Hi,
So I'm just starting to get into the game via a friend and I was looking for some help with my army. It's a 600 point army as that is what most tourneys around this area are. Any tips/suggestions are most welcome, but please give me a reason why I should do something as it's the only way for me to learn.

The list is:
1x Elrond (170p)
1x Gil-galad with shield (145p)
8x High Elven Archers with blades (11p.ea)
8x High Elven Blades with shields (10p.ea)
8x High Elven Spears with shields (10p.ea)

+1 for each warrior to upgrade them to King's Guard (24p)

Total: 26 models for 587 points.

I think you should drop one of your big heroes, and swap for a couple of smaller heroes, and add more troops. Also, only give a few of the warriors the King's Guard upgrade, and get some archers.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

First off, sorry for necroing this post. But I was wondering what the kings guard upgrade for high elves is? What does it do?

It boosts their fight and courage...in other words, mostly useless A horn will effect everyone's courage, much better use of points. The higher fight is wasted unless you're in a position to pick your opponents. I don't really understand GW's logic: if these guys are guarding the king, they'll likely be in the same fights he is, in which case, his fight score is better anyway. I'd have much preferred a 2A upgrade for 5 points.

Anyway, if you want troops of that caliber, ally in some Guards of the Galadhrim Court, you get a pike and a nice special rule to go with it, for lower cost. Most of the time, Elves 3 deep is better than a lead guy with F6, and you have the flexibility of putting them in front if you need to tie a cave troll, or beat a wraith with just warriors.

I'd agree with you, that upgrade is kind of useless for elves. I would give just about anything for an upgrade that does that for warriors of minas tirith that doesn't involve buying KoDA and waiting 6 weeks for them to arrive. GW really needs an American expansion. The only use for this I can think of is a hero/monster killer squad that laughs at terror and can outfight anything. In which case, I'm going to ally in Gimli .

Here is a High Elf army that will at least give you numbers in the range of your 600 point opponents, and max bows. Elven bows are fierce.

Erestor
6 high elves with Shield
2 high elves with spear
4 high elves with bow & spear

Gildor Inglorian
6 high elves with shield
2 high elves with spear
4 high elves with bow & spear

Arwen
6 high elves with shield
2 high elves with spear
4 high elves with bow.

39 units 12 bows, low on might, but good fighty heroes, plus Immobilize and Nature's Wrath. Not bad. Trade Gilgalad w/ Shield for Gildor and 8 units. Not worth it, perhaps, but fun to play. Consider Galhadrim for more flexibility & choice.

This makes me curious (since im also a newb). All off these elves are different then the models GW sells (the only bow, elf sword or shield and spear). Do you convert them then (and how do they look im curious. how do you do the conversion)? or maybee just proxy them (but then you might get problems with the WYSIWYG if you wanted tourney play)?

Yes you have to convert them all. Depending on which elves you are going to use (Lothlorien/Mirkwood and/or Eregion and Rivendell). I found that the 1st alliance elves (Eregion/Rivendell) were the easiest to convert.

For the Shield Elves, I simply took the Elven Blade warriors and clipped their arms off at the shoulders and repositioned them. Cut the hilt off above the hand of the left arm. Then be creative on what you use as a shield and slap it on the left arm. I used a molding plastic that I got off ebay. It basically allowed me to make all the shields from the 1st Alliance shield elves out of green stuff. Prior to that I made the shields out of plastic-card.

For the Spears...either go expensive or keep converting the Elven Blade warriors. Expensive is to take the existing Spear elves and minus the shields, then use greenstuff to make a "empty" hand that was carrying the shield. The other way is similar to above, except you clip off all the sword parts and get brass rods. Drill a small hole in one hand, slip the brass rod through and viola!! Elven spearman! To get extra crazy you can, with a small enough rod, take the elven blade you just chopped up - clip the blade off - drill a hole in the base - and attach the rod to the blade ...or just use plasticard/greenstuff to make the blade.

For the bow & spear...take a bow elf and slap a brass rod on their back - add a spear blade/tip - and greenstuff a strap to somewhere along the shaft to give the sense its secured to the armour as opposed to magically bound to the warrior Or you can take a converted spearelf and using the brass rod - curve it to represent a bow - and secure it to the elf -- then use greenstuff/bits/etc to make a quiver and arrows. If you find making a quiver to taxing, then get brass rods and clip them short enough to mimic arrows - use plasticard/greenstuff for fletching - and then "stick" them in the ground before the archer.

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Nice ideas and thanks for the description. Do you have pictures by any chance. Im getting curious now how they would look.
I will definatly be getting creative to make some myself when i get some time for it.

check out my W.I.P. I posted some of the pics there.

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Thanks! they look nice. Its always good to see peoples conversions. It motivates to go and give it a go myself, tough i have zero LOTR converted stuff. I only have some 40k ork and tyranid conversions. I do have a metal gil-galad where the spear is broken off. i tought to put an elven blade in its place (as if hes holding it upright) and swap the head for a regular high elven head as to have a nice captain conversion. I was thinking of doing a head swap with my metal elrond as well (and maybe some other stuff) to make him a captain as when i buy a new (finecast now) gil-galad i also get an new finecast elrond in there as well....
I was wondering about the moulding stuff you use. whats it called? and do you use some resin or GS for the cast?

A problem with your Gil-Galad would be that he's posed to be leaning on Aiglos, while he can't lean on the Elven blade, he's still putting all his weight into it, so that might look a bit silly.

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

Tbh Gil-Galads spear tip is huge, about the size of an elven blade anywya, i wouldn;t be too bothered with replacing it with a blade. I'd keep Gil-Galad as himself, he's a pretty useful dude and you may well regret choppin him up...

Since you're getting new models for each of those hero's. I'd say knock yourself out converting Gil....making him a Cpt. and having a slightly dynamic base...epic. Just thinking of the possible head angles you could do, with Gil's body pose....very nice.

edit: Here is a link to ebay that shows what I use: http://www.ebay.com/itm/310345869970?ss ... 1438.l2649

and there is a video on youtube showing how to use it. Its pretty simple and no-nonsense.

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Thnx for the link. ill have a look at it maybee sometime!
The thing with gil galad is that the spear tip is already broken off so i wont be chopping him up needlesly
I just have to get around to it and have some time for putting in the effort. if it looks any sort of nice ill post some pictures somewhere.