This.is.Athel.Loren!

Andruillius · **Joined:** Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:40 pm **Posts:** 33

The Eternal Guard Phalanx

This army concept is made by King Leonidas over at Asrai.org, and always struck me as pretty bizarre (and gave me the shivers thinking about painting 100 Eternal Guard).

The army list is as thus:

King Leonidas wrote:

Wood Elves Army

Phalanx Left Wing

* "Epaminondas" Strategos (Highborn) @ 254 Pts
+ General; Spear; Longbow; Light Armour; Shield
+ Rhymer's Harp [75]
+ Annoyance of Netlings [25]

* "Pelopidas" Lokhagos (Noble) @ 192 Pts
+ Light Armour; Battle Standard
+ Royal Standard of Ariel [100]

* 68 "Hieros Lokhos" Hoplite Phalanx (Eternal Guard) @ 871 Pts
+ " Sacred Band "
+ Standard; Musician
+ War Banner [25]
+ Anthypolokhagos (Guardian upgrade)

Phalanx Right Wing

* "Ampelides" Lokhagos (Noble) @ 81 Pts
+ Spear; Longbow; Light Armour; Shield

* 29 Hoplite Phalanx (Eternal Guard) @ 378 Pts
+ Standard; Musician
+ Anthypolokhagos (Guardian upgrade)

Phalanx Support

* 6 Hippeis (Wild Riders) @ 156 Pts
+ Spear; Light Armour; Musician; Elf Steeds

* 6 Hippeis (Wild Riders) @ 156 Pts
+ Spear; Light Armour; Musician; Elf Steeds

* 13 Toxotai (Glade Guard) @ 162 Pts
+ Longbow; Musician

Casting Pool: 2

Dispel Pool: 2

Models in Army: 125
Total Army Cost: 2250

Deployment:

Movement:

Close Combat:

Basically, the main EG unit (The Hieros Lokhos) is joined by the Highborn and BSB, giving it re-rollable Ld10 Stubborn and a 5+ Ward Save. Oh, and it's immune to Fear&Terror as well as being Fear causing itself, causing it to be a headache against any unit that is not. In addition it does of course have the Warbanner, giving the unit a good +7 to CR in any front-to-front combat.

Many people have tried to shoot the list down, but fact is that it's placed 2nd in a GT and has done surprisingly (to me at least) well. If it wasn't for the fact that it requires a gazillion ranked up models, I might have tried it myself.

The list has been discussed a lot, but I thought I'd put it up here for people to see anyway. And seeing as this is a Wood Elf site: How would you go on to make a Wood Elf list to crush The Thebain Phalanx?

Elhänn · **Posted:** Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:22 pm

Interesting topic. It'd be interesting to know how well the Thebian Phalanx would face the new power trio, or even High elves (because Flames of the Phoenix should hurt those huge T3 units absurdly).

Anyway, regarding your question, a classic wood elf army (this is, skirmishing focused. I don't see any reason to tailor the army list for this one) should have little problem getting at least a draw, simply by killing wild riders and archers (shooting and treeman should take the riders, dryads against his archers) and avoiding the eternal guards. That gives you around 450 VPs, and getting at least one table quarter shouldn't be impossible. Perhaps he may earn 200 VPs or so, but just by avoiding his point denial blocks, it is a minor victory -perhaps a solid one- for you. If you really need it, a naked wood elf noble is not precisely difficult to kill. And with the noble gone, a combined charge on the "small" EG block may give you the edge you need.
Mind you, this is purely Theory-hammer.

There are other advantages for the usual army list, such as more deployment options (so you can deploy your support-counters where they'll be more useful, even if he goes first) and a lack of serious ranged threat or flexibility. This list depends on your opponent not being able to get rid of his support (which a classic WE list is fairly able to do) and forcing them to engage the eternal guards - and if you're using skirmishers and fast cavalry, either you screw up, or he is very good to manage that.

Andruillius · **Joined:** Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:40 pm **Posts:** 33

Agreed, the best approach against this army is to avoid the main phalanx and focus on the support units - mainly because the phalanx is very, very hard to kill. But is there any way for Wood Elves to actually have a fair chance of beating it and running it down? I'm thinking tying it up with a Tree Man, get some wardancers in the rear for the attacks and then start to chop away.

More on this when I have time.

Andruillius · **Joined:** Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:40 pm **Posts:** 33

...goodness, who writes treeman like that. I blame the stress.

The phalanx is very durable, and deals out a lot of attacks, but not with much strength. Thus treemen should be able to hold it up, especially if a BSB is lurking behind somewhere.

Two treemen charging into the front should therefore be able to pin the unit without getting run over. 12 EG attacks (4 EG in the front and 4 behind) equals 2/9 wounds per turn, hardly anything to be scared of. An Ancient will probably be pinned down in a challenge with the Highborn, so one might as well take two vanilla treemen - failing four (rerolls) Ld8 break tests is not very likely. With a little luck, it shouldn't take more than two turns to kill the characters in the unit, eating a way a lot of points and protection.

In addition, we'll need some juicy CR. 10 Wardancers in the rear should do the trick: On average, that's around 10-11 dead EG on the charge (using +1A). This alone could be enough to force a break test on the phalanx, which would be very dangerous if the treemen can kill both characters. Throw in a Tree Kin flank charge to remove ranks, we're in good business.

The problem then is of course that there's an entire army to fight, not just this one unit. The other EG unit will have to be hold up somehow: The best option is probably a Wild Rider charge, either in the flank to pin the unit down or in the front to try and kill the Noble and run the unit down. The Wild Rider units are best taken care of with missile fire, I think; a noble with HoDA should make one of them useless, and hopefully the other one can be shot down to an ineffective size.

Ender Shadowkin · **Joined:** Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:09 pm **Posts:** 191

I think a big part of it is just the shock value when you see it accross the table. Pinning it in place and march blocking it a couple times with eagles/scouts would really make it challenging for them. Probably to win you could simply ignore it, kill the rest and collect your table corners, he would have a hard time Attacking other units with that big block.

And what nighmare a 2 skull chucker + liche priest TK list would be for that list . ..

The DE Deathstar with all those shades seams a little scarrier to me.

Elhänn · **Posted:** Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:05 pm

Ender Shadowkin wrote:

The DE Deathstar with all those shades seams a little scarrier to me.

That's because the Shade Deathstar has a much larger threat area. While almost any army can avoid the eternal guard blocks, or send a cheap, sacrificial unit to divert and ignore them, the sheer firepower from the shade unit can destroy one unit each turn.
Thus, the shadestar not only denies the opponent VPs more efficiently -harder to shoot, resistant to magic with the ring, and with Ld 10, psychology is not a large issue-, it also earns them actively.
The shadestar is far scarier than the woodie phalanx.

Anyway, I'd be very interested in knowing more about how he managed to achieve 2nd in an importat tourney, because I can't really see how to achieve solid victories with it. I'll admit that I don't attend tourneys very often, but without at least a couple of solid victories, it is hard to reach top places.
Sadly, the tactical advice in the post you linked is too vague for me. There must be something I'm not seeing.

Andruillius · **Joined:** Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:40 pm **Posts:** 33

Obviously we're communicating in a snail-mail pace here, but I hope that's alright with you. Here's a post from the creator King Leonidas himself, talking about his list and the tournament where he placed second.

King Leonidas wrote:

So I'm here as expected to give my two-cents.

1) On the Un-fun Nature of lists:

All my armies are built around a theme, I pick the models and the background story long before I pick the army list! After the models and background are picked I decide which army book or unit types should be used to best represent what I'm trying to accomplish. This method works great if you want to impress people with your conversion/painting skills, but isn't a fool-proof way to win games especially tournaments.

I do it because while I love to win, I also prefer to have a reason for fighting and a style of fighting. Simply throwing together 40 Jazzails or a dozen pegasus knights isn't a theme,, it's a person trying to come up with a fighting style before a theme.

I am a bit offended by the number of people who would concider this army to be nothing more than another RAF/SAD. As some of you might have already read, the army is built based upon the Battle of Leuctra where the Theban Sacred Band as a few Militia Hoplites defeated a stronger Spartan army. This WE Army is built to exactly represent the tactics used by the Thebans as well as closely resenble their armor/clothing using GW models. The Thebans used mostly heavy infantry and moderate amounts of medium/light cavalry in a weighted flank approach. I did my best to represent this tactic in a WHFB game and oddly enough the anchient tactics used exactly as presented in our history books are amazingly effective! So perhaps another person simply copying my list and tweekign it to make it more competative would be cheesy or unfun to fight, I would hope that people who fight the origional themed list would find it refreshing rather than unfair!

2) On the Game of Theory-Hammer

"Theory-Hammer" as many call it is looking deeply into a list and thinking of all the wonderful ways that your list can totally school the enemy! However there is one fatal flaw in this type of thinking: I get to move the models where I want to and I'm pretty good at avoiding un-favorable situations!

First you'd be fighting me in a tournament, so you'll need an all-commers list. This is the first problem, since you can't meta-game to pick the best options to defeat me and if you did, then you'll likely never play me since your list would lose to everyone else!

Second we alternate deployment of troops, so you may not be able to set your uber-units across from my units that you plan of vanquishing! I might also place my units behind rows of woods or a lake where you can't find them until it's too late. Scenerios also are taken into account, many tournaments use balancing factors in their scenerios such as magic hinderance or crazy biting ants that eat your soldiers if they are unlucky enough to cross their path! You can't garuntee that your plan will work unless you pick the scenerio and pick the sides and pick where both armies units deploy! Unfortunately for you, you are barely in control of the game and need to be flexible to win.

The ability to adapt, not "one-hit-wonders" is what wins games... I know this sounds funny, but my 70-EG unit can perform many roles since it is so flexible in movement and combat, it's not nearly as restrictive as the large size suggests!

Third you are fighting me, not yourself. This means that I'll likely set-up odd charge angles for you that allow you to get horribly flanked or allows me to persue in a new direction that benefits me and turns the angle of the battle significantly. I won't just stand still and take your punishment, I'll be charging the flyers that try to marchblock me (using my WR) and will shoot down the light cavalry with my archers. It won't be all fun-and-games, you'll have towork to win.

I'm not saying I'm unbeatable, but so many people like to say "well if he fought me thewn I'd do X,Y, & Z to defeat him," but never think about the little counters that I mhave to stop those tactics.

While I appreciate all the attention my list has created, I think some people are bit overly emotional about it. It was created for fun! I know that's strange in a tournament setting, but I'm serious. I never expected to win anything except maybe some painting awards. At the first GT it won second place from a little luck and a little shock and a little tactics and a little good fortune in pairings! My army was not too brutal that it was offensive, it was well painted and I wasn't a total jerk so my soft scores and some good games that were in a few cases only avictory by a few points, managed to earn me a place in the tournament.

Now the second tournament I went to with it, I did really well, but the massive number of good players forced me down a bit in the rankings from both sheer numbers and the extra loss! In my second tournament, the pairings/scenrios were against me to a degree and i fought armies that I didn't have much of a chance against, but then I also had 3 total massacre wins with full VP's and in the end I scored exactly the same as the First tournament, but too many players where here on the second and I just barely missed a top prize.

My army functions very predictably both for me and my opponents, so the shock factor is not a sbig of a deal if you know the list before you play it. The best part of playing this list for me and according to my opponents is the fact that there are lots of cool models to battle with! And isn't the whole point of this game to have interesting "Fantasy Armies" fight each other for fun?

This.is.Athel.Loren!

Who is online