I look each day for your videos.  Old world looks to be carried by people in the community like you who build hobby excitement.  Thanks for the video.

Rob: You obviously don't want to be taking heavy casualties
Me: Awfully bold of you to assume I have the skill to control this

Still the best overview videos out there. Easily :) I'm not planning on playing HE, but this was still very enjoyable and informative. Fair play!

I think the key selling point you're missing about the Swordmasters is their Initiative 6 which becomes 7 with Elven Reflexes. They are able to take a charge from I4 Heavy Cav from enough distance to get the +3 Ini boost and STILL the SM will be striking simultaneously and obliterating them with WS6 S5 AP2 Cleaving Blow. Striking first and reducing the amount of damage you'll be taking in retaliation is crucial for expensive, hard-hitting yet relatively fragile elves (Priestley & co were mostly inspired by the glass cannon "fast and can dish out great dmg but can't take much back & suck at attrition" design/description of elven warriors/warfare from Poul Anderson's THE BROKEN SWORD rather than Tolkien's Noldor).

White Lions are the absolute worst of the three because of Strike Last - they will lose so many models before they can strike back and even their +1 Armour advantage isn't much better than the SM's 6++ against non-magical shooting. King's Guard and Stubborn might be their saving grace but I think Strikes Last is such an enormous handicap that they won't be enough to make up for it.

Phoenix Guard are the better "all-comers" choice with an excellent balance between dmg dealing potential and durability but they are also a bit more expensive and being only S4 can be a real problem against high T stuff (that S5 AP2 of the Swordies is a such a sweet spot in terms of general purpose dmg output) while Initiative 5 isn't as impactful as Initiative 6 when you consider that the Ini stat scales in potency like the Richter scale for earthquakes considering the most common Initiative levels of opponents.

Both SM and PG are either 1/2 (I think SM are the best overall; just like with Lions they also benefit from the +1 A spell from High Magic much more than the PG) and White Lions are absolutely the worst (unfortunately; as I've always found those lil' elvish Varangian Guard/Heraclean warriors to be quite cool and they were at their coolest during 5th Ed. with all those cool rules)

I havnt been as happy hobbying in years as i have been since i sourced some High elves to paint for Old world - did not know how much i missed the game

Chracian Choppas hit at STR 6 and on the charge you can still get higher initiative than most things you fight.

My first ever army was the high elves from the 4th edition box set. The one with the little cardboard bolt thrower 😂 boy they have changed in the past 25 years!

The Army Guide series(and this entire channel) have been brilliant. Looking forward to the Dwarfs

I know you question how much impetuous will mess up your ability to use a unit, but I love that GW brought some realistic command and control issues into the game, and kind of wish they would do more. It's extremely historically accurate, both for knights in the Middle Ages who were usually overly aggressive and probably because they were all standing there together in full armor were often willing to tell the king they weren't doing what he told them to do, as well as cavalry in general from the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Elite cavalrymen would be extremely skilled horsemen and very well trained warriors, so having 'drilled' or having high Leadership wouldn't have anything to do with it, it was a question of attitude. If you as a commander sent your cavalry over to engage the enemy, they would often smash into the first thing they saw, and you might not see them again for the rest of the day as they were running around the countryside slaying fleeing infantry. It may not be perfectly implemented here, but I hope they do more stuff like this, not less.

Put those elves in some trees and they'd be pretty cool

Both Elgi mobs reviewed before proper Dawi throng?! That goes into the book.

One way of dealing with impeteus on dragon princes is to put a Eagle in fornt of your dragon princes to prevent them from charing, and when you want to charge bring in the eagle aswell!

I've never clicked on a video as fast in my life. High elves are bad baby

Swordmasters are baller. They hit before practically anything in the game and can break through armour easy with cleaving. Fury of khaine on them makes them nuts damage.

Another great informative and concise video, Rob is crushing it with the Old World content 🔥 one thing which might be useful would be to have some quick basic list. Not for list building per se but just to help understand how much "stuff" you can actually get in an army

Really pumped about Lothern Seaguard, got 2 Island of Blood boxes lying around + some additional ones so a brick of 23 with a BSB in it feels like a really solid core. Prince of Griffon, some flank charging swordmasters, Ellyrian Reavers to harass and that feels like a solid 1250 starting list to add more fun stuff to once everything get re-released

Looking forward to some long form nerdy breakdowns of all the armies in autistic detail. Keep ‘em coming!

25:00 Ok so i should preface this with mostly i have been playing against a largely infantry bound Warriors of Chaos army.

So between the three Phoenix Guard, White Lions and Swordmasters of Hoeth, the Phoenix Guard are solid infantry units, they've served me well in games i've used them though i have found them to not do so great against monsters.

I've found the White Lions to be a bit meh with my games, the best i've got out of them is monster hunting which they are good at but they feel a bit over kill against heavy infantry and not worth the cost.

The Swordmasters however have been my go to option of these three, give them a Loremaster and they can cut through a enemies elite heavy infantry units at best at worst they will be tied down for a turn till you can charge them with other units in the flank.

I mean, if I was a dragon prince, I wouldn't listen to me.

Learning old world and seeing someone breakdown this sort of thing is nice