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So far in 8th edition my unit of 20 blackguard with FC, Crimson Death and Banner of Murder have done absolutely nothing for me. I've tried MSU, and this block and no matter what they simply fail to get the job done. Step up, t3 and only heavy armor has really hurt these guys.

Am I crazy no not want to take Blackguard or any of the other combat elite unites for my Dark Elves?

i own 25 blackguard...
Can only take a unit of 20.

Thats the one thing which annoys me the most.
Im not to bothered that they are completely useless now. My Corsairs ALWAYS outperfom my blackguard even back in 7th.

Only thing Blackguard had for them was being really hard to get rid of. Now they are just another unit which is easy to kill but can dish out lots of damage, as if Dark elves needed another

If anyone has any suggestions for them i would love to here it! but i am with Casper, Dark elf special units are easily outshined by Crossbowmen

Casper wrote:Am I crazy no not want to take Blackguard or any of the other combat elite unites for my Dark Elves?

Absolutely not. Black Guard went from always taken to very rarely if ever taken. Executioners went from rarely taken to never taken. Witch Elves & co were already never taken and stayed that way. Cold One Knights suffer from all the nerfs that cavalry got in addition to the nerf to the Cold Ones' hatred so probably won't be used much or at all. Chariots and Hydras on the other hand only improved and Shades can now march and shoot every turn so large units of them with extra hand weapons are a viable option to be considered. Not only will they be insanely annoying and cause casualties in the shooting phase but they're pretty sick in combat too and can be even further buffed by Cauldrons and/or spells.

Some things are certain. Infantry is more useful than ever and Dark Elves have some pretty decent options in the core department. The Crossbowman is not only one of the best missile troops in the game but with shields also a reasonably good combat trooper. However, making large 30-40 strong units for de-steadfasting your opponent out of Crossbowmen becomes expensive very quickly. It's possible, but the 6 point Warrior (no shields because they don't get the full benefit of the shield and their function is to outrank enemies) does the large blocks thing for a much more economical price. Because of these reasons I like lists that have one huge Warrior unit and multiple small missile units without shields, and lists that take nothing but missile units of various sizes and gear. You should check my thread in the army list forum for two lists that follow this ideology so you see what I mean if you didn't understand otherwise.

You could still use a very small unit of Black Guard just for their ability to cause some casualties if you really wanted, but unless Hotek is clarified to work like it did before there's not really much point. They're still far from being overpriced, but ranked units consisting of fragile elite models with multiple attacks aren't all that wonderful because enemies will strike back no matter what and the second rank only fights with one attack. Additionally, stubborn and immune to psychology aren't what they used to be and Warrior Elite isn't that special now that the entire High Elf army pretty much got that rule.

Blackguard dont even dish out "lots" of damage.. they only had the ability to dish out "some" damage and negate return attacks.. 2 S4 attacks isnt all that amazing or unique. Usually the person doing the damage was the hero in the unit

They used to scare my saurus warriors, now they're a total joke since they do the same damage as me but have less armor and less toughness

They are still decent.
With the armor pen banner they will kill their points in chaos warriors before going down. Most other units as well.
They are still slightly undercoated but not insanely so like in 7th.

The biggest thing is that eventually you will have to kill a stubborn unit such as hammerers or opposing black guard in combat. This requires a unit that can grind through enemies and spearmen just don't cut it (magic is fickle at best). The only unit in the dark elf army that can really accomplish this is the black guard. Witches are to weak and need frenzy, spears are to weak, executioners have to few attacks, cold ones rely on the charge...

2 s4 attacks with hatred, or 3 if buffed by a cauldron, is still pretty sick. I'd take a small (15 or so) unit of black guard with the ASF banner as my combat winner, and other things to soak up the casualties. It's actually one of the few good answers to things like epic huge blocks of skavenslaves/empire swordsmen/other really cheap infantry... just mow right through them in a couple of rounds.

Hatred is irrelevant on black guard since they reroll hits in every round with their warrior elite rule

With the armor pen banner they will kill their points in chaos warriors before going down. Most other units as well.

That kind of strategy only leads to failure in 8th ed tho.. So what if you kill your points back before dying? Your opponent gets full points for the blackguard and you get 0 for the unit of chaos warriors thats still alive most likely. I dont see how they kill their points worth either.

Lets say you got 15 attacks, thats gonna be 12 hits and 6 wounds so maybe 5 dead if theyre going with halberds (and you have the AP banner). Perhaps 6 dead if you have S6 tower master

Now lets assume youre fighting nurgle chaos warriors (pretty common) and they also have 15 attacks, they hit with 10 and wound with 9 most likely killing 9

Your unit of blackguard costs 360 pts or 18 pts a model and the chaos unit is 390 for 19 pts a model. That is not killing equal points (chaos warriors had no magical banner either)

2 s4 attacks with hatred, or 3 if buffed by a cauldron, is still pretty sick. I'd take a small (15 or so) unit of black guard with the ASF banner as my combat winner, and other things to soak up the casualties. It's actually one of the few good answers to things like epic huge blocks of skavenslaves/empire swordsmen/other really cheap infantry... just mow right through them in a couple of rounds.

Dont think youve faced many slave or swordmen units.. 360 points of blackguard will kill on average around 11 slaves per turn. With a unit of 60 slaves you'll be there a LONG time not just a few rounds. 15 slaves will also kill over 1 blackguard and maybe 2 per turn. Ill take that trade. Even if you DO kill the slaves grats on 150pts. With 13 ranks and killing 2 ranks a turn you'll break steadfast and LD10 around.. Turn 5

If blackguard werent capped at 20 Id say use them.. but in almost every scenario now they just beaten. Step up ruined them

Arent black guard 12 pts each...
And remember for your example, they are I6 so they swing before the warriors who now lose their attacks.

Point for point they will kill the chaos warriors and survive with some casualties. What other dark elf unit can claim the same?
Same goes for killing those slaves...

Just dont give them the ASF banner, it isnt worth it. They are i6 so they swing before all but chars and the rerolls are redundant with their eternal hatred.

cypher wrote:Arent black guard 12 pts each...
And remember for your example, they are I6 so they swing before the warriors who now lose their attacks.

Point for point they will kill the chaos warriors and survive with some casualties. What other dark elf unit can claim the same?
Same goes for killing those slaves...

.

Huh? This is 8th ed not 7th heh.. The chaos warriors WILL strike back and kill blackguard in droves due to step up. There is no way to avoid it unless you kill half the unit in one attack which wont happen. When I calculate points I divide the entire unit cost by the # of models. Cant just say theyre 13 pts and then add on tons of points in magic banners.. ignoring that cost

Point for point killing vs chaos warriors and slaves are two astronomically different things.. There is NEVER a reason to fight slaves with blackguard.. unless youre forced to

True, throwing black guard at slaves is a huge waste of them but my point was that since you said the black guard will take forever to break the slaves, what in the army wouldn't take forever. The dark elves lack the unit necessary to slog through 60 slaves in a frontal combat.

As for fighting chaos warriors, step up is great and all and hurts but chaos warriors and other expensive units don't come with lots of available casualties to step up with.

Lets look at 20 black guard, full cmd, banner of armor pen, 7 wide
VS
18 chaos warriors with halberds, full cmd, 6 wide
I don't know the exact point cost but they are close and these units are not out of the ordinary for their type.
Yes they could change width but that gets to be a crazy game of chicken in theoretical discussions.

Nobody charges, its cheating in a theory test
Black guard swing 22 times, kill 7 (inclluding the champ in a challenge).
Chaos warriors swing 18 times, kill 7
Black guard hold
round 2
Black guard (down to 13) swing 21 times, kill 6
chaos warriors (down to 6) swing 12 times, kill 5 (generously they kill the champ)
Black guard hold
Round 3
Black guard (down to 8) swing 15 times, kill 4
Chaos warriors (down to 1) swing 2 times, kill 1
Round 4
Black guard kill the remaining one with 7 guys left and emerge victorious if bloodied.

Chances are actually good they win on round 3 depending on how many attack are directed at their unit champion.

When do you ever fight with equal odds lol.

When fighting WoC sure they can kill them, but you will never fight an un-upgraded WoC unit.

They are good in combat against some elite units but thats it.
They will also be ripped apart by magic and shooting.

T3 5+ sv is Poor. while a WoC has T4 with 3+ sv to range/magic and actually has access to defensive banners.

How many of them blackguard will even reach combat?

Against warriors, most of em.

Dark elves have far better magic/shooting than chaos...
Generally in theory discussions you make the points equal because otherwise it gets to be "my three steam tanks will roll through your 60 slaves in 2 turns"

They are good in combat against some elite units but thats it.

They are good in combat vs most units actually and well worth their points. Off the top of my head i cant think of anything that will beat them point for point which is a good measure of how killy they are.

How many of them blackguard will even reach combat?

That depends on the quality of your strategic skills.

the DE list has hydras, which can burn large numbers of slaves (though only once per)

I dont really see what the problem is. Armies always change from edition to edition. You lost the close combat cheeze you had last edition with the ASF blackguard that was pretty much unbreakable and whatnot, Cold ones are much less useful, but now you have the most powerful magic phase in the game, and no character slots to keep you from spamming 2 Lvl 4's and as many Lvl 2's as you can fit, then just 1 dicing (2 dicing for the lvl 4's to make sure) power of darkness with everyone until you tripled or quadrupled your spell pool and then using the crazy powerful magic that exists in this edition.

Plenty have suffered, but at the same time everyone got bonuses too.

BG have been doing quite alright for me in 8th so far. Giving them killing blow from the CoB is fun. Okhams Mindrazor on them is pretty sweet as well. Without some sort of buffs though they aren't nearly as powerful as previous eds.

DE do have a good magic phase now, but the whole thing about getting tons of dice from PoD doesn't really work that well. The spell still fails on a roll of 1 or 2, no matter what lvl the sorc is, then you can't cast anything else, but yes using 2 dice helps overcome that.

evolvingeye wrote:BG have been doing quite alright for me in 8th so far. Giving them killing blow from the CoB is fun. Okhams Mindrazor on them is pretty sweet as well. Without some sort of buffs though they aren't nearly as powerful as previous eds.

DE do have a good magic phase now, but the whole thing about getting tons of dice from PoD doesn't really work that well. The spell still fails on a roll of 1 or 2, no matter what lvl the sorc is, then you can't cast anything else, but yes using 2 dice helps overcome that.

Its only THAT one wizard that cant cast anything anymore. So, say... 6 wizards, each throw a die at it. 4 Succeed, so you come out with 12 dice on average.