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Hey all,

Just starting to play Fantasy and not sure about which units to put commands in and which to save the points.

Atm have a unit of spearmen, a unit of crossbowmen, a unit of 5 cold one knights and a unit of 15 black guard

Was planning on full command in the spearman and black guard, champion and banner for cold one knights and nothing at all for crossbowman.

Interested to see if I'm making a glaring mistake and which units people ussually take command squads in or dont

thanks

Command options for Dark Elves are typically best used for specific purposes.

Spearmen: Full command is cheap and adds directly to their effectiveness. Many people often put a hero character with a block of spearmen so the champion is there to take an unpleasant challenge.

Crossbowmen: In small units command simply isn't necessary since it doesn't add to their overall abilities. In larger units it can be helpful. The Champion upgrade is basically useless no matter the size of the unit. The standard is your choice, it can be nice for those missions where you need a standard bearing unit to claim an area of the board since they'll still have the 24" bows. In large units (20 or so) a musician is great because you can quick-reform to 10x2 formation to unleash 40 shots into something and then back to 5x4 for combat resolution if something is threatening to charge. The same premise goes with adding shields to crossbowmen: only in large groups where they can be expected to hold a charge for a turn.

Cold One Knights: In small units with a single rank command is too expensive and does not add much to the unit in relation to the added cost. Some people have taken to using large units of 9-11. They are typically accompanied by a hero character for 5x2 or 6x2 formations. At that point it may be worthwhile to have the Champion for challenge purposes and the Standard for combat res since this block prefers to win and break things on the charge, not get stuck in. While it is nice that the Champion can take up to 25pts of magic, he already has a 2+ armor save and is S6 on the charge for his base cost; magic items don't help him terribly much.

Black Guard: In 7th edition Black Guard Standard Bearers were pretty much a given in Dark Elf armies because of the Standard of Hag Graef. Now that combat is all initiative-based, our I6 Elves don't really need the ASF rule except against High Elf Swordmasters. The Banner of Eternal Flame is still handy for helping with things that rely on regen or scary away monsters, though. The Champ was useful because he can take up to 25pts of magic. He was where many people put the Ring of Hotek or the Crimson Death. Now that the Ring has been considerably nerfed nobody really takes it, but the Crimson Death is still handy for applying S6 to a fairly choppy unit. The biggest problem that Black Guard now face is being T3 with a 5+ armor save and unless you wipe out your opponent, you will be getting hit back and taking casualties on a fairly expensive unit.