One doesn’t simply ignore the advice of the Tasmanian Antonio Banderas and thus, my list is changed.
With suggestions from a friend on how to take a similarly powerful list with a less “hard” score, I riffed a bit on his designs, keeping the exact same models and have come up with this:
Prince with Heavy Armour, Shield, the Dragonhelm, the Star Lance, a Great Weapon, , the Potion of Foolhardiness and the Talisman of Preservation riding an Elven Steed with Ithilmar Barding
Archmage level 3, Lore of Metal with the Book of Ashur and the Ruby Ring of Ruin
Dragon Mage of Caledor with Dragon Armour and Charmed Shield, Golden Crown of Atrazar and Khaine’s Ring of Fury
Noble Battle Standard Bearer with the Armour of Caledor and a Shield
15 Archers including Musician and Standard Bearer
6 Ellyrian Reavers with Bows and Spears
6 Ellyrian Reavers with Bows and Spears
8 Silver Helms with Shields, including Champion, Musician and Standard Bearer
18 White Lions of Chrace including Champion, Musician and Standard Bearer
Frostheart Phoenix
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
And the Swedish comp. breakdown:
| 2nd Flying Monster |
-4 |
| Khaine’s Ring of Fury |
-5 |
| Prince |
-10 |
| Elven Steed |
-2 |
| Archmage |
-18 |
| Noble |
-4 |
| Battle Standard Bearer |
-10 |
| Dragon Mage |
-16 |
| Archers (14-18) |
-7 |
| Silver Helms with Shields (7-9) |
-10 |
| Ellyrian Reavers (5-6) |
-4 |
| Ellyrian Reavers (5-6) |
-4 |
| 2nd unit Ellyrian Reavers |
-2 |
| White Lions of Chrace (16-18) |
-14 |
| 1st Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower |
-7 |
| 2nd Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower |
-9 |
| Frostheart Phoenix |
-40 |
| Total |
-166 |
| Swedish score |
13.4 |
So let’s explain the changes to the characters.
Prince:
The Prince before was costing me a total of 19 Swedish points and this change brings him to 12. The Star Lance is more effective the turn you charge than the Giant’s Blade but cannot be used afterwards, which is why I’ve included a Great Weapon and the Potion of Foolhardiness. To make him both able to deal effective damage in later rounds of combat and to further add to the sting on that first turn with Devastating Charge from the potion.
The choice between a Great Weapon and a Halberd for the subsequent rounds is as interesting one but I calculated the likelihood of wounding models at Strength 5 with the opportunity to reroll misses versus Strength 6 without and it’s very similar most of the time so I like the extra pip of Strength to negate more armour.
The next change is to move from a 1+ save with the Dawnstone to a 1+ save (changing to 2+ when you use the Great Weapon) and a 4+ ward save. It’s also worth noting that I think in most cases Dragon Armour + Enchanted shield as a way to reach 1+ armour is better than Heavy Armour, Shield and Dragonhelm. It costs you 6 points more but you get a 6+ ward save. With the Talisman of Preservation, however, that 6+ ward save is negligible.
Archmage:
Perhaps the biggest change to my original list is in moving to a level 3 Archmage instead of the Loremaster. Metal is quite a strong lore against many armies, particularly in Swedish where many of the Elf armies will take heavy cavalry as fast cavalry is penalised. This also reduces my Swedish expenditure from -42 to -18 in this slot. I lose the reliability of the Book of Hoeth but with the Book of Ashur, he is effectively level 4 and so is better on the dispel. The Ruby Ring is another neat way to get some more magic missiles into the list with expending a Wizard level on the Dragon Mage.
Dragon Mage:
Here, we’ve dropped the level 2 upgrade in favour of Khaine’s Ring of Fury. This is quite a cool change. It costs 1 more point in the comp. system but the spell is much stronger and the short range is less of an issue because the Dragon flies.
Noble:
This change was largely my own choice. The suggestion was for a mounted character with the Ogre Blade to make it less risky to bring the Prince into combats with the Star Lance but I only have one mounted character model and am trying to keep Warhammer spending down a bit at the moment with the End Times books breaking the bank. I think that the Armour of Caledor versus Dragon Armour and the Shield of the Merwym means that when considering Strength 5 or lower, you are better off. At Strength 6 or higher, you are much better having the Shield of the Merwym but I suspect that it’s better to account for the much more likely situation of Strength <5.