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Hi,

I'm going to be playing my first game of Warhammer soon against a experienced player so was hoping to pull out a bit of a surprise.

I looked at Dark Elf hero builds and saw the following

1 Dreadlord + Heavy Armour + Shield
Dark Pegasus
Cloak of Hag Graef
Pendant of Khaeleth

-- Now, according to Army Builder he has a 2+ save, but reading on forum people say he has a 1+ save? Is there something i'm missing to make this the 1+ version?

IIRC, Army Builder caps the armor save at 2+. While it's a useful tool for building armies, I wouldn't trust it's take on the actual unit rules; it tends to abbreviate or reword some things.

I don't have a DE book, so I'd just do a quick run down of the rules to see what his armor save should be.

Heavy Armor gets you to +5 save
Shield gets you to +4 save
Being mounted brings you to +3 save

That's where the Cloak of Hag Graef comes in. It counts as a Sea Dragon Cloak (you could be better off just buying the generic cloak and saving some points). Sea Dragon Cloaks give a bonus against close combat attacks, and a better bonus against anything that ISN'T a close combat attack.. That brings you to a +2 saving throw in close combat, and a +1 save otherwise.

Perfect, Thanks

From what I've read, you may want to swap the cloak for a crown of command for stubborn, so He doesn't break and flee on a bad roll. The Regular Sea Dragon cloak is almost as good, for a fraction of the points

I myself am working on getting int0 WHFB (Been flip flop ping around several armies) Here is the Dreadlord I built for the DE army I'm working on. I based this off of what I have read/seen in Tacticas and Battle Reports.

1 Dreadlord, (General; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Sea Dragon Cloak; Shield; Eternal Hatred)
1 Dark Pegasus (Flyer; Stomp)
1 Whip of Agony
1 Pendant of Khaeleth
1 Crown of Command

Was thinking about the 1+ save armour, adding the crown and ignoring the weapon - my plan is basically one man tar pit and I can always rear charge them if I need to.

Incurus wrote:Was thinking about the 1+ save armour, adding the crown and ignoring the weapon - my plan is basically one man tar pit and I can always rear charge them if I need to.

If you plan on giving him the Armor of Darkness, you don't have to take heavy armor/shield/SDC and could probably give him a Great Weapon, so he still has a little killing power. I might consider that build as well. Keep in mind, almost everything I've been working on has just been from what I've read, and the battle reports I've seen.

I love tinkering around with Fantasy lists, I haven't had this much fun in a while! just so many good options.

Incurus wrote:Was thinking about the 1+ save armour, adding the crown and ignoring the weapon - my plan is basically one man tar pit and I can always rear charge them if I need to.

Waste of that armor. Just drop Whip of Agony down to Sword of Might and take a Dragonhelm.

A one is a fail when it comes to Armour saves, the 1+ you have been seeing comes into account when you deduct strength modifiers, so a -1 modifier still is 2+, so you need strength 5 to actually modify the Armour save

DukeBadham wrote:A one is a fail when it comes to Armour saves, the 1+ you have been seeing comes into account when you deduct strength modifiers, so a -1 modifier still is 2+, so you need strength 5 to actually modify the Armour save

I don't think anyone is debating that a 1 is always a fail, but it does provide a little more resiliency. Since without the armor, it looks like the best you can get on the Pegasus (with the current load out of magic items) appears to be a 2+, and str 4 will turn that 2+ into a 3+. So if he wants to go as defensive as possible, then perhaps the Armor of Darkness is the way to go, as you said it would take str 5 to actually modify his save.

While Armour of Darkness will indeed mean the Dreadlord will have both the defense (1+ save) and offense (Great Weapon), it will cut into the Magic Item allotment. Your Dreadlord will already have Pendant of Khaeleth and Crown of Command (probably), so adding Armour of Darkness means other useful Magic Items can't be taken.

I personally really like a Pegasus Dreadlord with Black Dragon Egg (the flame template is just awesome in the current edition, when everybody is fielding massive infantry units). This will deduct from either the combat power or survivability (no Great Weapon or no 2+ armour save in combat), but will greatly increase the use of your Dreadlord.

Airmaniac wrote:While Armour of Darkness will indeed mean the Dreadlord will have both the defense (1+ save) and offense (Great Weapon), it will cut into the Magic Item allotment. Your Dreadlord will already have Pendant of Khaeleth and Crown of Command (probably), so adding Armour of Darkness means other useful Magic Items can't be taken.

I personally really like a Pegasus Dreadlord with Black Dragon Egg (the flame template is just awesome in the current edition, when everybody is fielding massive infantry units). This will deduct from either the combat power or survivability (no Great Weapon or no 2+ armour save in combat), but will greatly increase the use of your Dreadlord.

He has to lose the pendent, to take the black dragon egg though, and that's too important for the Dark Elf Dreadlord tank. Also, if you don't take the armor of darkness, and you take a GW, Wouldn't you be down to a 3+ because of the loss of a shield?

1 Dreadlord, (Always Strikes Last; General; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Eternal Hatred)
1 Dark Pegasus (Flyer; Stomp)
1 Armor of Darkness
1 Pendant of Khaeleth
1 Crown of Command

I think this will probably be the way I run my Dreadlord in a few practice games to try out the Dark Elf army, he seems to have everything you could possibly want, for tying up, and killing units.

On the cloak/pendant combo, the cloak spoils the pendants ability to give you a good ward against strong attacks.

You don't want a GW, ASL spoils I7, get yourself Crimson Death for him.


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