One of my regular opponents is a die-hard HE player. This isn't something that's troublesome when in close combat (save for White Lions and the occasional dragon), however they rely heavily on using ranged units to control the field. This makes things...difficult. The traditional set-up is: four units of archers, and 2 bolt throwers. They're often lined across the centre of his deployment area, which constrains close combat to the sides of the board in an effort a) avoid casualties and b) focus on his close-combat units which are all specials or rares, as his core has been filled by archers. I've had some success in grinding them down using magic and the occasional Cold-One Cavalry plow, but I'd much prefer to focus on buffing and supporting my Saurus as they try and tackle the myriad of chariots/Dragon Princes/Sword-Masters/White Lions which bear down upon me. Any ideas on how to deal with these guys? Games are usually 2500 points, with the one consistent limitation being no special characters.
Slann with Focus of Misteries - Tempest: Cast this spell as soon as you can and try to cover one of their units. Trade this spell for Fireball. - Fiery convocation: Cast this spell against their elite infantry. - Soul Quench: Use it to kill his combat units. Same as traded fireball. - Walk Between Worlds: Use it to close the gap between one of your infantry against their archers line up. - Arcane Unforging: Unforge Banner of the World Dragon. Now you can nuke those pesky elves with Fiery Convocation.
So we're talking ~60 Archers here (4 units of 15ish I'm guessing) and the 2 RBT's? That's some pretty solid firepower, for sure, and with great range. A couple of ideas: Deploy a majority of your Skink Skirmishers in the middle, but only 5 to 5.5" off the starting line (assuming Battleline). The gist is, deploy so that the HE archers will have to move to get into range, making a total of -3 to hit 1st turn (move, long range, skirmish). This can generally also be applied to other scenarios too. Chameleons are death to RBT's, though not if they are directly protected by the archers. On that point, how flexible is the terrain placement? Like, if he's always getting a hill on his side to deploy his RBT's, challenge him not to do that (or don't have that/those hills there). Use your skink drops to match his archer drops and then overload a flank. BS shooting hates modifiers, so do what you can to require movement for shots (as above), to provide cover on the advance, etc. If I were that HE player, I'd actually go with 2 units of 30 Archers. They benefit more from Magic buffs to their shooting, generally - since the best buffs are 1 unit buffs (Hand of Glory, Enchanted Blades, Flaming Sword).
Some flyers would seem to be helpful here. Rippers to get to those Bolt Throwers as quick as possible. Vanguard, March T1, Charge T2. Could use Terradons to drop rocks on the Archers on the way past, but they might panic to shooting. One build you could try that I've seen in a different context is a Chief on Ripper (or Terradon I suppose) with Spear, LA & Ench Shield/Shield & Dragonhlem for 2+ AS, Luckstone for a one off AS re-roll and the Potion of Toughness. Vanguard up and position to charge a Bolt Thrower. If he gets first turn, drink the Potion of Toughness at the start of his turn for a T6, 2+ AS chief for a turn. All of a sudden his Bolt Throwers need 6s to wound or else he's risking a single shot which may miss (especially if you screen your Chief with terrain/other vanguarding flyers). You can then charge in on your T1. If you get first turn, then fly into position (vanguarding will prevent any frenzy charging) and drink the potion when he has his T1 for the same effect. T2 and you can charge in on a Bolt Thrower. If nothing else, he'll have to chuck a whole lot of fire at this character, leaving other stuff to advance relatively unscathed. Might be worth it for 130 odd points.
Why not ancient stegs? Archers cant hurt them, there is a chance you can make them flee with terror. The only real threath are the RBT for the steg. Id suggest you packing 2 ancients and 2 unit of chamos to deal with the bolt throwers. Also, cowboys can deal with the archers and cherriots and dragons without taking a sweat.
I agree with the Space Pope. There are a lot of spells from a variety of lores that help, but Steggies are resilient enough to take a lot of arrows. The 6+ from the EOTG ward save (if you take EOTG) is gravy. If you go EOTG, I'd recommend a BRB Slann so you can get more use out of the Arcane Configuration. Either Light or Shadow. Shadow guaranteed Misma (soften shooters and WLs in close combat later) and likely Enfeebing Foe (nerfs shooters) and/or Pit of Shades (auto kills RBTs) Probably Light since we are talking Elves. That's got Pha's Protection for bubbled shooting protection, Speed of Light and Timewarp for close combat Elf neutralization and Shems and Banishment to zap small archer units with.