Raising the Fyrd: Rebuilding My Army Lists For Old World 1.5

Welcome to Raising the Fyrd, where we write and discuss army lists! 

Today, I’ll be walking you through my philosophy in changing my High Elf army lists to suit the post FAQ meta that many are already affectionately(?) calling Old World 1.5. 

General Changes

Before I get into my own list building choices, we have to address how the meta might change and what we can do to adapt to that. Like everyone else, I’m anticipating that big, tough infantry blocks are going to be everywhere, so we will need to either have a bigger, tougher infantry block of our own, or we need to be good at destroying them. 

In addition to the increased prevalence of infantry, I think we will see fewer level 4 wizards, and taking one of our own is no longer mandatory. Due to the changes to the way ridden monsters work in challenges and the fact that they cannot guarantee victory against infantry blocks, I’m predicting that it won’t be as crucial as before to be able to kill a dragon or to have one of our own, though they are likely still going be tough to deal with. 

Rewriting My Lists

As a High Elf player, before the FAQ literally every single list I have ever played has included a level 4, sometimes two, I rarely ran infantry units larger than 15 outside of fluffy games, and I usually ran at least one ridden monster, often in the form of a star dragon. 

So what now?

I’ve always  loved the look of swordmasters and I think this might finally be their time to shine, plus I own 21 of them, so I know I want them to be a focus of my army lists going forward. Here are a few examples of 2000pt lists I cooked up for different occasions below:

Under the Loremaster’s Banner

Characters

• Prince (general) 311pts

  • Pure of Heart, Tiranoc chariot, full plate, dragon helm, seed of rebirth, and The White Sword

• Nobe (Battle Standard Bearer) 250pts

  • Loremaster (illusion), The Standard of Resilience, Armour of Caledor, earthing rod, and sword of Hoeth

• Archmage 240pts

  • Seaguard, level 3 (elementalism), lore familiar (earthen ramparts, plague of rust, wind blast), seed of rebirth, and The Ruby Ring of Ruin

• Noble 130pts

  • Seaguard, great weapon, full plate, and The Bow of the Seafarer

Core

• 20 Lothern Seaguard 297pts

  • Full command, The Razor Standard, shields

• 5 Silver Helms 132pts

  • High Helm, musician, shields

• 5 Elven Archers 50pts

• 5 Elven Archers 50pts

Special

• 20 Swordmasters 378pts

  • Drilled, full command, war banner, sacred incense

Rare

• Eagle-claw bolt thrower 80pts

• Eagle-claw bolt thrower 80pts

1998/2000pts

This is what I’m planning on using as my go to for the foreseeable future, but not necessarily for tournament play. The idea behind this list is to have enough shooting that my opponent is forced to engage me, allowing the swordmasters the chance to get into combat more easily. From there the plan is to support them, and between the loremaster BSB, the war banner, and plague of rust, they’ll be T4, Str5 elves who (almost) always fight first with ap -4 on top of their cleaving blow and -1 to hit them to boot–they should grind through all but the toughest infantry blocks. 

Even if the enemy tries to focus the sword masters down from range they’ll be at least -2 to hit with BS based shooting between glittering robe and the sacred incense, they have a 6+ ward against non-magical shooting from deflect shots, and the archmage can give them earthen ramparts, so the only thing they’re at all worried about getting shot by is a canon or a stone thrower. Oh and did I mention they have magic resist -1? I’m keen to see what the Wardens of Saphery can do.  

Here There (Still) Be Dragons

Characters

• Prince 495pts

  • Blood of Caledor, Star Dragon, full plate, charmed shield, 2x opal amulet, biting blade

• Archmage 185pts

  • Seaguard, level 3 (battle magic), lore familiar (Arcane Urgency, Oaken Shield, Fireball)

Core

• 18 Lothern Sea Guard 273pts

  • Full command, The Razor Standard

• 5 Ellyrian Reavers 103pts

  • Shortbows, skirmishers, harbinger

• 9 Elven Archers 95pts

  • Sentinel

• 5 Elven Archers 50pts

Special 

• 20 Swordmasters 378pts

  • Drilled, full command, war banner, sacred incense

Rare

• 6 Sisters of Avelorn 90pts

• 6 Sisters of Avelorn 90pts

2000/2000pts

This is an attempt at a more optimized tournament list. While you may no longer be looked upon as “that guy” for bringing a dragon and they may not be the absolute top tier choice they once were, they are still very strong (plus I spent a lot of time painting mine!) so I wanted to include one. The main difference now though I think, is that the dragon’s role will not be to chew through the entire opposing army but to shepherd them into the blades of the swordmasters, or support them in combat.

I’m sure most of this list looks fairly orthodox, though some HE players may be raising an eyebrow at the inclusion of blood of caledor, the lack of a seed of rebirth on the dragon, the ellyrian reavers, and the unit of 9 archers. The answer is simple, now that impetuous is based on leadership its no longer such a liability for the dragon, and WS8 on the prince and a 6+ ward are nice for 9pts–I think this makes up for the lack of a seed of rebirth and allows points for two opal amulets to stop the dragon getting sniped by cannons or monster slayers. This should force the enemy to pick between dedicating significant resources to try to take it down and ignoring it entirely. Meanwhile the unit of 9 archers are there for when the lonely tower scenario comes up so that they, accompanied by the BSB, can immediately be arcane urgency marched into the tower, and the reavers are there as an easy means of delivering a champion into combat alongside the dragon to take on that troublesome challenge. It may not be the terror that was the star dragon plus sisters blobs of old HE lists, but it should still be quite strong. 

Thanks for reading! These are of course just my humble opinions as a somewhat middling High Elf player who started playing Warhammer fantasy in earnest with the release of Old World (unless you count 7 year old me’s interpretation of the 6th edition rules, which included sound effects and excited shouting).

Next time we’ll be putting my theory into practice, discussing how these lists actually fare on the tabletop in my first few games of Old World 1.5.