Utilizing the High Elves

High elves, as a race, are rather balanced, though they lean more towards range and mobility than others. What they lack in endurance, they make up for in their ability to strike before their foes. Their magical affinity is electrical damage.

While they're a solid race choice for every class, Sorceror's get less from them than most, due to sorceror's already having a strong affinity for electrical damage in their class units. Warlords also have to contend with their lacking durability, though this is more of a skill requirement than a straight weakness.

High Elves are the game's research experts. Every city they own gains a +3 bonus to science innately. Normally, science growth is entirely from structures, at a +10 for every science building. This leads to them acquiring techs a turn sooner, though on its own, it has no effect in the early game whatsoever. Once your empire begins to grow however, they will be able to sprint through research ahead of their opponents. It's hardly a game changing benefit, especially on small maps, so don't place it as your reason for getting high elven cities.

Their units benefit from, on average, increased magic resist, along with the ability to ignore movement penalties for forested terrain. They are, however, weak to blight damage, which makes them a very squishy race.

High elves like forests. And only forests. They dislike underground, volcanic, blight, and tropical however, making them a VERY picky race. This is largely offset by the sheer ease of massing forests, but their morale is definately hamstrung through most of the game.

Most of these downsides are offset by very strong, very cost effective units however.

High elf tier 1 units trend towards being made of paper, with strong ranged attacks but lacking melee.

Swordsman are squishy and weak. Barely more durable than a goblin, and certainly less durable, and less damaging than a human. They do, however, bring shields into battle, making them, on average, 2 hp more resistant to ranged attacks than human swordsmen. Given the sheer amount of ranged damage thrown around, especially in the early game, this helps close the gap up, but they are still slightly weaker than humans, and much weaker than orcs.

Union guard follow a similar trend, but fare much better. 4 HP less than humans, with an extra point in resistance, and equivalent damage. The gap is too small to matter against most units, but it does give them an edge in locking down supports and fairies, and in dealing with caster heroes. As far as spears go, they are merely average.

Longbowmen are simply excellent units. They can fire to the end of their range with full damage, hit harder than the other races, and are an all around amazing unit. Their only drawback is their lacking health as well.

Initiates are a potent ranged unit, with an effective melee presence as well. Amusingly, they come very close to taking the job of elven swordsmen, only losing out because of a lack of innate armor, sitting at only 8. Their ranged attacks are roughly on par, or better than a crossbow, swinging for 12 shock damage. For melee, they do 4 physical, 4 shock, which means that against most early game units, who posess negative resistance values, they swing for about 4 phys, 6 shock, but roll twice for increased damage, meaning that on average, they swing higher still. They pay for this with becoming woefully ineffective at melee later in the game, as damage splitting punishes units heavily against later units, who have both defense and resistance in excess of 10.

It's suggested to focus mostly on your Longbows and initiates, killing enemies before they reach melee range. Heroes can take far more damage than your units.

High elf T2 units are where their power really starts to come through, posessing great stats, and potent abilities.

Unicorn Riders are all around amazing cavalry, easily one of the best in the game. Posessing 11 armor and 11 resistance means that they have no real weakness, and they posess standard health and damage as well, leaving them a very balanced unit. Unique to them, however, is their ability to teleport once per battle, allowing them to ignore terrain and cover vast distances. With a dreadnought's ability to give them pistols for use in combat, this makes them incredibly mobile, and incredibly scary. Unlike most high elf units, they don't have reduced health either, so they're just all around strong.

Storm Sisters are, again, an amazing unit. With higher damage than other t2 supports, and better resistance, they're able to bring pain from a distance. While, at first glance, they seem inferior to the elves absolutly godlike archers, they eventually pay for themselves in spades, earning the ability to stun on every attack at Gold rank. While they take training to get there, this is an absolutly massive buff to their combat effectiveness, and allows all allies to do increased damage as well. In adition, they posess an innate 80% shock resist, meaning that pairing them with a hero who gives a shock protection aura allows them to completely ignore electrical damage, which is a common tool of sorcerors. They also lack the damage splitting of initiates, making them able to bring their shock resistance to bear against enemy electrical damage units in melee combat. While this is not suggested very often, it does mean they can kill wisps in melee quite easily.

Where do I even begin with this monstrosity of a T3.

The Griffon Rider is, more than other T3's, immensly dependant on the class using it. Wardlords and dreadnoughts will find it to be among the most powerful units they can field for much of the game, with a mixture of flying, mounted, charge and first strike. It is the only cavalry in the game with innate First Strike, making it able to charge right into pikemen and thrash them. Balanced resistances make them a difficult unit to counter as well.

They are, however, dependant on class specific buffs more than others. Warlords turn them into incredibly durable units who have first strike, and dreadnoughts turn them into flying gunners who you can't strike back against effectively. Unlike other t3's, who are always good, griffons are a bit worse off, but classes can buff them to surpass them by far.