🔹Sea Guard Garrison Army Analysis in TOW 1.5

When I made this post, the Sea Guard unit was horribly bad and unplayable.

With version 1.5 of Old World, things have changed a lot and this infamous army has gained some pretty interesting options.

Whether you’re a High Elf player or you want to learn how to face armies capable of creating a very diffuse and interesting shooting front, keep reading.

Army composition and special rules

Regarding special rules, besides the usual High Elf restrictions on honours (which don’t really limit you much), we have the possibility of redeploying one unit within our deployment zone before starting the game. It’s appreciated, but I honestly don’t think it’ll significantly change anything.

This is one of those armies where it’s not enough to include 25% core units; instead, you must reach 33%. In exchange, (I suppose), it allows 33% Rare Units, which means you can include two Frostheart Phoenixes and a Merwyrm. The Merwyrm is a new—and frankly, quite ugly—monster that you can add to any High Elf army, not only to the Sea Guard Garrison army. The catch is that in any other High Elf army, you’d need a Sea Guard unit to include the Merwyrm, but here you don’t.

Now that the Sea Guard is playable, it’s not a big deal anymore.

See the deal on Wayland

Also worth mentioning that characters aren’t exactly this army’s strong suit, since they can’t even field a level 4 wizard or a commander on a star dragon.

That said, with the 1.5 update, it’s not such a big deal. In fact, the Storm Weaver (who can be level 1, 2, or 3) has access to Elementalism and Dark Magic, which can be pretty interesting.

Plus, level 4 wizards aren’t what they used to be—you can easily do without them.

The other standout character is the Commander, who’s basically a mediocre noble that gives the unit he’s in “Skirmisher” and “Shoot & Flee.” I’m not totally sold on him, but if you’re trying to build some kind of shooting deathstar, he might be worth considering.

Merwyrm

It costs 225 points and is slow compared to the rest of a typical High Elf army (it moves only 6 inches without Swiftstride). It’s resistant to light shooting, but with 6 wounds at toughness 6 and no special save or regeneration, war machines can inflict a lot of damage.

Despite having only 4 attacks, it has impact hits and stomp, so it hits pretty hard. Also, enemies in base-to-base contact with it suffer -1 Strength—and note, this penalty doesn’t just apply when attacking the Merwyrm directly, but also in multiple combats. This is very useful.

Is it worth it? I’d say before June 2025, not really, because you were forced to include a Sea Guard unit in Grand Army, and it was terrible. Now it looks totally doable, because even if you weren’t including the Merwyrm, I’d still run a Sea Guard unit anyway.

BY THE WAY, in this Garrison list, Sea Guard units (2 of them) get Drilled for free.

Watch out for that.

High Elf Ships Company: the definitive core unit

They’re basically low-cost Shadow Warriors: for 9 points (instead of 14) they’ve got regular bows, Skirmisher, and the ability to Shoot & Flee as a charge reaction (which is why I’m not too into the Commander—if you want Shoot & Flee units, you already have them here). They can be fielded in units of just 5, and even 2 of those units can be skirmishers. So they’re very expendable units that can delay the enemy when needed while the rest of your army keeps firing.

Playable in 1.5: You can swap the bow for hand weapon, spear, and shield (in that case, I’d spend 1 extra point for light armor, so they get a 4+ save in combat).

You can also give them Veterans, but since they already come with Valor of Ages by default, I wouldn’t bother.

Are Shadow Warriors worth it?

They’ve got longbows, they can be ambushers, and even 2 of these units can count as core, but honestly, other units in this army already do their job for cheaper.

Sure, they’ve got BS5 and longer range than the Ship Company, but I’m not paying 5 extra points just for that.

Their light armor is irrelevant, and the ambusher option doesn’t seem all that interesting to me—thanks to their long range, they can already start shooting from turn 1.

What is relevant in 1.5 is the fact that they’re a core scout unit, which means they can start the game securing an objective or taking the central hill on the right map.

That’s where they shine.

Now the real question is: with line of sight blocking being a thing, is it really worth it to run a big skirmishing shooting unit? Not sure it pays off enough to justify 14 points per model (I’d only pay for them if they always regroup automatically after a shoot & flee, so we’re talking 15 points per model).

Skycutters and Eagles: the terror of war machines

Keep in mind that with so much shooting, and depending on how many small Ship Company units you bring, the roles of redirecting and clearing enemy support units are already covered. But Eagles and Skycutters still have a clear purpose: hunting down war machines and lone wizards.

In that sense, the ones I’d completely leave out are the Ellyrian Reavers, since their role is already more than covered by other units. I’d never use them in this infamy army.

Remember that in this army you can allocate more points to rare units, which lets you go double Phoenix + Merwyrm, or Merwyrm + double Phoenix (obviously Frostheart Phoenix—the fire one is useless).

When it first dropped, I built a list for this Sea Guard that was pure spam and pretty tough on the table.

Here it is.

Since it got outdated, I’ve edited the post so you’re reading something that actually makes sense in 1.5.

Related Posts:

🔹WARHAMMER THE OLD WORLD HIGH ELVES

🔹Sea Guard Garrison 2000 points list

If you think there’s an error in the post, feel free to reach out at theoldwarrior@theoldwarrior.com, and I’ll review it. Hope you enjoy ToW!

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