Tk Against De

I need wee bit o help here.
My mate collects DE and I was wondering if I could get any advise about what sort of units are effective against them in particular.
Also some advice about useful Magic items would help aussi.

Firstly, Dark Elves has tow toughness (the whole army is toughness 3.) This means that Bowmen are a great Idea to whittle down their numbers. You will definatly need either something that can come from below or some carrion to deal with those pesky bolt throwers the Dark Elves have, personally I go for Swarms becuase it uses up one of the core choices but its a personal thing. This biggest problem is that, even with our magical movement, you will porbably struggle to outmanover a Dark Elf army. They have good leadership so the best surefire way of making them break in combat is to outnumer (juest remember that coldone knights cause fear so this wont effect them.) At least 2 big infantry units would be good to pin units in place. 2 SSC is a little cheesy but it would definatly be effective against dark elves. Lastly, the Dark Elves have very offensive magic, so invest in a few scrolls. I personally will always take a casket because the 2-3 dispell dice you oppenent will save to dispell it will allow you more important incantations to go through (like unrgancy and smiting)
Hope this Helps!
Will Adams

Alright here we go.
Dark elves.
Pro's fast, shooty, high moral, combat units, good magic offense and defense, specailty units (wyche elves, cold ones etc).
Con's low toughness, majority low armor saves, volume fire is not very accurate, small numbers in units, many units can be broken by fear.

Knowing this here is what yah do.
Movement
Icon of Rakapeh to ensure your more agile with at least one of your units on foot.
Chariots take many, elves dont like impact hits or dealing with toughness 4.
Scoprions can ruin anyones day. Burried poping up march blocking and being within 7 inches so cant be shot as it charges in.
Magic
toss out as many bound spells as you can, he cant stop it all. The strict order ensures the good stuff goes last where he more than likely wont have the dice needed.
Shooting
your out classed shooting wise, but you have one huge favor. No matter what you do you hit on a 5+. He doesnt, use that to your favor manvuer alot make him need 5or6 to hit while you move to your favor and always hit on 5.
Hand to hand.
As silly as this might sound at first you can make a army that is more combat effective than half his army.
Tomb guard, good hard core units that can take a beating and get back up. Chariots massive movement, there impact hits should kill a entire front rank of elves, unless hes like 6 wide of course, and give you a very nice combat res.
Kings and princes hard core dudes that hit hard and are even harder to hurt.
Bone giants, have a 50/50 chance to get there unstopable charge rule into effect.
I could go into more depth but that should be enough to let you form your own ideas.

i second that, DE could be cheezy but u have few things they dont like in their faces, thats Chariots, they may not be HE with ASF rule but still elfes and T3 means they die easy to impacts, i dont suggest u use the BG though, since all elfes have high WS and BG will need 4+ to hit but wont have trouble wounding to trigger the UA

they shootiness is good BUT we have the BoUL so make full use of that...well TG would be good but its kinda pointless for them to be vs DE since they shine vs high AS troops, just pin down with skele block and flank charge in with chariots

i suggest u take FoS or the Crook and flail with cloak of dunes, since most likely u are gona be the one that gets charged, so take care of the charges with first strike to wittle down their CR and boost urs,

i got the FoS/ C&F + cloak idea from a very experienced player that plays defence, that combo is good to intercept chars and help the units that need help with flying

hope that helps

Most nasty thing you see in eevry DE army seem to be those reaper bolt throwers. They will only rarely use the standard 1S7 bolt, instead use the 6 S4 very armour piercing (-3 I believe) shots. Very deadly stuff VS our elite units. Those should die rather fast where possible. They're no threat you can easily neglect.

With shooting, corsairs aren't the best target. They have bonus armour saves vs shooting with their sea dragon cloaks.

Witch elves have 3 poisoned attacks each, but are frenzied and easily lured in a trap. They have T3 and no saves of any kind (except when a cauldron of blood is present, but even then it's only a 6+ ward) so they are the perfect shooting target.

Last, (always true, but even more VS dark elves) don't get charged if possible. Even a few types of DE infantry have charge bonusses (corsairs +1 attack for instance)

As far as I recall they are strength six for single shot(no save, one to three wounds) and six shots, strength four(minus two to your save). The single shot is really only reserved if you pack a Bone Giant, generally. All your other points are valid though, definitely avoid shooting corsairs with anything other than Screaming Skull Catapults. I would also aim to eliminate Dark Riders as soon as you can, as they get quite bothersome fast. The Staff of Ravening is a pretty decent tool against the dark elves in general.

Aye, take care of those Dark Riders asap. They're excellent fast cav, and a decent DE player will usually have at least 2 units. Either for baiting and fleeing, flanking, or killing lone characters and war machines.

I'm not sure if you're tailoring a list specifically against them, or if you're just needing general advice. So I'll try and give a bit of both. Most lists I've seen on Druchii.net have 2 mages and are used offensively. So I'd plan for some mild magic defense. Magic isn't a game winner, but watch out for those spells targeting your characters.

I agree a Bone Giant may be a bit of a pin-cushion, so I wouldn't take one unless thats what you want it to accomplish.

DE's are about picking where and when to charge, do not expect a straight up fight, chances are he'll be charging with his Movement 5. Best thing to do is try an hold up the combined charges as best you can and flank with your units - chariots or Ushabti. Not even LD 10 can help if you need to roll Insane Courage. So as mentioned above 2 sponge units will help.

Lastly, if you can over power his magic defenses maybe get a unit of chariots or something hitty to punch a hole in his lines will really hurt him. Maybe try and punch through the smaller blocks of corsairs (if he has any).

Good luck against those Druchii scum!

Having played the new dark elves for the past couple weeks, there are a couple things that need to be watched out for. First off, the hydra... we have no real way of dealing with it except for the SSC, and everyone knows how fickle that can be at times. If it manages to reach your lines, throw a large block of skellies at it and hope for the best. Your gonna want to regenerate that unit as much as humanly possible cause a lot of skellies will die (7 ws5 str5 hatred attacks + 6 ws4 str3 hatred attacks) in that first round of combat, and you will have no shot at dealing any damage back with skellies (or even tomb guard). Second major threat are shades: BS5, armed with repeater crossbows and greatweapons, they can take our skelly blocks from the flank especially if they have an assassin hidden (though its really not necessary), and say good bye to your catapults... Not much to do but shoot at the unit with as many archers as possible. They have no armor saves, and we take no penalties to shooting so 20-30 or so shots should do the trick. Third threat: harpies. They will take out your catapults if you let them, but their low leadership makes them easy to panic so just pump a couple shots into them and they'll most likely be gone. As for the infantry, all of it (except for cosairs and cold one knights) have crap armor saves and are t3 so once again shooting is your ally. Tomb guard with a king can probably take on a unit of black guard if they managed to get the charge, ushabties will tear apart knights, and chariots are always good against elves. As for their magic... what else are scorpions for? Let the carrion handle the bolt throwers... the mages are juicy targets for you scorps.

the dark elf player i play agaisnt always use that single bolt on my characters chariot. my units he uses bladewind, chillwind and doombolt on.....

Seeing as I have played Dark Elves for a long time I guess I should write up something here. I've recently played them in a couple of matchs with my new Tomb Kings army. So here are my thoughts on them.

I'll start with the war hydra. Yes it is realy realy good, however its not as unbeatable as you all seem to think. I was unlucky enough to let it charge a unit of 4 Ushabti and they dealt with it wound for wound. If you have it already engaged and get them into the flank you will break it or just kill it outright. The hydra relies very heavily on its kills to win combat, and due to its massive boost many people now use it on its own to try and break a unit, tomb king, being unbreakable in their own way, realy mess with that tactic.

Bolt throwers. Personaly as a dark elf player I hate them and never field them, if your enemy does though, take tomb swarms. You have a decent chance with a single base to kill off bolt thower crew. Even a small unit of carrion can deal with them. I wouldnt be too worried about them.

Witch Elves. Frenzy and lots of attacks, not something you want to let into combat with your skeleton blocks. Just be thankful they only have...no save. These girls die very fast to shooting. If possible march block them to buy yourself time and bring the staff of ravening with you to the party. It will tear them to pieces. Of course some archers will halp ensure that.

Corsairs. Contrary to popular belief their not totaly untouchable in the shooting phase. 4+ armour save is only a 50/50 chance. The main worry is a unit with the frenzy banner, they become what is essentialy an up armoured witch elf unit (minus the poison). Luckily you'll only worry about one of them, Ushabti, Tomb Kings, scorpions, anything with high strength and toughness will see these guys off. get a flank in too and theyre as good as dead.

Dark riders, you'll have to be fairly lucky to catch these guys in combat. Urgency might help there but I wouldnt even try. Low T and AS mean shooting makes them drop fast. 6 Carrion might do well against them in a pinch, added bonus of they might flee from fear.

Black guard. These guys with the ASF banner and a character for some extra killyness are probably the biggest threat to your lines (not including a dragon lord). The chances of you breaking them are almost non-existant, dont rely on that, instead you shoudl try and kill them off totaly. Shooting is effective as they only have a 5+ save, if your realy desperate fly in that tarpit build king and stick them in place until you line up 2-3 big killy units to flatten them.

Executioners. I dont realy see these very often, but any tactics which work against black guard will work even better against these, especially because they break like anyone else.

Cold One Knights. Stupidity can make them go wrong at the worst possible time, thats a major drawback to them. They also only have a movement of 7. Put these togather and you may well get the charge, especialy with some magical aid. Yes they can hit hard when they charge but if you catch them flat footed they realy are in trouble. A 2+ save only goes so far. Idealy you should get a scorpion in there, can openers with their Killing Blow.

I think that covers most of the army. Warriors are nothing special so no need to write anything on them. The main thing to remember is elves are squyishy! So charriots are your friend. Thats something Tomb Kings can get a lot of, you can fairly easily charge three into a dark elf block with a reasonable expectation to have him testing on a double 1. Use them as flankers and he's realy in trouble. Well, hope that helped somewhat.

Got any tips for fighty characters with the pendant of khaleth?

When I fight dark elves (which has been a LOT lately) I try to knock out a chariot with my catapult, and then start shooting at the hydra. Since I don't take ushabti the catapult is usually all i've got - that and a prince with the chariot of fire. Flaming attacks are a godsend vs that regen.

Another good anti DE point is shades and harpies - extra vulnerable against your shooting, don't forget your fast cav 360 sight arc for shooting them, even a few extra bows can net good kills.

Finally, be careful against their frost wind spell, you won't be able to shoot in either your magic or shooting phase with your catapult or big archers unit if it gets you.

Against Fighty with pendent. It depends somewhat on where he is. Dragon, black guard or other.

If on dragon, direct all attacks agianst the beasty. Overall its easier to kill then a fully kitted out dreadlord with pendent on top. Once its gone he'll be on his own and the tougher the dreadlord to kill, the worse he is at killing.

In black guard direct all attacks towards the guards. Chances of breaking them are slim but they die quick enough to strong hammers. Whittle down their numbers then chariots ect. Once their gone dreadlord will break.

Anything else, just hit it from all angles and break him on the charge.

You'll have noticed I'm always on about breaking him, well thats because its significantly easier then killing him. I ran my dreadlord like that agianst loads of killy chars, he literly never dies. SCR is your friend. If your feeling lucky, piling Killing blow attacks on him might pay off.

having faced down a DE in numerous occasions i feel i should write somthing new

well unit to watch out for is of course Black guards, witches and Coknights.

ASF banner BG unit, with a dreadlord with Exec axe+blood armor a very hurtfull combination

Spear untis with Sorceres with sacrificial dagger is quiet bothersome too...since she spams out spells with an increased chance to get the spell off

Dragon lords are fun to take down...just King with DoE+ collar in a TG, or FoS
smite urself...special attack or FoS on a dragon...chew off the wounds

Repeaters are a pain but position your valued units behind terrain so they cant be targeted...and when time is right propel them through the battlefield with urgency 24" charge range potentialy is nothing to sneeze at.

BG is still a gamble on them...their high WS makes it hard to get the UA, but if you there is little that can stop it...also BG is a GREAT missile magnet, and UNlike the regular giant we have no problems of deflecting arrows Yahoo for Heavy armor and Undead construct 3+AS, even with AP of xbows they have hard time hurtin it...if it does get hurt heal it bak up

Ushabties are great too but against DE who have only CoK as heavies, not needed...unless u wana slaughter the tiny DE

Chariots are the way to go vs ANY elves as said before, but reserve the chariot of fire for princes...and icon of ruleship...use it as a combo on hydras


what i do is seperate prince, move him out of the unit...charge with chariots in the front of the hydra and Side charge with prince, propeled by incants of course, that way u can max out the impact hits potentialy 3D3 and D6+1 of fire he cant save them all needing 5's is not a problem, i am too used to shooting at 5's so i dont see it as a problem hahaha

hope it helps a bit