High Elves... what to get rid off?

[mikosevar]

Like I posted before, I have a heap of stuff and some stuff missing (Orks, Empire and Dwarves for example).
I want to put a heap of stuff on the trade list, and hope that someone can swap some stuff....

So. I've sorted the Tomb Kings and will hold on to everything (about 3000 pts)
But there's definitely too much High Elf gear here.
Anyone with a lot of HE experience who can tell me what to hold on to? I don't want to end up short of some units that I can't replace down the track.

Here we go, this is what I have:

Spearmen 13 units
Archers 10 units
Reavers 7 units
Silver Helms 12 units
Chariots 8 units
Bolt Throwers 1 unit (2 figs) (this seems to be pretty low, compared to the amount of other units
Giant Eagles heaps (the guy made them out of Razorwings, so...)
Hero 8
Wiz 6
General 1
Dragon 1

This is easily 6000pts, without magic items etc.
I think a collection of 3500pts should be enough to give a good choice of troops if a decent sized game is 2500pts, no?
What to cull?

[Geep]

It's hard to say since different people play different ways, and with different people. High Elf Silver Helms are famously nasty, especially en masse and with a Ld10 General- so that may mean you want to take a lot of them, or maybe you want to be more reasonable and only keep 6-8. Similarly High Elf shooting is quite good (though that varies depending on whether you want to take the 'tournament' list or regular one)- you may want to stock up on that, but that can also be seen as a lousy thing to do.

Personally, I'd make sure to keep the minimum requirements of a 3,500pt army, then make a range of 2000pt armies, going to various extremes that I think I would like to play with. Total all units in all 2000pt lists, ignoring overlap, and you'll probably end up with quite a cut-down army that still leaves many options- and will be fieldable at 3,500pts.

[Stormwind]

Well you're only allowed 1 hero and 1 wizard per 1000 points...

It's a shame you're missing out on bolt throwers, I would always take them as an area control threat.

[Dave]

I'd aim for something like this. I'm sure someone will disagree on the amount of cav, but I prefer to keep things in line with the fluff and historical armies. Ya, Silver Helms with Command 10 is nasty and probably broken en masse with little to no terrain on the table. Given the type of people that play WM though I tend to avoid min-maxing so I can keep playing them. 

Warmaster Army Selector
High Elf Tournament Army, 3290 points
Warmaster Trial Armies Compendium 2009
----------------------------------------------------------------
 720 - 12 Spearmen
 450 -  6 Archers
 440 -  4 Silver Helms
 360 -  4 Reavers
 380 -  4 Chariots
 140 -  2 Giant Eagles
 110 -  2 Elven Bolt Thrower
 180 -  1 General
 240 -  3 Hero
 270 -  3 Wizard
----------------------------------------------------------------
3290 - 34/17

Plus, massive amounts of Spearmen and Archers just look cool:

[David Wasilewski]

I agree with Dave's list above.
Nice and balanced and it feels right for the Warhammer fluff background.

Dave

[forbes]

I'd probably hang on to at least 2 more units of each of the cavalry, on top of Dave's list. Gives you a bit more flexibility in building different lists.

And probably a few more archers. I'm not sure I'd field quite so many spearmen to archers.

I'd also keep the dragon, and at least 3 units of Eagles.
A hero on a Eagle is often useful too.

As Dave W will tell you though - my idea of what is a sensible amount of elves to keep probably isn't very helpful. I think I have 13 painted units of Silver Helms.

[David Wasilewski]

Yes Forbes - you're hardly a sensible collector.
How many High Elf Dragons do you own? Is it 5 or 6?

Dave

[forbes]

Just the 3. I think.

Certainly only 3 painted. There might be a bare metal lurking somewhere too - but not sure if that is an elf one.

[Stormwind]

I was never sure about using the Dragon as a Dragon Rider unit...  I had 3 in total then thought, when am I going to really use them?

I like to use those big centrepiece figures as Generals just because they're gorgeous and obvious on the battlefield... My idea was to have 1 HE one, 1 Wood Elf one, 1 Dark Elf one.

[forbes]

Yep, its far more about accumulating the models because they are nice, than worrying about when they will be fielded in games.

As I get most of my WM stuff from eBay I often end up with a few extra units that I wouldn't buy indivdually, but they are part of a job lot.

[David Wasilewski]

You're right of course. I can't throw stones - I own 16 units of Orc Boar Boys (12 painted) and another 4 units of Aleksey's Polar store Boar Boys which I will use as Big Uns on Boar Boys. So that's 20 units. A bit excessive, even if I do own a 10 to 12 K painted army of Orcs and Goblins.

Dave

[Stormwind]

Elite boar boyz? Eep my Chaos Marauders do not like the sound of that!

[Dranask1]

Elite boar boyz? Eep my Chaos Marauders do not like the sound of that!

Hmmm interesting heh heh.

Still nothing beats a gobo Shaman when he's on a roll!