🔹Warhammer The Old World High Elves: Sea Guard Garrison Army Analysis
I’m sorry to tell you that despite its name, the Sea Guard unit remains terrible in this Infamy list.
I don’t want you to get your hopes up. At least, not about them. But, there are new units in this army list that bring interesting options which didn’t exist before the ark—no kidding—and they’re very, very interesting.
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 of Infamy 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.
It’s also worth mentioning that characters aren’t this army’s strong suit, as you can’t even field a level 4 wizard or a commander on a Star Dragon. Therefore, the strategy here revolves around including one or two cheap characters and spamming small shooting units (remember, you can field up to 6 Bolt Throwers at 2000 points).
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 including? Perhaps in this army, yes—but if you’re forced to buy a Sea Guard unit just to field it, then it stops being worthwhile.
Ship’s Company: the definitive core unit
They’re low-cost Shadow Warriors: for 9 points (instead of 14) they have regular bows, Evasion, and the possibility to Stand & Shoot or Flee as a charge reaction. They can be deployed in units as small as 5 models, and even 2 of these units can be skirmishers. This makes them highly expendable, capable of delaying your opponent when necessary while you continue firing with the rest of your army.
Are Shadow Warriors worth it?
They have longbows, 1 can be ambushers, and even two of these units can count as Core, but their role in this army is already fulfilled by other units at a lower cost. If the idea behind entering from the rear or the flank is shooting something specific, you can already shoot from turn 1 thanks to their longbows without risking random entry rolls. And if your intention is to engage in combat, the Shadow Warriors aren’t the best choice either, neither in combat potential nor in resilience.
Skycutters and Eagles: the terror of war machines
Considering the high volume of shooting and small units of Ship’s Company, the redirection and support destruction roles are already covered. However, the Eagles and Skycutters still have one important role: hunting war machines.
In this regard, the units completely left out of my list are the Ellyrian Reavers, because their role is already perfectly fulfilled by other units mentioned earlier.
I’ve designed a list for this Sea Guard: pure spam and pretty tough on the board. If you want to see how much firepower they can put out, I’ll leave it here.
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!