BR #3 New HE vs. VC

Pretty sure this not Alarielle.

Played a game vs. my buddy Lucas today and his VC.  It was pretty bloody and pretty fun, and our lists were both middle of the line in terms of strength.  Until proven otherwise, from what I've played so far, HE feels very middle of the road in army strength.  Nothing too crazy has jumped out at me yet, well, aside from Banner of the World Dragon.

My list was this..

2498

10 drops

LORDS

Lv.4 Archmage, High Magic = 285

Book of Hoeth, Crown

HEROES

BSB Noble, Dragon Prince = 161

Enchanted Shield, Dawnstone, PoFool

Lv.1 Mage, High Magic = 110

Scroll

CORE

30x Spearmen (FC, SoDiscipline) = 315

15x Archers, Mus = 160

14x Archers, Mus = 150

SPECIAL

27x White Lions (FC, BotWD) = 431

9x Dragon Princes (FC, CShield, BoEFlame) = 306

RARE

Frostheart Phoenix = 240

Frostheart Phoenix = 240

Great Eagle = 50

Great Eagle = 50

His list consisted of..

A big unit of Ghouls with a Ghoul King and Lv.4 Master Necro with Peripat

3x units of Dire Wolves chaff

A big unit of Grave Guard, Wight King BSB and Banner of Barrows

One Terrorgheist and Mortis Engine

A unit of Vargheists, I think 4-5 strong

My notes:

• OK first of all, I was overwhelmed by his magic.  The Peripat is insanely good and the Mortis Engine's +2 to cast was bonkers most of the time.  Most of the magic phases saw a good number of dice, but his ability to store 2 and use 2 in any of his casting and dispel phases was great.  Definitely overpowered my Lv.4 even with the Book of Hoeth.  VC guys take note:  This combo is super strong.
• My Archers do a good job at killing chaff.  He makes the mistake of Vanguarding and moving too far up and gets 2 of his 3 dog units eaten alive by my Archers.  By letting Soul Quench go through, the dogs were dead rotten meat.  His Terrorgheist flew up but was unable to allocate a decent target aside from my Archer unit.  He screams at it and kills a few and that's OK with me.  Because I have a more mobile army, I relocated most of my units on the far right and basically left my Spearmen to hold my left flank.  With this one maneuver, I moved to kill with the full weight of my White Lions, Dragon Princes and both Phoenixes in a wide, sweeping arc of combo-charging death.
• Once again, the Frostheart Phoenixes prove to be awesome.  Despite a minor mistake that left my Dragon Princes way out of position, I still managed to double charge his Grave Guard unit with my both my Frostheart Phoenixes.  I guess the Princes of Caledor let their arrogance get to them and in doing so, were a turn late to save my White Lions from his Ghoul King.  Together, they inflicted heavy, heavy casualties onto the unit.  Throughout the magic phase, I did not roll a negative modifier for Attuned to Magic once, and most of the time I was rolling with 4+ Ward and +1A.  Two of my Phoenixes chewed through 30 or so Grave Guard in 2 rounds of combat.  S6 stomps are ridiculous and the -S modifier continues to impress me.
• Banner of the World Dragon stopped the crap out of Curse of Years.  He was rolling ridiculously hot and I think I lost 2 White Lions total in 2 rounds (I failed to dispel it) of it being on.  The Dragon Princes were a bit unlucky, on the turn that I failed to dispel it again, 3 of them went down.  I have to keep remembering to take stacking High Magic ward saves and the Dragon Armor's natural 6+ ward save.  Lucas was kind enough to remind me a couple of times.
• I miscasted a crap ton this game, I think 3 times.  All of the wounds generated from these were saved by the Banner of the World Dragon due to the miscast being magical attacks.  Sadly, the only thing worth noting is that I had Fiery Convocation dispelled on a crucial turn due to him having so many DD from Peripat.  The rest of my magic was unimpressive except for Hand of Glory making my White Lions' unit WS7 vs. WS3 Ghouls.  This negated a ton of damage.
• Well, his Ghoul King got into combat with my White Lion's unit and to my surprise, revealed absolutely zero magic weapons and continued to eat through 8 Lions per turn.  It was horrifying, but thankfully Stubborn kept them in the fight.  The unit eventually got whipped out, but not before my Dragon Princes and Phoenixes charge into the flanks and pop the unit due to combat res.

Things to try next time:

• I really want to try bringing only one Frostheart Phoenix just to see how it feels.  Although 2x is the sweet spot, I think one will be decent since my meta doesn't have a ton of cannons so far.  I'm just afraid that if the Frostheart dies, I'll be missing a vital support tool for my army.
• Putting an Ironcurse Icon onto my Lv.1 supporting Mage carrying High Magic has a chance to improve his unit's ward save to 5+ vs. Warmachines.
• I think I'll drop the Dragon Princes into MSU units for 5-6x with Mus and that's it.  The bigger unit was definitely fun to play with, but I'm not so sure how excited I am to take them again.  I will miss that BSB though, the protection of 1+ re-rollable combined with Dragon Armor is great.  Potion of Foolhardiness is also a must-have I think in that circumstance.  Perhaps a Star Lance, Enchanted Shield + PoFools for more damage.  That remains to be seen.
• I want to give Phoenix Guard a try, but it's just so damn expensive that I have to drop the Phoenix or replace the White Lions.  What kind of banner should I put on the PG?  As of now, I'm thinking of just putting the Banner of Eternal Flame on them and call it a day.  Put the Archmage in there and have him spam High Magic to bring the unit up to a 3+ ward.  Sounds good, will try definitely.

Going back a little:

In the first game I had with my Star Dragon, I think I definitely want to keep the Star Dragon focused on killing bigger units.  This might sound kinda low-tier, but I think I'll be sporting the Star Lance on him for a couple of games.  Sword of Might is good when combined with OTS on the Star Dragon, but that's meant for more killing rank and file.  Besides, the thought of 10 S7 attacks coming their way when they'll hopefully be at -S and ASL is just shit your pants worthy.

The real question:
Alarielle - Is she worth it compared to a Lv.4 AM with Book of Hoeth?  Here's what I'm going to do with her:  Put her in a unit of White Lions and take 1 spell from High Magic (defaults to Drain Magic), 3 from Light.  BSB tots Banner of Avelorn for +4 to cast from Lore of Light.  The White Lions have Banner of the World Dragon.  She gives the White Lions 5+ ward vs. non-magical attacks and I always have Drain Magic so I have a chance to pump up that ward.  Otherwise, I have a 2+ ward vs. all magical attacks, weapons and spells.  The unit will also have a Lv.1 supporting Light mage in case I get Banishment.