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Tacticas for W-E: Dark Elves

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PhillyT:
This is the draft thread for the W-E Tactica against Dark Elves.  Bies and Dagonaki are working on it.  If you have comments for the things posted here, go ahead.  Any help will be appreciated.

Phil

Nicholas Bies:
OK this is the first part of what I plan on doing. In this I've gone briefly through a few of the nastier Dark elf units and characters- I plan on expanding on these descriptions. However my next step will be more empire centric and aim at explaining what in my opinion works against Delves best (outriders, lots and lots of outriders)

Warhammer – Empire Anti Dark Elves Tactica

Overview:

Dark Elves are currently a member of the “big 3” and widely considered to be a broken, under-costed and overpowered list. While all of this is true there is 1 large weakness inherent with all of the Dark Elf units. They’re all T3 and they’ve got little armour which means they’re vulnerable to counter attacks.

What I’m aiming to do with this tactica is pour out all of my knowledge of Dark Elves and my experience in playing with and against them into a digital communication written form for your viewing pleasure. Afterwards I’ll then mention specific tactics and Empire units I think give us the best chance against this army.

I’m not going to talk about Dark elf units per se at the moment, maybe when I get the time or if it’s deemed necessary. What I will show is a list of items/ abilities/units/combinations that can pose a threat to both the Empire (and are just dark elf strengths in general).

1. Black Guard – Stubborn 9, immune to psychology, 2 attacks at str4 each. You give this unit the Standard of Hag Graef and they have Always Strike First as well. PLUS their unit champion (Tower Master) can take a magic item.

From my knowledge and experience a Tower Master is given usually one of the following: A) Null Talisman giving the unit MR1, B) Crimson Death so that he has 3 Str6 attacks which cannot be modified in any way C) Ring of Hotek – more on this later.

This is a nasty and scary unit especially considering they’re quite affordable. Personally I take a unit of 14 of these guys 7 wide, many however take them 15 or so 5 wide – to be honest 5x3 is better for the empire as it means 4 less attacks a turn and a deeper unit for our artillery. The key issue with these guys is while they have lots of attacks and will rarely break when they come up against high toughness or low armour save (1+, 2+)  they struggle to get many kills and without any Static CR it becomes possible to win combats.

Plus the die to shooting ridiculously easy, however for some reason they’re never a high priority target…go figure.

2. Dragon Lord – this is a nasty, nasty character and the great selection of weapons and talismans means he can be a REAL pain in the arse. Now there are many possible combinations but as a Delf player these are the best 2 in my opinion (having played both I do have a personal favourite) these combinations are: A) Hydra blade - +d3 attacks each round of combat, Potion of Strength – str 7 for 1 round of combat, Pendant of Kaleth – reverse ward save. B) Caledor’s Bane – lance +3 str, instead of +2, no scaly skin save, Potion of Strength, Pendant of Kaleth. Both of these are nasty combinations to  face as with all armour options they have a 2+AS against shooting, 3+ in combat + ward and dish out a lot of str7 attacks (with Hydra blade up to 7 attacks). Variations include giving the rider Ring of Hotek or Armour of Eternal servitude (heavy armour with Regeneration – giving the character a 2/3+ AS 4+ regen and ward save). However I personally believe such combinations either diminish the combat potential or take up unnecessary points. Best thing about this guy is you take out that Dragon of his (Obligatory 2 cannons, Orb of Thunder to help) and he’s out on his own and quite possibly with a useless lance – to which you should be able to run him over with almost anything.

3. Dark Riders – 18” charge, str4 with lances these guys can seriously hurt our smaller units and they have the range to pretty much leave us with no options to stop them. Not to mention a unit of 5 or 6 with musician only comes to 100-120pts so they’re quite cheap. That said they’re T3 with a 5+AS so can be shotdown quit quickly and readily.

4. Repeater crossbowmen – 2xstr3 AP shots that can move and fire. These guys dish out a lot of firepower and again can hurt our smaller units like pistoliers, outriders, detachments, flagellants etc. They should be on your list to whittle down as soon as possible to minimize their effectiveness. Keep in mind if equipped with shields then these guys are essentially an Empire swordsmen (WS4, Str3, I5, 4+AS) with crossbow (for kicks you know)

5. Witchelves & Corsairs – these units are very similar and slightly different at the same time. Disregarding handbows both units rely on mass attacks to win combat. Corsairs have two hand weapons so 2 attacks each while Witch elves have two hand weapons + frenzy so 3 (with poison). The biggest issue with these units is that they’re str3 attacks. So even against our infantry they’ll only wound on around 50% of their hits (they should get around 75% of their attacks to hit with Hatred) so a regular 5 wide unit we’re looking at 7 hits and 3.5 wounds for corsairs and 13 hits and 6.5 wounds of witch elves.

Considering most of us take swordsmen that’s only 1.75 or 3.25 wounds suffered still not enough to break out Static combat res and we still get models to strike back – combine with a detachment in the flank and we’re laughing.

6. Couldron of Blood – this is an odd unit, personally I don’t like it, I think it’s helpful and can be useful but I don’t like taking a Death Hag. There are some combinations to be worried about however. #1 giving Killing Blow to either Witchelves or Blackguard, +1 attack to the above units or Executioners. Keep in mind the cauldron can’t be destroyed by shooting and it’s crew get a 4+ ward. That would make combat the option of choice against this beast however there are a few combat options that most players will give their death-hag. Manbane (strength counts as 1 more then your toughness to a max of str6, so you’re T3 the character counts as Str4) + rune of Khaine for +d3 attacks (so with 2 handweapons and frenzy we’re looking at 6-8 attacks with poison as well, PLUS the 2 handlers who have 4 attacks poison each. SO if you charge it best make sure you can kill them – often they make the hag a BSB as well, just to really rub things in – Oh and they’ll be stubborn 9 thanks to the Couldron.

7. Cold One knights- meh just shoot’em they’ll die soon enough, DO NOT let them hit your flanks though or they most likely will run up your battleline.

8. Hydra’s, under costed with 7 str5 attacks it’s a beast in combat and nasty with its breath weapon attack and has REGEN of all things. To be fair taking it out with shooting is a bit of a 50/50 chance, 1 thing to keep in mind is that it does break from combat and it is only ld8. Your regular SCR5 block + detachment stands a pretty decent chance of winning combat thanks to your 6SCR. In fact my rough mathhammer has the hydra handlers doing 1.5 wounds and the Hydra doing 3-4 wounds. Which would have the infantry block winning combat. Also I’ve run a Hydra into the flank of a unit of Nilla Empire knights and lost before so scary but not infallible.
 

Fandir Nightshade:
You forgot Shades

repeater crossbows
great weapons
WS 5 BS 5
skirmishers, scouts

these guys are any generals wet dreams, versatile, hard hitting, extremely useful I would always use two units of 7 in every single dark elf army I field.

Nicholas Bies:
yet to get to them.

The best unit in the entire delf book imo is a unit of 7 shades with GW and a Ninja assassin (rending stars + manbane) using 2 such units of my own atm.

Fandir Nightshade:
If you can get the magic defenese to protect them against magic missiles you have one nasty unit.

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