than Archers, but are more resilient thanks to Skirmishing and their Light Armor. 8 Shadow Warriors is often more effective than 10 Archers, as all the models in the unit can generally see the target, not just the front rank. Their warmachine hunting, march blocking duties aside, Shadow Warriors have 2 main applications. The first is scouting ahead of the army to get in a good shooting position, with the ability to snipe lone Wizards or warmachines. If your lucky you can also get close enough you march block. Second, I use a large unit of Shadow Warriors to screen my army from shooting threats in the initial turns. At long range, they are generally hit on 6s and so will prevent your valuable cavalry from getting shot. One resilient unit absorbs all shooting threats essentially. They advance with the cavalry close behind, shooting as they go. When your cavalry charges in they can resume a more traditional shooting role. There is no right way to deploy Shadow Warriors. Their scouting rule makes them very versatile, so use discretion when deciding where to put them. Against an army with a couple warmachines or vulnerable characters, but little else in the way of missile units, scout them. On the other hand, an army with many missile infantry units, or combat specialists, keep them back to screen your units. A useful combination I’ll pass on is a large unit of Shadow Warriors led by a Commander w/ Sacred Incense and the Amulet of the Purifying Flame. This unit is almost impossible to damage with conventional shooting (Humans hit on 6s at point blank range) and is also resistant to magic. Such a unit is the cure for horrid units like Warplock Jezzails, rendering them almost ineffective instead of putting hole in your Silver Helms.


3. Bolt Throwers

Certainly a more commonly found rare choice, the Repeater Bolt Thrower needs little defense- it is a powerful, solid war machine, capable of skewering armored Knights and monsters with a single bolt, or mowing down infantry with multiple shot. However, Bolt Throwers are at their most efficient when paired with archers. Its is often the case that the prime targets for you Bolt Throwers’ attention in screened by a cheap, light unit. This can easily be remedied with archers. A volley at the screening unit will often cause several casualties, either clearing LOS to the unit behind, or panicking the screen, causing them to flee out of the way. Now your Bolt Throwers can do what they do best. Archers also serve to augment Bolt Throwers when the target is infantry. Their combined fire is more likely to cause panic, and reduce the units effectiveness. The unit of Archers is unlikely to scratch a unit by itself, but with the 100pt Bolt Thrower augmenting it’s fire, panic is likely to ensue, and against low LD armies, this is more damaging than the casualties themselves. Bolt Throwers are best deployed in places with good LOS, and positioning them on the flanks will increase the likelihood of hitting a unit in the side and getting more kills. If the safety of a Bolt Thrower is considered key, forests are ideal. Though the artillery’s LOS is decreased, they will receive a healthy -1 from missile fire, and any unit attempting to attack them will be stuck in difficult terrain for several turns.

Protecting your Bolt Throwers-

It is obvious that Bolt Throwers are vulnerable, lacking fighting skill, equipment, and numbers that make combat units effective. They will not stand up to any direct attack, and thus need protection. A small unit, be they Shadow Warriors, Reavers, or Archers, can be useful for defending your Bolt throwers. The choice of unit is not very important, but being inexpensive and fast is helpful. Reavers are the best, so I will use them for this example. Since Bolt throwers are generally deployed on hills, a small unit of Reavers can be deployed at the base of the hill to protect the artillery and react to enemy maneuvers. Take care to angle the unit away from the bolt thrower they are defending, so if they are broken, the pursuing unit will not attack the bolt thrower. It is also important to keep a couple dispel scrolls handy, as spells can be deadly. Please note, that it is not worth defending a single bolt thrower. A battery of 2 or more is a priority, but if one is being attacked, be happy. The unit committed is probably going to be worth more points, and spend several turns away from the main action. They award few victory points for being destroyed, and can generally handle themselves, hurting the enemy with a volley before they are destroyed or engaged.

Ellyrion Reavers-
Reavers are not best used as a missile unit. Bows drive their cost to exceed that of a fully armored Silver Helm, with few benefits. I am an advocate of using Reavers with Spears alone, it really is the most efficient use of points. However, with bows they can perform a couple specific roles. To begin, Reavers with bows perform well in an assassination role. Being able to make a march move and still fire their longbows, they can move into a position where they can legally fire at a wizard skulking beside an infantry unit for cover. After a few games were you pull this trick, your regular opponents will start putting their characters in units, drastically reducing their LOS and flexibility. They are also useful for baiting units out of a battle line, their missile fire, while largely ineffective, can still provide an annoyance to the enemy. If they charge your Reavers, you flee and rally. If not, there is little disadvantage, a number of enemy units is slowed, and slowly taking casualties. In general, a unit with bows is more enticing to the enemy to charge, even if it leads to a bad position. Just be sure to keep Reavers out of sight of missile fire, as it only takes one good volley to eliminate this lightly armored, small unit.

Mercenary Cannon
Ok, well this is unorthodox, but as an Empire player, I have a soft spot for cannon, and often include them in my Asur armies. Why you ask? We already have Bolt Throwers. Well that is true, Bolt Throwers are versatile, powerful weapons, but in many ways, they are inferior to cannon.

1. Cannon are immune to screening- A single resilient unit can block LOS to a large portion of the opponents army, greatly limiting your targets. Of course, with cannon you can just bounce a ball straight through the screen.
2. Cannons can snipe- While this is a horrible, cheesy tactic, it is a formidable one, that keeps enemy heroes from lurking around behind units.
3. Cannons always hit- No more relying on 4+ to hit at extreme range, as long as you can guess.
4. Cannon often hit more targets- If you hit the side of a formation, it will likely go through and hit 8-10 models, and even hit multiple units.
5. Cannon have better strength- Thus they can take out enemy warmachines and monsters more easily.

Ok, I’ve made my cannon point, lets move on.


Characters with magical bows

There are 2 main combinations here, that almost everyone has though of, but they deserve a mention. They are a Commander mounted on a Great Eagle w/ Reaver Bow, and a Prince wearing Shadow Armor w/ The Bow of the Seafarer. Both are expensive, and both have their purpose. Lets start with the Commander. His Great Eagle mount gives him great mobility, and access to good LOS. He can charge into vulnerable units at the rear of the enemy’s formation, but you have other Eagles to do so, and this wastes his Bow. He is most useful in sniping vulnerable targets, as it is easy to make a character the closest eligible target with 20” flight move. This means the Commander may shoot wizards easily, or catch a vulnerable unit hiding behind another. It is best not to waste his mobility by aiming for infantry. He can do this on foot. It is best to move behind the enemy’s battle line to block marches, and shoot from there. The second combination, is the Prince. Consideration should be given to whether or not you will give him a Shadow Warrior bodyguard. He is expensive, so it might be a wise choice. Either decision makes no difference in role. The Prince hunts down priority targets with his Bolt Thrower! The usual target priority is not the same here, because it is not worth it to paste a single crew member of a Cannon. This can mean 2 things, depending on your opponent’s army composition. You can shoot well armored targets such as Knights, without going through a weak screening unit, or you can attempt flank shots on infantry units. The former is probably better, as a well placed shot to the side will take out several models at once often forcing a panic test. If you eliminate a rank, the Prince has seriously damaged the unit’s combat potential, which is a victory in itself.


Conclusion-

Even for High Elves, overpriced as their vaunted archery is, shooting is still a powerful force that can serve to augment your battle plans and lend versatility to your armies. I hope I’ve given my fellow Asur some motivation to use those Archers collecting dust on the shelf. Please feel free to add comments to this article, so I can improve on it at a later date.

Thanks to Acorn-Anvil for his comment regarding Archers as detachments.