2000 pts High Elves, Tournament List

Exciting to hear you have a tournament coming up! My general thoughts are as follows, but note: I don’t really play High Elves a whole lot.

For 2k+ games, I normally like to bring a lvl 4. In a tournament, maybe even more so. Which leans me over to list 3.

However, I fear 2 units of 20 Spearmen are just not good enough. They’ll get roflcoptered by many units. Instead, i’d opt to merge those 2 units for 1 fat horde of 10 Spearmen. Less mobile, yes, but you get mobility from the Phoenix and Dragon Princes. But at 10 wide, you’re looking at like 40 attacks to the front.

This feedback assumes no additional models are painted, of course. I don’t know what else you have available.

Yes, of course. The tournament pack is pretty simple overall. 2000 pts, no End Times units or rules, so 25% Lords and Heroes. No single model or unit is allowed to be more than 500 pts, but that's before characters get added in during the game. Spell casting is restricted to wizard level + 2 for the number of dice, ie a level 2 wizard can never use more than 4 dice to cast. The three scenarios are meeting engagement, battleline, and blood and glory, but meeting engagement will use the battleline deployment instead of the diagonal table setup. There are also a few points that can be scored outside of the battles for the following conditions: no wizards in your army, no warmachines in your army, no special characters in your army, and having a fully painted army.

I agree the Spearmen units are small. There wasn't a significant plan associated with that, I just usually bring a unit of 30 Spears and another of 25 when I'm playing at 2500 points, so to drop the list to 2000 I just cut some Spearmen from those units.

I do have some Archers, but they are all unpainted. It would be an interesting challenge to set myself to try to get them done!

Outside of the models used in the above lists, I've also got 2 more Phoenix Guard, 5 more Swordmasters, a Griffon Rider, a Dragon Mage of Caledor, and about 15 Spearmen. I tend to buy much faster than I paint, so a lot of my Elves are still on sprues!

So an adjusted List 3 would be:
Archmage Level 4 w/ Talisman of Preservation, Dispel Scroll, Lore of Shadow (290)
Caradryan on Ashtari (420)
5x Ellyrian Reavers w/ Bows (85)
43x Spearmen FC (417)
10x Dragon Princes of Caledor FC (320)
Flamespyre Phoenix (225)
Frostheart Phoenix (240)
1997

I'm in the "one block of Spearelves" crowd. Yes, you'll get more attacks from two blocks, but Spearelves (especially HE ones) are rubbish - they die easily and put out puny S3 attacks. You need ranks to break Steadfast (vital as your other units will struggle to break that, so will need to be in combat alongside them) and also to provide them some staying power, as they will be slaughtered easily. I don't think you need to go up to horde size - I'm with Strut on that, at least.

Your adjusted list 3 gets the Spearelves right, but is weak on overall model count, plus banners for blood + glory. The chief strength/killing power of High Elves is their three elite Special infantry unit - Phoenix Guard, Swordmasters and White Lions. Any list that omits them entirely needs to have a clear plan, and I'm not sure I see yours in that list. Phoenixes are good, but they don't have Star Dragon durability and damage output. Dragon Princes are terrible if they don't break a unit on the charge, and as Strut says you lack the chaff to ensure you get the right match-ups. Your Archmage is also going to be in your only ranked combat unit rather than bunkered somewhere safer (e.g. Archers).

He's a lovely model but I'd suggest dropping at least Caradryan to get a unit of PG/SM/WL in, and potentially another phoenix and/or rank of Dragon Princes to fit in a BSB, Archers and Eagle.

If you really want to go for three phoenixes (and I can understand how cool the appeal is), I think the Archmage needs to go so you can up your model count elsewhere.

I think you've got more balance there. I would suggest changing the Sea Guard to Archers if you think you can get some painted in time, as they're cheaper and have a better range - the Sea Guard aren't offering you anything extra at that unit size.

I like the new third list and also agree with two earlier posts about archers.

I like this more and think it's likely that in at least one of the games you will be glad that you included a BSB and/or eagle.

Making a 50 spear elf horde unit flee and killing it with a Varghulf off a lucky terror test fail (due to no bsb reroll) is a classic Warhammer memory I have.

I also think the Swordmasters add some great killing power. The razor banner will help them strike fear into the likes of cavalry.