Help vs HE bowline needed pls

[Brassorbs]

Hi folks,

My friend has taken to fielding a HE bowline:
Blocks of 18 archers
Several eagle bolt throwers
A big block of maidenguard
+ Alith Anar / Reaper bow hero
+ Everqueen
+ Handmaiden
+ BSB
Blocks of 7 Ellyrian reavers

To me it seems the cheesiest list, but it can be VERY effective and I'm really struggling against it.
He's moved to this mostly due to lack of skill/confidence with movement and real tactics, so he just wants to lord it over in Magic n Shooting.

I like to actually play, but without going for long range and hiding behind woods (Acorns) trueflight or buildings and trying to out shoot him (v expensive for us), then I'm at a loss what to do. Anything that goes near the one unit that matters just dies and I'm struggling to remove the other units without losing too much that I can afford to just avoid the Maidenguard.

Please advise
Other than Sisiters of the Thorn I have most of the WE range in decent numbers, so I can play several builds. I'm just not sure where to start.
I confess, I've even considered simplyto refusing to play him until he tries a different tactic, but that doesn't feel right.

[Aezeal]

Inform me more of what the problem is with the maiden guard.. what are their stats and special rules.

Anyway untill I have that information a general view: Basicly we WE are a shooty army and have low armor and relative high points per wound. That means that shooting is very effective against us. If they have very much archers you can't just advance to them because then you will be in the situation we usually put our opponents in.

Personally I perfer playing shooty and while it would be a slaughter on both sides I do think you should be able to win that fight. If he doesn't bring a Phoenix or dragons that means you will have the advantage in flying. You should be able to get a unit of 3 warhawks against the boltthrowers, after that they can charge archers too.
Basicly I'd just play shoot and avoid. WR should be able to pass around the maidens and should win combats against reavers.
Alar might be a problem... probably wise to engage him in melee asap just so he can't shoot. Might be a nice thing for KB warhawks too...

[Coldpsyker]

So I take it all are playing games of at least 2400 pts? And does he take banner of the world dragon?

My thoughts:

-For magic, take a level 4 with forbidden rod and lore of dark magic, and a dispel scroll caddy with shadow
--Dark is good against this enemy list, because apart from shroud of despair, all the spells are focused on either messing up bowlines or deleting enemy troops- when in doubt, blast his T3 elves with a souped up doombolt.
--Scroll Caddy is there mostly for Melkoths- That+word of pain should give him food for thought- he cannot kill what he cannot hit

-Dryads, Treekin, and Skirmishers, OH MY!
--If there is one good thing about forest spirits, is that they are fairly durable against light bow fire. The bolt throwers, Alith Anar, and flaming will be a problem, but that is why you screen them with skirmishers. I tend to use wardancers for this, but as your opponent seems to be going for a pure shooty list, regular scouts will probably serve you better.
--Try to always make it to where your enemies are suffering a -3 to hit (cover, long range, skirmisher, etc)
--Trueflight arrows on all your shooty guys- does he target the enemy archers which are whittling away at his guys, or does he target the angry trees that are coming for him?

-Warhawk Riders
--Good all-round choice, and are resistent to light bowfire being skirmishing

-you can use your free wood and deploy it somewhat aggressively- somewhere in the middle of the table to give your guys maximum cover

*also remember we are *technically* a force of order, so maiden guard do not get their arrows of isha to apply*

An example list for 2500
Spellweaver, 4++, Forbidden Rod, Dark magic, lvl4 (is with dryads- most dark magic spells are short ranged)
Spellsinger, dispel scroll, lvl1
BSB, Bow of Loren, HoDA
25 dryads
18 GG, trueflight
10 GG, trueflight
6 treekin
6 treekin
8 scouts, trueflight
8 scouts, trueflight
8 scouts, trueflight
3 warhawk riders
7 waywatchers
* this is just something I whipped up, so it is very crude

I hope this helps!

[Phil Rossiter]

I would try to work out a list, based on which troops you like, that you think will be reasonably competitive against most enemies. Then tweak it the minimum necessary to deal with this one. There is a lot to be said for playing a list consistently. You learn how to use it's strengths and improve as a player.

[Avian]

Our archery is more expensive but more effective. If he wants an archery pissing contest then give him one. There are two ways to go about it, one is to go msu 10 man true flight glade guard units. This will limit the damage he can do to you. The other way is a block of thirty glade guard in a wood with a high weaver. Give them swift shiver shards and put hand of glory one them and watch as they delete units one at a time.

[ScottyDo]

I'd spam HBT scouts to drop his RBT's turn one, then run two or three treemen at him. Most small arms fire will bounce right off them, and they can absolutely ruin his archer units. Lore of life to heal wounds lost during the advance and you're all set. TFA glade guard out range his sisters and should make short with of that unit unless it's carrying the BotWD. Finish off the list with WHR for any remaining points. They're also quite resilient to small arms fire and should work over his archers and reavers pretty good.

[Aezeal]

ORRRR:.

Bring Malekith the eternity king to crush this last remant of HE nationalism. Nothing in that list can even harm him.

[Rogue Sun]

Take the Acorn and put as many forests between you and him as possible. Then load up on trueflight arrows. Use Arcane Unforging to destroy the BotWD and that unit will come down like crazy. When you force them to suffer a -2 attack roll while you're consistently hitting on 3's you should be able to outshoot him.

[astorre]

What is your list? Honestly that's not a hard list. Its a bit tailored to fight elves but not much killin power. Heavens would wreck it, Shadow too. I also suggest Warhawks. Id add Hagbane Scouts and Waywatchers.
I think you're defeatin yourself. Sayin he lacks.skill and refusin to play him wont make you a better player.

[astorre]

And I wouldn't bother with Acorn. Its better in combat lists.

[Aezeal]

Btw while we are talking about archery:

How would just going only bowmen work? (and some warmachine hunter/ marching deniers, I'd say 6 warhakws in 2 units)
The idea would be to get a big unit of swift shiver or hagbanes (rerolling for more poison) in the back and then lots of units of 10 hagbane GG in front (w/o expensive musicians or banners !). You basicly woudl shoot at what ever comes near and just sacrifice a unit of 10 to whatever comes near. If you deploy way back you should be shooting at least 2 turns before anything comes close. Then you can just feed them a few units of 150 points (I know not cheap). This idea would be improved by getting a 2nd mage with undead lore to create more speedbumps next to the highweaver with the larger archer unit so you can shoot a bit longer.


Would that work?

For a more serious idea I'd basicly go with cold psykers list but 3 more warhakws and just a lot of wildriders instead of all that forest spirits stuff. Place the wildriders way back and under cover and only advance when something comes near. If he REALLY doesn't bring any monsters you might even just go all swift shiver arrows on all archers.

[Rogue Sun]

And I wouldn't bother with Acorn. Its better in combat lists.

HUGELY disagree. Combat lists don't benefit from the Acorn at all. You lose your own ranks when in a forest plus you likely give your opponents the ability to gain poison attacks. Forcing your opponents to slog through a forest while they get shot to death, are taking a ton of unhindered bow fire and then hitting them while they're still in it so they can't make use of their ranks is a significantly better plan than trying to out combat your opponent with forests.

This is especially effective against BS shooting armies as they're suffering a -2 to hit your troops while your guys are moving around and shooting just fine. Try it out sometime, you'll see I'm right.

[astorre]

Haha well... You make quite a few assumptions there. I will say if you are using combat blocks (which id try to steer you away from) its probably Rangers, so you'd make your Acorn woods cause fear, not poison. Eternal Guard don't care because they're stubborn.
But anyways, a good combat list is likely Wild Rider heavy, where you don't have ranks, but your opponent does. So your opponent has to get in those woods, to kill your scouts/waywatchers, who are stubborn. Then your Wild Riders charge, kill a bunch, opponent is not steadfast, they break.
They also give cover to your fragile units, and Warhawks are stubborn as well
Try it sometime

[Rogue Sun]

Haha well... You make quite a few assumptions there. I will say if you are using combat blocks (which id try to steer you away from) its probably Rangers, so you'd make your Acorn woods cause fear, not poison. Eternal Guard don't care because they're stubborn.
But anyways, a good combat list is likely Wild Rider heavy, where you don't have ranks, but your opponent does. So your opponent has to get in those woods, to kill your scouts/waywatchers, who are stubborn. Then your Wild Riders charge, kill a bunch, opponent is not steadfast, they break.
They also give cover to your fragile units, and Warhawks are stubborn as well
Try it sometime

Eh, different strokes. I've tried it your way numerous times and quite frankly it just doesn't have the effectiveness of making your opponent come to you. More arrows > more spears.

[Aezeal]

I agree with using more bows however I'm not sure the acorn is worth the investment.. I'd rather put another 100 points of scouts on the table.

[edmondj]

If you want to best him without going full shooty snooty yourself, here's things to remember:

The most important thing is immune to psychology. Rangers are a good choice as are dryads, treekin, treemen and wild riders. And war dancers!

However, rangers and wild riders are vulnerable. No problem, just screen them!

Put a front line of war dancers and dryads (small units) and put the rangers and wild riders behind. Treemen can soak up a lot of damage and am ancient can even recuperate the odd sound here and there so they can go in the open.

Finally war hawks are relatively cheap and tough and are very mobile. You can't go wrong with them!

[Phil Rossiter]

I wondered about this.

Are infantry models tall enough to screen cavalry?

[astorre]

Hey phil, I think you get the cover bonus for shootin through units period.
I agree with more bows. I won a gt with 90 shots & 3x5 wild riders. My problem with the acorn is that you're probably gonna want a dispel scroll somewhere. That means a hero level wizard. At that point you're lookin at another 150pts or so invested in gettin an extra tree or two on the table that could be goin to more scouts or waywatchers.
I'm even against the acorn in combat lists, but I figure it would do best in a 3x8 wild rider list where you might want a lv2 heavens anyway. you can still get 50-60 shots in that list comfortably but the list is about gettin them into combat. The cover from the acorn, plus miasma and iceshard, make that happen.

[Tanglewood]

A lot of suggestions seems to revolve around tailoring your list which I'm strongly against. It makes you a weaker player. Rather have an all round list you play often as you'll learn more and more subtlety of the game if you stick with it. A player with an ok list playing it regularly beats an optimised list being rolled out first time, everytime.

Saying that (and given that I went through a spate of club games playing this kind of HE list), what can we do? You'll lose in a straight up arrow fight. We pay dearly for ap, poison, no armour, etc on our list which serve no purpose in this matchup whilst HE archers are cheap as chip in comparison and is almost as effective at killing us in return.

If you're playing shooty list, you should adjust to be heavier on the scouts. Minimal drops (3 core gg, bunch of fast cav in symmetrical formation) reveals not much about what you're going to do and help you get first turn. The scouts/ww then stack a flank and break it to resume the classic crescent formation. This is a tactic you can play most match ups so heavier scouts makes sense list wise but also more importantly, scouts can screen your blocks. Find woods, sit scout in it, sit behind scouts. With long range, thats 6s to hit generally or 7s if they move so you can start winning the arrow attrition war. Thirdly, consider shadow lvl 1s or heaven lvl 2. I've been playing with both and they're great in most games, especially a shadow lvl 1. Miasma on ballistic skills can neutralise big blocks. If they dispel it, great. Go for the big spell of your chosen lore. With heavens, you're looking for the ice shard, the comet, the chain lightning, the curse of midnight mind. They're all good vs bowlines which will also help you in mirror matches and against shooty dwarves. With your cav elements, you either have to withdraw and redeploy elsewhere or if you have enough, go for it. Use one of them as suicide screen for the others. You only need 1 WR block to make it in because it can destroy the whole backline and make up for the points of the suicide unit. Sisters bunker imo looks good initially but actually they aren't worth it. I played with sister bunker as soon as the book came out and I've since dropped them. They lock too much points which aren't generating more points (yes, they do protect points but that puts you onto reactive mode rather than proactive). I do use small units of sisters (6s) for a lvl 2 death to sit in (when I have lvl 4 death foot) for the cheap psun in some games but this is discussion for another thread. As always, true flight is your friend even in this match up so nothing new there. If you have sufficient trueflight play the running game. keep walking so some of his units will have to move to shoot at you. Between moving, long range and scouts (possibly woods too), you should win the arrow war. The damage output from the scout unit is less important than the true flight they shield. If you're lucky, there'll be 1-2 scout guy left on your turn who can then go hide in a corner somewhere, denying all points.

I played with and without acorn. I think it's a bit of an overkill. Presuming you're playing on a normal-ish board, I put my forest a few inches next to another forest to create a massive screen. Or if you get a building, scouts/ww can sit in there happily all day shooting his rbts with poison/dual shots whilst he is hitting on 7s.

Can't really help you much with foot combat army as I haven't played with them enough to give insightful comments. Advice without experience is very much a chocolate kettle.

[Aezeal]

Hey phil, I think you get the cover bonus for shootin through units period.
I agree with more bows. I won a gt with 90 shots & 3x5 wild riders. My problem with the acorn is that you're probably gonna want a dispel scroll somewhere. That means a hero level wizard. At that point you're lookin at another 150pts or so invested in gettin an extra tree or two on the table that could be goin to more scouts or waywatchers.
I'm even against the acorn in combat lists, but I figure it would do best in a 3x8 wild rider list where you might want a lv2 heavens anyway. you can still get 50-60 shots in that list comfortably but the list is about gettin them into combat. The cover from the acorn, plus miasma and iceshard, make that happen.

I love you astorre... sometimes it seems like I'm the only one here who thinks that arrows are the best thing we can put on the table . Nice to hear you won a GT with it.

Now I'm getting optimistic but do you put musicians and standards in every unit of GG or (like me) do you prefer to use those points for yet MORE archers.

[Aezeal]

A lot of suggestions seems to revolve around tailoring your list which I'm strongly against. It makes you a weaker player. Rather have an all round list you play often as you'll learn more and more subtlety of the game if you stick with it. A player with an ok list playing it regularly beats an optimised list being rolled out first time, everytime.

Saying that (and given that I went through a spate of club games playing this kind of HE list), what can we do? You'll lose in a straight up arrow fight. We pay dearly for ap, poison, no armour, etc on our list which serve no purpose in this matchup whilst HE archers are cheap as chip in comparison and is almost as effective at killing us in return.

I can see your point about tailoring.. but it sort of depends on the opponent.. if he tailors I think you should too: A fair fight is just nicer to play imho and will make the game more fun and it will still give you enough to learn about those units you bring.

About the straight up Arrow fight... I also dont'completely agree.. sure there are lots of things that will not help against HE. Usually they bring a Phoenix so that would make hagbane worth it. Without hagbane we still have trueflights and swiftshiver arrows which both can work very well against not to heavily armored T3's. You and others already explained how trueflights can be used but swiftshivers could just be set against the HE archers... I haven't done the math but I'm pretty sure an equal number of points in HE archers vs swift GG would mean a win for the GG. Same for the WW.. they get that ability inbuild and it should be pretty usefull (after they shoot the cav ofc).

BTW I do love your advice about just getting 2 lines of WR the first just to get there and do whatever they can even if weakened by shots.. and the 2nd line to destroy. That would be how I would use WR too in msu. Personally I'd try warhawks against archers too though.

[NonnoSte]

Actually, that tandem tactic works better with a Warhawk screen.
They're more likely to survive the light fire and once you get to enemies backlines, you're able to jump with hawks to a different unit than the one charged by WR.

[Aezeal]

Actually, that tandem tactic works better with a Warhawk screen.
They're more likely to survive the light fire and once you get to enemies backlines, you're able to jump with hawks to a different unit than the one charged by WR.

Seems like a good idea. The warhawks usually want to go to warmachines anyway or charge in the rear. But if the WH don't charge themselves you can't charge with the WR.

[NonnoSte]

Seems like a good idea. The warhawks usually want to go to warmachines anyway or charge in the rear. But if the WH don't charge themselves you can't charge with the WR.

That's right, but worst case scenario is when you have to charge the same unit with both WR and WHR. Not many mid-sized unit (we're talking about shooters unit, right?) can survive this. You just have to optimize with max WR in base contact.

[Arwen]

I would prioritize the HE targets.

Their Reavers are an easy kill with only a 5+ AS that will be 6+ vs. our armor piercing archers.
The HE Sisters are a must kill whether by Magic or Shooting or both they are strength 4 bows (24" range) with BS 5 and will mess up our units.
The HE RBT's can be dealt with with our flyers and fast cavalry or long range Magic Spells.

Waywatchers mess up Silver Helms.

Make use of cover available its the Wood Elf way of fighting.