Title says it all really. It's a wonderful model, with a great pose, but with the point cost creeping up to Erestor himself, who has those wonderful daggers, defence 7 and even causes terror... has the high elf captain got any use in a competitive high elven force these days?

I struggle just to convince myself to use a banner, let alone the captain.

Probably not very useful. High Elves generally have 2 heroes at 500pts and as you say Erestor is outright superior for the same cost. The troops are so expensive that you can basically never have a hero in the army without it leading troops and most of your heroes will have maxed out warbands for points efficiency. For me the heroes are ranked as follows:
1. Twins
2. Gil-Galad
3. Glorfindel
4. Erestor
5. Arwen
6. Elrond
7. Cirdan
8. Gildor
9. High Elf Cap
10. Stormcaller

A rough guide but you get the idea

Pretty much, yeah. Various 'cheap' (i.e. similar cost to a captain) named heroes exist in the list, who will generally be better and, given their long lifespan, will fit in the list regardless of theme (e.g. Erestor can be present both in the 2nd and 3rd age without anybody objecting).
As such, captains will probably only see much use in very large games, when you've run out of named heroes to use...
That being said, the lower-priced named heroes are lacking in Might, so the captain does have a nice advantage there. Besides, a F6 D7 hero is still a more than decent hero to lead your warriors into battle!

This is true, though I am seriously considering a way to work on the model to make it my Lindir model, as I dislike the idea of him being unprotected or 'not dressed' for battle. I'm unsure as to what I would need to do for it to be accepted as a conversion to that character. It'd look pretty good next to Elrond.

As for the list above, I agree. I think Elrond would be much higher if it wasn't for his huge cost. The Elladan/Elrohir and Erestor seem like the three heroes that will provide the most success for the least points spent, in my opinion.

But on top of this, the packet I got him in, so long ago now, came with a standard bearer. Would you use a high elven standard bearer, considering it costs... 34 points I think? Something like that, I don't have the book near me at the moment.

In a 500pts list, I feel that the banner is just a bit too expensive, and I wouldn't often find myself with 25pts to spend. Above that, however, a banner is great.
-It looks fantastic.
-The higher your Fight value, the better a re-roll becomes (with a F9 hero and potentially F6 warriors, the Elves have that covered).
-When playing the 'To the Death!' scenario, you'll hit yourself if you didn't bring a banner when you could have.
-It really does look fantastic.

All very true points, and absolutely. I have three and when they're on display at home, the army looks outstanding. The other two are still in storage so I'll have to sift those out for some pictures. Definitely agree that the banner looking fantastic was worth mentioning twice!

The way I see it is, I can get two warriors for those points, but those two warriors could be dropped without doing a thing. With the high fight value and the chance to reroll, I see it as the banner could double, at the very least, the survive-ability and lethal...ness(? lol) of the elven battle line, and the battle-line is absolutely where the high elves' strength lies, in my opinion. At least for the troops.

I'd expand on that point though into something I'm not at all knowledgeable about. The Rivendell Knights. They can carry a banner, but is that worth it? Is the range at all greater than 3 inches?

Better to take the banner on a high elf warrior I think, because if you have it on the knight, you're paying a ton of points for a model that has a -1 penalty in combat and that you'll be afraid to lose.

My other opinions:
The captain is worth taking, as he has more might than Erestor, but the latter is almost always going to be better, I agree. Though the captain is a million times better than Gildor. The only time I'd take a captain is in a small fame where I'd have two warbands led by Erestor and the captain, as in big games, you can take all of the mega heroes.

Having said that, Gil-Galad is without a doubt the best hero the high elves have available to them. The twins are good, but you can't always rely on them, and a lowly D6 means that if one of them is your leader, you'll be forced to use all your might to win combats in order not to take any wounds. But you can always rely on Gil-Galad, as he literally has no weaknesses. His defence is so high that you don't need to worry about losing a combat unless he's hopelessly surrounded ( by which time you'll probably have already lost the game anyway), and he basically never has to use might heroic striking.

Gil Galad have 1 weakness, 1 fate point and as I recall S4 models still need 6s to wound him which is not all that impossible.

Better than Gil Galad is Elrond, lord of the west that despite he need to get a 3+ on heroic strike in order to get same fight value, elrond can call that heroic strike for free every turn.
Also Elrond re-roll fate points and has 3 of em unlike Gil Galad.
He does have D7 instead of 8 but you can use magic and even therefore healing yourself. As overall Elrond can hold dmg more often than Gil Galad, while Gil Galad got more killing power with that spear

The new Elrond can't lead any troops making him useless for a high elf army. High elf armies have no points spare to have individual heroes. So unless you are going to go all hero then Gil-Galad is more efficient as he can lead a warband. I do like the new Elrond and I hope that one day all of the new rivendell models (Elrond, Lindir, Rivendell knight etc) are put into the Rivendell and Eregion list. I believe that licensing issue will put a stop to those kind of thoughts though

Maybe yeah, but bringing Gil Galad and Elrond etc is way beyond where I'm at in game sizes at the moment. My big hitter that I currently own is Glorfindel, lord of the west. A good hero. I may still put the banner on the Knight, but not include it in the points, only because it looks cool having it.

The twins and Erestor have been killing machines for me. Glorfindel has been a reliable leader, paired with Galadriel in the army.

Sure thing. I was just speaking generally about how competitive some high elves are and how I wish I could have the twins leading rivendell knights

If you are liking the twins and erestor my first high elf army focused on them:

Erestor (Leader)
Twins + Heavy Armour
12 high elf with spear and shield
3 high elf warriors
7 high elf with elf bow
1 high elf with banner

That also includes the banner which it sounds like you're keen to use. I think the most important thing is to have fun with it and use the models you most like the look of and enjoy using

An interesting list for sure. Definitely enough bows to cause a problem for the enemy at range. I'll write it down and give it a shot in my next game. I appreciate it!

I honestly find most non named heroes useless for points matches. Their counterparts are always much better. There's few I like to use.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Not to resurrect a dead topic on Easter
I like to use the high elf capt for proxy minis. Actually, now that I think about it, if any of my friends or I have a mini we want to use which is not an official LOTR mini we assign it a generic capt profile and press.