Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

Discuss your tactics for the 7th Ed army book here, together with tactics for other races.

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geoguswrek
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Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#1 Post by geoguswrek »

This is July 2009's episode of the Enemy of the Month series, for more information visit: http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=30072

I thought i'd start the series off with our most hated foe: our darker kin from across the seas, Yes, The Dark Elves. (boo hiss)

I'll start off the thread by mentioning the surprise that is so common as to not be surprising.

The Banner of Hag Graef: this gives the unit bearing it "always strikes first". This is very threatening to us, since we rely on ASF kills to protect our troops and to win combats. Normally seen in I6 Black Guard, this banner is the absolute bane of swordmasters. The obvious response is to hit the unit with chariots, shooting or magic (see info on the ring of hotek below). But remember it is only on one unit, the rest of the army is as scared of ASF as everyone else.

I'll now throw the discussion over to everyone else on this forum... enjoy.
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WarpPhoenix
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#2 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Ah the hated banner of hag grief, I havnt found a reliable way of dealing with this personally, I have tried the above methods but they dont seem to deal with the problem, only to soften it.

Ring of Corin seems a good shot but usually coupled with other known items its hard to pull off. It seems shooting is the best solution to the black guard problem in a whole, because even without the banner they are still hard as rocks in combat, they produce the same results as chaos warriors do in terms of damage while being stubborn and itp at the same time, as well as rerolling hits in every round of combat because of their Warrior Elite special rule so slightly surpasing chaos warriors in that respect.

Bolt throwers at them every turn will work very well, as well as the less costly option of sacrificing an eagle to push them in woods (my personal favourite) and stop them from opperating. Thats a big amount of points being wasted for your opponent, however when the battle ends they still have that many points on the field and likely contesting or capturing a corner, so im more included to shoot them personally because i usually take 3 bolts which can deal with them effectively in a couple rounds of shooting when combined with the reaver bow that can take 2 a turn, 3 if lucky.

Moving from the Banner of Hag Grief to one of the reasons its so hard to take out... Ring of Hotek, this bad boy has stopped and foiled more plans than any other item at any tournament anywhere and I can say that with absolute resolution, I can't see any other item doing the damage this thing does. I once saw a WoC player with puppet teamed up with a DE player with hotek... it was BRUTAL, mages were dissapearing, giving away spells and destroying their own units. As a magical item the safest way to take it out is magic throguh law of gold or vauls unmaking... HOWEVER because of its nature it has become the hardest item to destroy via magic, and killing its bearer has become the prime stratagey, usually with black guard or cold ones champion it is quite hard to pinpoint its placement right off the bat if both of these units are on the field in the middle, even harder if several hero type melee characters are involved also. It forces high elves to skirmish thier magic, using it to aide or kill off low threat targets on the side such as shades and dark riders and harpies, these are by no means bad choices for magic but the whole of the game plan changes, instead of shooting the light cav with bolts we need to magic missile them and then bolt the main units. we may get overkill on the other units but im pretty sure a flip on current targeting tactics is the only option.

To put a stop to hotek shooting is a very valid option and then you magic the outside units. Of course for you scroll caddies out there this isnt a problem but for magic users this is a serious cramp in our style and more options to its demish is always welcome.

Dealing with DE in general our ASF seems to take care of most units. In my games against DEs I have put my archers in the middle of the field and slowly built everything around the outside so that in the ends its only my archers looking at his repeater xbows, in which case i will win that shoot off because i get 2 free rounds of shooting at them (i dont count hitting on 6s a round of shooting for the DEs) as well as my mage doing arrow attraction in the middle of the field because the hotek ring is busy off on the sides in the black guard or cold one unit that is looking directly at my white lion, dragon princes or swordmasters. It seems a sound strat so far but I guess giving this away will heolp my enemies! So hopefully the only person I know who comes here and plays DEs doesnt read this @.@

My thoughts on how to murder the Druchii.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#3 Post by madelmo »

Assassin: another tool the DE army has as a "surprise" ASF counter. They can be built in many ways, one of which (Rune of Khaine + Black Lotus: This allows the assassin to attack with 3+d3 attacks that reroll misses and "1's" to wound) really mutilates our vulnerable elite troops that rely only on their ASF attacks for defense in combat. Alternatively, our princes, mages and even dragons have to fear our very own geoguswrek's favorite, the venom sword. All the Assassin has to do is deal 1 wound to any of our Elves and now we need to roll snake eyes to avoid the character dying right out. Even with the t6 of dragons, you still have a 72% chance of losing it after 1 wound. It's disgusting. DAMN THE VENOM SWORD, indeed.

An annoying part about assassins is that we can't target them until they reveal themselves from their infantry unit hiding places. The key is INFANTRY units. They can only hide in those type of units. If you notice one unit of warriors, executioners, witch elves etc that seem to be a bit more aggressive or reckless than expected, don't rule out the possibility of an assassin among them. Besides being observant in that respect, you need to be careful with how you approach those infantry units. The DE army are elves after all, so don't rule out shooting, magic, breath weapons etc. and get them to fail panic tests.

I've never had a good experience against an assassin in close combat but i assume that's what they're meant for :P
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#4 Post by Silver »

Venom Sword is nothing to be feared except maybe by Sun dragons because of their Low armor save, and even then the Assassin has a maximum of 3 attacks when using that sword (+1 if in Frenzy banner unit, +1 if cauldron used, but thats a TON of points spent just on that).

3 Attacks, most likely all hit, but then he needs 6s against Dragons and against characters he needs you to fail your armors and wards.

It is very unlikely you will be ever killed by Venom Sword except by pure badluck on your rolling.
Venom Sword is 75 points - the entire Temple of Khaine points allowed for 1 assassin.

The more useful combos are Manbane + Rune of Khaine, Manbane + Throwing Stars
And the one High Elves need to watch out for: Rune of Khaine + Touch of Death - 5 to 7 S4 attacks that all have Killing Blow.

Manbane combos aren't scary due to not increasing the assassin's strength against high elves - only against their monster mounts and chariots - even throwing stars cannot reach S7 against High elf chariots.

And in a magic balanced/heavy dark elf army, you can expect an assassin with Cloak of Twilight (Bound power 3, Steed of Shadows) to catapult the Assassin 20" in any direction.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#5 Post by Seredain »

Range and numbers of units can really work in our favour against the Dark Elves. Their repeater crossbows are excellent once in range, but they shouldn't be able to hit our archers in turn one.

Dark riders are very good indeed, but they're also core choices. Many dark elf armies feature one or more of these units and/or harpies, while the crossbow units tend to be small and multiple. They're so useful that you'll probably be facing at least 4 DE core units not even counting a spear block if they choose to bring it.

A shooty High Elf army (and I'm not even talking dedicated shooty - I take 10 archers, 3 RBT's and a Reaver Bow noble plus a TC (if that counts) at 2250) can take advantage of all these drops. We have fewer core requirements and more expensive elites, meaning our armies tend to be smaller. If you take the skeinsliver you're likely to get a +2 for the first turn. With that item, all our shooting plus a reasonable amount of magic (I take the popular Lvl 4 silver wand + Lvl2 seerstaff combo) can decimate the DE support units before they even get a shot off. Curse of arrow attraction is also an excellent spell.

It has been mentioned above that the Ring of Hotek often forces us to aim for the DE's support units. This is no bad thing. They make soft targets but also pose a serious threat to all our AS5+ troops. HE have the ability to get rid of them pronto with our range and easily tailored magic and then dominate the shooting phase. And the Dark Elves don't like being shot.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#6 Post by Keith »

The toughest thing about the DE book is that they are so adaptable.

They can be a gunline.
They can be a horde army.
They can be a monster filled army.
They can have a ton of magic.
They can operate without any magic and rely on one 25 point item for defense.

The trick is, they can often pull off two of these at the same time.

If you were in some sort of league and knew next week you were playing a DE player, you could have no idea what is going to show up on the table.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#7 Post by geoguswrek »

With a normal high elf army, i feel our best bet is to kill the support units first. If we get rid of the shades, dark riders and harpies reasonably quickly (shooting/magicking them, panic tests and charges with our own light units). Then there is only one or two units we need to worry about. Because of ASF we can control the field very well against an army in which most of the units hit hard, but don't take the hits very well.

The only other issues are the hydrae and the ASF banner.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#8 Post by Keith »

geoguswrek wrote:With a normal high elf army, i feel our best bet is to kill the support units first. If we get rid of the shades, dark riders and harpies reasonably quickly (shooting/magicking them, panic tests and charges with our own light units). Then there is only one or two units we need to worry about. Because of ASF we can control the field very well against an army in which most of the units hit hard, but don't take the hits very well.

The only other issues are the hydrae and the ASF banner.

And Black Dragons...


Have you faced a magic heavy list for DE?
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#9 Post by geoguswrek »

And the black dragon. I suggest metal magic at the BD. Law of Gold to get rid of the pendant, followed up with a short sharp burst of rule of burning iron/spirit of the forge to knock the guy off the top (it isn't awful against the dragon either).

I have only faced medium magic (level 4 with sac dagger) Dark elves, but dark elf magic has one awesome spell and the rest are ok (against us). admittedly every level 2 is a threat since they can throw 4 dice at black horror, but it is that level 4 we need to deal with (theres not a lot we can do to deal with it, especially the peg kind) So we are forced to use beast cowers, and set up something to charge him.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#10 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Most of the time the problem with trying to take out the level 4 is that they are often inside a wood or some kind of unseeable obstacle with their focus familair poking out the top end of the trees to fire all their magic. We can do the same because our magic doesnt require line of sight to use but if we ever want to use another lore of magic or heaven forbid a magic missile we need to poke our toughness 3 ass out of the forest and expose ourselves to the nasty nasty people of the world.

This can be the problem with any level mage in the DE force, for a culture that likes to show off how bloody and gruesome they are their wizards do hide a lot.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#11 Post by geoguswrek »

So if there is a level 4 with the focus familiar: what do we do to her?
If she is on a pegasus, we can use "beast cowers" upon her, which will stop her moving.
However, i have just thought of another suggestion, which i find quite nice. If we move close to her with our own wizard, we can use the number 6 spell from death or light to do hits to her, without needing line of sight. If said wizard is in a unit of dragon princes, it can reasonably safely move close to the caster, and since the caster will be without bodyguard, there is a chance we seriously inconvenience her (not that if on a peggie, this will take a while to kill her). Thus i suggest using beast cowers and setting up some sort of charge. (or charging in with wolf hunts/unseen lurker).

Other than with magic, our options are to use reavers to move 18" and shoot at her, but this again takes a long time, and said reavers are likely to be shot quite early on. To use light units to set up charges in order to force her out into the open: this can also be inconvenienced by druchii shooting. Or to avoid getting in range of the caster's cover, forcing her to move, possibly into range of our bolt throwers or other toys. this is again difficult since there is little reason for the DE player to risk his/her wizard in such if it is not advantageous for him/her to do so.

We can use the ring of corin to destroy the focus familiar and force her into the open or use law of gold repetetively until the focus familiar is left, burning head to cause a panic test (1/6 chance of panicking the wizard). comet of casandora can be used to force the wizard away from her wood, steal soul will take a wound from her. comet seems like it'll work pretty nicely.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#12 Post by ilovecookies1 »

What I find as most effective against Dark Elves is pounding them to dust with shooting. The reaver bow, archers, and tons of bolt throwers are mandatory in my opinion vs the druchii. I mostly run magic defense, packing scrolls with light offensive capabilities, but nothing too focused on magic dominance. Dark Elves for the most part end up being able to defend themselves with lots of +dispel dice to the pool and/or the ring of hotek, so I try to stay away from fully offensive magic lists.

What I have used and won every game against Dark Elves with, is my trusty star dragon prince. Armor of Caledor + Vambraces of Defense + lance or halbred + Talisman of Loec has proven solid and effective against nasty units. Not only can it overpower most if not all dark elf units 1vs1, it provides you with a very durable and distracting presence, drawing firepower and magic away from your forces that are pushing to reach combat and outmaneuver.

Baiting is very easy against this race, for the rule states that any unit that hates you must pursue you if you flee. So an eagle or unit of cavalry can bait charge the flank or rear, forcing the druchii to pursue, and if you place it right, have them follow you way off course and straight into terrain. I've used this to my advantage many times, ruining the enemy battle plans and dismembering their fighting lines.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#13 Post by SpellArcher »

Shooting is good against all Elves. Sometimes it's who gets the boot in first.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#14 Post by Seredain »

SpellArcher wrote:Shooting is good against all Elves. Sometimes it's who gets the boot in first.
Exactly! Which is why I think the skeinsliver is such a good item against this race. If you have enough shooting, getting the first turn can be an absolute winner against DEs. They don't have to be the only ones wielding a game-breaking 25-point item. :wink:
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#15 Post by Crawd »

Seredain wrote:Exactly! Which is why I think the skeinsliver is such a good item against this race. If you have enough shooting, getting the first turn can be an absolute winner against DEs. They don't have to be the only ones wielding a game-breaking 25-point item. :wink:
If you're talking about the Ring of Hotek, sorry but learn to play... I played a heavy magic list against a Ring of Hotek and the Ring of Hotek didn't help him once at all. I had 1 miscast and it was because of a double 1.

Game breaking? Come on, when you see the DE without casters or with a scroll caddy, chances are that he'll have the Ring of Hotek and you have to be careful of heroes, BG Champion or CoK Champion. Most of the time, it will be on a flying hero or in a BG Bunker so avoid to cast in this area and you're safe while his ring will do nearly nothing.

The way you're talking about this item makes it look like there's no way you can deal with it. While it's so easy to deal with it.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#16 Post by WarpPhoenix »

In all respects, the person you played against didnt know how to play. Or you just didnt roll any doubles apart from that double 1, were you playing VC or something?

RIng of Hotek is deadly because only one member of a unit need to be within 12" of the bearer and give the whole unit the hotek protection. It means you can move a big portion of your army up the field and only worry about shooting, rather than both magic and shooting. You probably played against someone that either had it in a cold one unit that tried to flank or a black guard unit that was alone in the middle of the field while he had quite a bit of shooting behind him.

And how did you know that he had it if you never miscast from it? I assume he told you afterwards or he pointed out during the game in which case its much easier to avoid even going near it if you know where it is right off the bat. The first miscast can be deadly enough, getting a miscast and ending the magic phase right away with your level 4 can be game breaking enough, it means you dont get arrow attraction off, no flames and they can easily move foward with a lot less threat. Yeah you know where it is but your opponent just saved a lot of models through 25 points of item. It really is game breaking and when in the right hands it really is ridiculous.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#17 Post by Crawd »

WarpPhoenix wrote:In all respects, the person you played against didnt know how to play. Or you just didnt roll any doubles apart from that double 1, were you playing VC or something?
I played my Fey Enchantress list so I was playing Brets and Silver isn't a player that doesn't know how to play. In fact, it's really easy to know where the ring was, most of the time, like I said, most of the army tend to be around the ring.

I do got a few doubles but I didn't targetted the center of the armies and I wasn't in the ring range, so I didn't triggered it. I was aiming for the flankers. Also, it's not because I had a heavy magic list that I relied entirely on magic, in fact, I used the spells I needed and then stopped, instead of casting all my spells and hoping for a miscast.

Sorry but whining won't make you play better against the ring of hotek, it's part of the game now and there's some way to avoid it and casting with 4-5 dice isn't the way to play against the ring of hotek, in fact, here's a good way to deal with the ring and still be able to cast spells, of course, you'll have to hope on some good rolls but going magic means that you play with luck:

Casting Value 3 or 4 : Only 1 die
Casting value 5 : 1 or 2 dice
Casting Value: 6 to 8 : Only 2 dice
Casting Value 9 : 2 or 3 dice
Casting value 10+ : Max 3 dice

That's how I usually play against the Ring of Hotek and I usually trigger it once in the entire game. Once I trigger it, I know here I have to cast and what I need to kill. And when I'm not sure about the ring location, I don't take chance by casting with my L4, I take a L2 to cast around it so my L4 is able to do something safer.

The Ring of Hotek is game-breaking? Not at all, it is as game-breaking as ASF and ASF isn't game-breaking.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#18 Post by WarpPhoenix »

This is a tactic thread to deal with it, not whine about it, the only time it sounds like whining is when someone comes in and calls the tactics to counter it pointless because its not a problem, then we have to do this whole dance of pointing out the things that it does and then you reply with ways to counter those things and blah blah blah.

If someone has a problem with something in game dont tell them they dont know how to play in the TACTICS forum, a place where people come to "learn to play". Give advice to someone who clearly has trouble with a particular item you have overcome in your own way, perhaps the better course of action would be to share this knowledge.

Either way I think Ring of Hotek has already been "whined" about to death, i dont have anything to add to it so im going to head over to Hydra town.

Hydras, bolts barely dent them, only heavy magic works effectively and they have 7 strength 5 attacks in combat along with beastmasters that dont do too shabby either, if thats not enough the whole model has hatred. How do we deal with this guy?

The 4+ armour save seems to bane the Hydra as it makes spirit of the forge just powerful enough to give good to below average results, lore of metal is great against DEs in general due to burning iron being able to snipe certain item holders and law of gold being able to take away the nasty ward save from Mr unkillable. A spirit of the forge on a hydra can kill it with one cast, however you'll often find that you roll too low on the number and only get a wound or two, so what else can topple this beast outside of the obvious magical spells?

Cadryan is a good answer to a Hydra, flaming attacks at strength 5 and D3 wounds can wipe the 5 smiles off of a hydras face quite quickly and seeing as this is one of our only sources of flaming weapons the list stops there unless we look at Tyrion, in which case he has better things to be doing. All armies struggle with hydras just because of their point cost, many gamers i know struggle to bring themselves to expend too many points to kill this thing, what are your answers?
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#19 Post by madelmo »

for those who shy away from characters, a dragon mage is fun to use against hydras.

the volume of flaming attacks the dragon mage can spew is nothing to laugh at. even if you wound on 5's, you only need to get through a single 5+ save. From what i've seen, hydras are usually deployed on flanks. if that's the case, use that to your advantage. set yourself out of range of enemy shooting and continue to throw all the fire you can at it. in a pinch, use flaming sword on your dragon mage to really put the hurt on. (i believe the average wound output from the mage alone would be 1-2 wounds by himself)

If dragon mage isnt your style, sometimes you just need to rely on our RBT's.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#20 Post by ilovecookies1 »

Static CR isn't too bad versus the hydra. I've had my BSB with Battle Banner in a unit of 8 Silver Helms make it run like a goblin after one combat phase. They are extremely low in points, and we usually need much more points to beat it down, but Dark Elf players tend to depend on their hydras and lean on their hydras way too much. Taking it out is like taking a whole chunk of your enemy's strategic plan.

I mostly run my star dragon prince at hydras, which usually gets the job done.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#21 Post by Asur Ryan »

WarpPhoenix wrote:Hydras, bolts barely dent them
Sure they do, a single bolt from a bolt thrower needs 2+ to hit, 3+ to wound and half of them will get past regen to cause D3 wounds. With 3 RBTs I no longer worry about hydras as they never get anywhere near my troops. The only problem is that the RBTs are tied up and can't shoot anything else for a few turns.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#22 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Yeah 2s on short range, and most DE players I know shove hydras into woods to gain protection so thats another -1.

Id much rather be 6 shooting units of black guard than getting through the hydra only for it to regen it back, and then I'll maybe do 1 one wound if they fail the regen save, sure it can be great if it gets off, but Im one of those people that hates the roll of a dice and tries to minimize my chance to fail by not having to rely on single dice rolls, and more so on massive rolls.

Ironicalyl I play with magic a lot and I have been known to throw 5 dice at spells ;p
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#23 Post by geoguswrek »

I reckon swordies have an ok chance against the hydra. give them the ITP banner, and the swordies are hitting on 3's, wounding on 4's and being saved on 6's and 4's, and we get 10 attacks, should do a few wounds (plus a couple from the talismaned champion), and then the swordmasters who can attack the BM's should kill them, and the hydra is made hatredless, so we should win combat. (shame this unit costs loads more than a hydra)
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#24 Post by WarpPhoenix »

the hydra itself has hatred, they wont lose it if you kill the handlers.

In the army entry it has a seperate rule section for both hydra and beastmasters, and both have the hatred special rule, so doesnt matter if you kill them, thats 7 hatred attacks coming back at you regardless.

I think a simple thing to fix a hydra could be done, make its attacks scale with its wounds like its breath weapon, i dont think this would be too much. For 175 points you've got 7 hatred attacks, it wouldnt be too much to ask for this to scale like its breath weapon. I really cant imagine a one headed hydra doing 7 attacks.

Regardless a flank from a 7 wide unit of swordmasters would to well, but id probably put all my attacks on the hydra, and that costs less but you'll need to pass a check to do it, at such a pivotal moment i think thats when id be popping my dragon horn to make sure i get in there. 14 attacks, 3s then 4s would probably do more than a dent on the unit, but if you dont get 5 wounds down the line you're boned because you wont survive the backlash from the hydra ;p

You could always risk sending in the battle banner to do it, i doubt you'd come out alive though!
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#25 Post by geoguswrek »

Phoenix: i was suggesting using the banner of balance in the swordmaster (had forgotten the name and called it the itp banner), this makes the hydra no longer have hatred.
if you do 3-4 wounds with the balance banner in there, plus kill the crew (easy wounds), you should win combat by quite a bit and chase the hydra itself off.
Note that a frontal charge allows 4 SM to attacks the hydra and 2 to attack the crew. i'll take that. Heck i'll charge the thing with dragon princes, though i would rather not have to.
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Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#26 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Ah right, didnt think you'd make that mistake, glad I was wrong!

Yeah that'd probably do it, but liek you said it costs more to solve than the problem, which always seems to be the factor when playing dark elves, regardless of who you are :(
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madelmo
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:02 pm
Location: San Jose/San Diego, CA

Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#27 Post by madelmo »

i dont think a dragonhorn is needed against a hydra if we get to reroll our psych tests? might not be the best of a point investment

i want to switch the topic a little and go from a unit-by-unit focus and turn to a more army-to-army one.

let's assume a situation like this: you're playing a game against a DE player. He has a dreadlord on dragon, hydra, 2x rbts, a block of warriors, unit of dark riders and xbows for core. block of blackguard and a sorc. let's say there are some harpies and shades in there as well. something like that would be for a 2k-2250 pt game

what would your target priority be and what would you sent at what to counter the best? IE would you use your own rbt's against the hydra first? black guard? where would you cast your magic or send your star dragon at first?
WarpPhoenix
Posts: 736
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:45 am

Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#28 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Assuming my all comers list which would have the following: Archmage (fury, double scroll, wand), mage(seer, p.stone), bsb on eagle with reaver bow(e.shield), 11 white lions, 2x7 blank swords, 5 princes+banner of sorc (only banner), eagle, 3 rbt, 2x10 archers.

First off im going to assume that one turn one his dragon is hidden from view, im also going to assume i get turn one here, so his dragon is out of view and its my turn.

I will be taking high lore, flames and arrow for my lvl2, 5 spells on my arhcmage.

I set up the same basic style each time, archers in the middle, bolt throwers behind on a hill or in a line between the archers, swormdasters and white lions/princes to the side depending on what is where. I deploy my eagle behind a wood opposing the hydra, blackguard too if i suspect a hotec (aka, everything is gravitated around it) if the hydra goes too slowly my eagle turns into a harpy killer.

First I move my mages from whatever unit they are in 5-6 inches foward into a wood and 2" away from the edge so they cant see anything. My white lions go a little further so they poke out, but are still in. My swordmasters move foward as fast as they can, keeping maximum distance and cover from any shooting, if none is possible they become a sacrificed unit. My dragon princes move exactly the right amount to get within 17" of any enemy silly enough to deploy on the edge of their deployment (love when people do this), I am now threatening the unit i am looking at. My swordmasters will not be looking at either the xbows, blackguard or spearmen just yet, all hold possible assassins in them, as do the shades, so my swordmasters are not of great use in this game, they will however be there for the last two turns. I am not worried about the dragon just yet, I try to keep everything as far away as possible, naturally, and gravitate towards my mages in the woods, because thats the only people who stand a chance of doing anything to this army. My main goals in this game will be to find out where the ring of hotek is, what is outside its range and cast on that and shoot at the blackguard whenever possible. I will be vaulsing the lord on the dragon the second he comes out of hotek range to take away anything that may stop him from dying (kaleth).

My white lions have already become a target unit for housing mages on the first turn and as such will spend most of their lives in the woods unless anything comes near them. As i said my bolt throwers will be pounding black guard and anything that can shoot the dark riders will be on the first turn, the first thing to shoot at them will be my reaver bow holder (usually he gets placed right opposite them so he doesnt have to move to shoot them, thus hitting on 2s at long reange), he usually kills 2-3 dark riders on his own and it should take another 1-2 to clear them up, only 1 if i got arow attraction on them (I have enough magic to do this twice, my arch usually has it and my seerstaff mage will take it). All my offensive spells are 24" range without los so i can do all i want in this nice little wood of mine. Arrow attraction will be cast without restriction on 2 dice, anything else will target units that are not in my suspected hotek range, usually meaning support units. I will concentrate flames on harpies and shades first first off, when i finially find out where hotek is i can redirect it with my hiding eagle away from what i want to cast at. Once that is done i flames anything in range with large numers. Arrow attraction will probably always go on the dragon til its dead or the black guard if i cant get to the dragon. my archmage will pop out of the woods on turn 2-4 depending on whats near, at this point i will activate my ring of fury as a surprise that will usually make it through (by turn 2-3 i should have burned all scrolls), ring of fury will be on the black guard and it will take more than a few out.

My first priority with this army and assuming dragon is hidden is dark riders with noble/bolt > xbows with archers > all other bolts clear up whatever i left behind. Turn 2 dragon single shots > black guard with everything else and repeat.

Magic will be situational of movement, if shades or harpies are in range i will flames them, arrow on what i want to shoot at, vauls the dragon (assuming i get all these, i wont get 1 of them, hopefully it will be number 3 that i dont get!)

Without seeing deployment and movement thats all i can really say, but thats what id be doing!
Hey, does this cloth smell like chloroform?
madelmo
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:02 pm
Location: San Jose/San Diego, CA

Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#29 Post by madelmo »

Thx for the post, that's more or less what i was looking for.

How about magic? What lores have you guys found most useful against DE's? I've used High and Fire (in fact those 2 are usually what i take against most opponents) but what other magical tactics have worked well for you thusfar?

Has anybody tried Life to counter shooting? beasts to counter dragon/hydra/cold ones?
SpellArcher
Green Istari
Posts: 13841
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:26 am
Location: Otherworld

Re: Enemy of the Month July 09: Dark Elves.

#30 Post by SpellArcher »

Metal is good for sniping the Ring and generally.

Ridden monsters may be sporting Ring or MR against Beast Cowers.
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