High Elves 2000pts

I'd suggest a few changes if you're planning on playing more competitively.

First, I'd drop the bows on the Reavers, or drop the spears, though I'd drop the bows first. Having both means the unit wants to shoot and fight which is usually not a good place to be. My reason for losing the bows is that 5 S3 shots that have a movement penalty pretty much every turn isn't going to do much of anything to anyone you care about hurting.

Secondly, I'd lose the Sea Guard. Sea Guard are in an awkward position in the HE army where they don't shoot as well as Archers and they don't fight as well as Spearmen. Archers have better range, and that 30" can be very useful if fighting other shooty armies as you can match their best range or outrange things like Handgunners, and they are cheaper so you get more shots from them. Spearmen are in a similar boat. While they don't actually have any fighting advantage over Sea Guard, you'll have 4 Spearmen for every 3 Sea Guard and those numbers will tell. I've only heard of Sea Guard working well when used in a massive horde of 40+ and having the BotWD in the unit at the same time, but even then I'm not a fan of them.

Thirdly, while I am a huge fan of Swordmasters, they don't work that well in your list for one main reason. Swordmasters need to be buffed by High Magic to be effective, otherwise they are far too easy to destroy from range and they are also quite frail in CC. Your list only has a lvl 2 High Mage and that will be competing directly with your lvl 4 for power dice, meaning your Swordmasters will likely be stuck with either a 6++ or no ward save through most of the game, and they'll just die too quickly. I've found that even with a lvl 4 High Mage as the only wizard in the army it can be tough to get them better than a 5++ due to spell selection, magic defense, and power dice.

Finally, I'd suggest a strategy modification for the list, which should be easy to do by cutting points above as I have suggested. Your list is very slow, and it has to attack. Every gunline list will dramatically out-shoot you, which means you need to advance, and most CC lists will outmaneuver you. When advancing the bows from the Sea Guard will get even worse, making them less workable. The Reavers are fast, but they are only good for chaff. A gunline will blow them away and an offensive force will either have things to clear chaff, or will just kill them in CC. Nothing will really care about getting flanked by them if you attack. I'd recommend getting either more shooting power, adding a 4th Bolt Thrower, replacing Sea Guard with Archers, and adding Sisters of Avelorn to try to make a proper gunline, or replacing the Sea Guard with Spears/Silver Helms, adding a Phoenix, and adding Dragon Princes/Chariots to give you much better movement to allow you to close with an enemy and choose your combats.


All of these suggestions are of course based on not knowing at all what other models you have, and are also purely based on making the list as competitive as possible. Your list looks fun for friendlier games, and is actually more competitive than many lists I play in friendly games!

For some small and easy modifications, you could try to give your Archmage the Book of Hoeth, that's a fantastic item. Adding the Razor Standard to the Swordmasters also makes them hit much harder against what they classically struggle against, high armor. You could pull nearly enough points for both of those changes purely from Core. Another option is to give the Ring of Fury to your lvl 2 and stick him with the Swordmasters. Usually one die will cast it and it's an easy ward save buff, for fewer points you can give the lvl 2 the Ironcurse Icon, which gives you that starting ward save of 6++ for the Swordmasters in case you run into warmachines.

Let me clear some things up. This is more for friendly games than to be competitive, though yes I would like to win!! (MwahHahaha!) but this is just a list to play with my group and we play friendly competitive.

I have the reavers, 20 Seagaurd, 3 Bolt throwers + crew, 2 mages, noble bsb, prince on foot, and prince on a griffin built.

I have 3 boxes white lions, 2 boxes pheonix guard, 1 lion chariot, 2 boxes of dragon princes, 2 boxes of pheonix, 2 spear/seaguard boxes to work with.

I agree on the Phoenix. At this points level I'd suggest one main infantry combat block and then a supporting cavalry block since you don't have a bunch of characters to make a cavalry bus. Then the Frostheart added in of course. Your main block could either be White Lions or Phoenix Guard with the Razor Standard, both work very well. For the support I'd run Dragon Princes, 7-10 strong.

I have run it before, but not very successfully. I've only run it as a Prince on a Griffon, and because of the Griffon not having an armor save and not having great toughness it dies far too quickly, even to just massed S3. I've got a painted Griffon and like you said it's a wonderful model, so I want to figure out how to use it. My plan is to run a flying circus using a Noble BSB on Griffon teaming up with a dragon lord and at least one Phoenix. At that point the enemy will not want to shoot the things that are good at killing monsters at the Griffon and maybe it will survive better.

Sea Guard are only really worth going for if you've got a Sea Helm BSB in the unit, to get them that vital reform from "wide shooty unit" to "massed ranks defensive unit". It shouldn't be a problem to play your Noble BSB as a Sea Helm, although the latter's equipment options are somewhat limited compared to a Noble's.

Are you better off sacrificing the S&S for the ranks? I'm not sure that is always the case unless you are totally dependent on steadfast. Thus I am not really very keen on Sea Helms unless you are sticking them on a Skycutter (which I've never used but they sound quite funky)

Everyone dogs on the seagaurd which I get but I started with island of blood so I ended up with seagaurd. I have 2 boxes to make spearelves or seagaurd with so I COULD build them as just spearelves and use seagaurd as the back ranks running them as spears.