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Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T10:48:55Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Artillery */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs Skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best missile troops in the game. The high rate of fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than Dark Shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than Sisters of Avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with greatswords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry that uses repeater crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. Is always useful to annoyingly poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow Dark Riders since the Raven Heralds have fewer models and vanilla Dark Riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an AoE melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire Warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces Doombolt with Soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A Scourgerunner Chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AoE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple Scourgerunner Chariots to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the High Elf Frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T10:46:41Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Chariots */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs Skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best missile troops in the game. The high rate of fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than Dark Shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than Sisters of Avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with greatswords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry that uses repeater crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. Is always useful to annoyingly poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow Dark Riders since the Raven Heralds have fewer models and vanilla Dark Riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an AoE melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire Warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces Doombolt with Soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A Scourgerunner Chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AoE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple Scourgerunner Chariots to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T09:55:16Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Cavalry */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs Skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best missile troops in the game. The high rate of fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than Dark Shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than Sisters of Avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with greatswords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry that uses repeater crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. Is always useful to annoyingly poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow Dark Riders since the Raven Heralds have fewer models and vanilla Dark Riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an AoE melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire Warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces Doombolt with Soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T09:46:53Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Missile Infantry */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs Skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best missile troops in the game. The high rate of fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than Dark Shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than Sisters of Avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with greatswords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T09:43:12Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Infantry */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. The high rate of Fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than dark shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than sisters of avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with great swords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T09:29:57Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Heroes */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. stats are even better with Immortal empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of immortal empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as dwarf warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price make sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - whoever wrote the above likes corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual dark elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go dreadspears/bleakswords and darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensate for this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. sisters of slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo witch elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla witch elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like black orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with black guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with dreadspears or black guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with cold one dread knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts dread knights have massively higher stats especially with beast master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. they got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. if you insist on using them, the Name of power khaine marked gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with immortal empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better witch elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better executioners with no armor, hold the line with sisters of slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. throw in morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the dark elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses exalted daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. The high rate of Fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than dark shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than sisters of avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with great swords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-17T07:44:01Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Generic Lords */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords :(Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam then any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. stats are even better with Immortal empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of immortal empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as dwarf warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price make sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - whoever wrote the above likes corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual dark elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go dreadspears/bleakswords and darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensate for this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. sisters of slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo witch elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla witch elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like black orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with black guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with dreadspears or black guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with cold one dread knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts dread knights have massively higher stats especially with beast master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. they got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. if you insist on using them, the Name of power khaine marked gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with immortal empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better witch elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better executioners with no armor, hold the line with sisters of slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. throw in morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the dark elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses exalted daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. The high rate of Fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than dark shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than sisters of avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with great swords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-16T22:33:54Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Legendary Lords */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can Come on a Scouregrunner Chariot(roll though everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to cold ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give colds ones really makes them preform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords :(Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam then any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. stats are even better with Immortal empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of immortal empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as dwarf warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price make sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - whoever wrote the above likes corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual dark elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go dreadspears/bleakswords and darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensate for this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. sisters of slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo witch elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla witch elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like black orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with black guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with dreadspears or black guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with cold one dread knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts dread knights have massively higher stats especially with beast master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. they got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. if you insist on using them, the Name of power khaine marked gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with immortal empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better witch elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better executioners with no armor, hold the line with sisters of slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. throw in morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the dark elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses exalted daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. The high rate of Fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than dark shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than sisters of avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with great swords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your ap missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or ap volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T15:08:22Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* General */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and their mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beat most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that, Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver Archers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the Druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this matchup is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand matchups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force. Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong flyers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to, go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with Tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the flyers, Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I can see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery and can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorgheists and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary flyers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your flyers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the political nature of the Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Amphitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:58:39Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and their mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beat most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that, Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver Archers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the Druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this matchup is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand matchups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force. Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong flyers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to, go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with Tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the flyers, Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I can see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery and can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorgheists and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary flyers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your flyers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:19:32Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and their mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beat most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that, Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver Archers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the Druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this matchup is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand matchups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:15:15Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and their mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beat most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:13:55Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and their mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:07:02Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Monsters */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these things can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. Their missile resistance will protect them on the way in from archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of the three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AoE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:02:15Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Monsters */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, keep enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T14:00:19Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Chariots */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ithilmar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of them quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustained melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:56:41Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Cavalry */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': Of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:39:01Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Missile Infantry */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that cost 50 more gold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die when light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as Sisters of Avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slightly worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They are ok if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high Elf roster. For comparison they are 50% cheaper than Greatsword Shades from the Dark Elves and about the same upkeep as Lothern Sea Guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:31:39Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Infantry */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units from other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. The switch from magic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys put White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. Magic attacks are a lot more common in Immortal Empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:25:50Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Infantry */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AoE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units form other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. the switch from agic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys but White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. magic attacks are a lot more common in immortal empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:24:35Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Heroes */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heroes.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. In campaign where Nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only use Handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and Sisters of Avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies High Elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AOE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units form other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. the switch from agic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys but White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. magic attacks are a lot more common in immortal empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:18:54Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Heroes */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in battle in the campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heros.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. in campaign where nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and sisters of avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies high elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AOE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units form other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. the switch from agic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys but White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. magic attacks are a lot more common in immortal empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-06-16T13:18:26Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:D545:F265:CED:EDBD: /* Heroes */

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell of a lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RoRs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non RoR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. It includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him from near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AoE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Don’t ever use them in campaign, because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heros.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. in campaign where nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and sisters of avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies high elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AOE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units form other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. the switch from agic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys but White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. magic attacks are a lot more common in immortal empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D+'''

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]]
{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}