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I've been a 40K player for the last 5 or so years, and I was thinking of starting a Fantasy army. I was leaning towards Vampire Counts, but now I'm thinking Dark Elves. I'm not the kind of player who spams or even cares about winning for that matter. I'm basically looking for some fun units with a lot of character. I know nothing about the game and was wondering what units would be good starting points. I was thinking something in the 1,500 point range.

The nice thing about DE is that everything in the book works pretty well, when used correctly. So there really isn't anything useless in the book. Even the Reaper Bolt Thrower, which most DE player cordially despise, has its fans who make good use of it.

DE tend to prerform best with MSU - for certain definitions of small, anyway. Some units still function acceptably in a throwaway unit of 10 or less; most others in unist of 20-30 which is pretty small in 8E. Only Executioners and Spearmen really need to be in big units to be effective in combat.

Magic is definitely the way to go with characters, our combat characters are less than stellar for the price. Sure, you can make that nasty Unkillable Dreadlord. It gets boring after a while. Besides, the Pendant of Khaeleth will allow your primary caster to tank most miscasts quite handily.

I agree with Vulcan. The Dark Elves don't have any useless units in their book, they just need different strategies.

For fun units, there's Corsairs as a solid core choice. These guys pump out a lot of attacks if given extra hand weapons and with the right magic support they can cut almost anything to pieces. In a game I played today I had a unit of corsairs who wiped out two units of 12 Chaos Warriors and was still charging around the board completely fearlessly despite the fact that there were only four left (out of a starting number of 28)

For long range firepower Dark Elves have Repeater Crossbows. These things can rip lightly armoured units to pieces. Each basic crossbowman can fire 2 shots a turn so you can get a lot of shooting from a small unit. They're the same statline as the basic Elf spear wielding warrior so these guys can also hold their own pretty well if they end up in combat. For more accurate and sneaky shooting there's also Shades. These guys are great for harassing light units and taking out war machine crews, so it's usually worth finding a way of fitting some of these guys in.

As other units go you have the (rightly) feared Black Guard. These guys pump out a lot of attacks and will very rarely run away, meaning once they're in combat the opponent is going to have to kill them to the last man. I often use these guys to hold an enemy in place whilst I get a flank or rear charge in place. Only downside is they're quite squishy and can only be taken in limited numbers (maximum unit size is 20) so against high strength enemies they will die quite quickly but that can be said of most Dark Elf units.

Executioners are one of my favourite units, despite them being fragile and often seen as being not as useful as other units in the book, unless taken in large numbers. Killing Blow gives the chance of instantly killing an enemy with no armour save allowed. This combined with the high strength attacks from their great weapons make these guys perfect for cutting through heavily armoured units such as Knights or Chaos Warriors. Ideally you want these guys to hit a flank to minimize the number of attacks coming at them as they strike last. They can also be a pretty good unit for holding an enemy up if you keep a Cauldron of Blood near them as it makes them less likely to flee from combat.

Magic is a thing which Dark Elves can really excel at, if you like to take occasional risks. They have access to lores of magic which offer a range of buffs and hexes and pure damage. Combine this with their special rule which means they can use as many dice as you want to cast spells (other armies are limited to using six) and a bonus spell which allows you to make more dice for casting and it means you can dominate the game in the magic phase, with a bit of luck and the occasional mad decision to throw all of your dice at one spell Be fearless and aim to completely dominate you enemy, it helps a lot.

We Dark Elves also have lots of nice beasties to play with. The War Hydra is a lovely unit which can wreak some awesome havoc. Add to that Dragons, Pegasi, Manticores and Cold Ones (basically Velociraptors) as mounts for our Heroes and Lords (and elite cavalry in the case of Cold Ones) and you have lots of nice choice to suit your play style.

Then there's the Dark Elves special rule, Eternal Hatred. This means that your Dark Elves will hate everybody, granting re-rolls to hit in the first round of close combat (or every round if you're fighting High Elves, we hate them A LOT). As you're going to need to inflict maximum pain in that first round as Dark Elves can't take a lot of pain back these re-rolls are invaluable.

Pretty much look through your book and pick the units which appeal to you. There's no wrong choices here so as long as you build your tactics to suit your playing style you shouldn't go wrong.

As a starting point, I'd recommend the Battalion box. That gets you a good solid amount of core troops and some Cold One Knights.

Awesome. Thanks for the informative input.

I'm also kicking around the idea of a DE army. I have an empire army, but only played a little in 6th. I'm bored with it, and I've always loved the look of the old 5th edition metal dark elves.

In 6th, you really couldn't do well with blocks of spears, RXBs, and cold ones. What about now?

Spearelves are amazing for their points. A Horde of 40 only costs 295 points and acts as a great bunker for a Shadow sorceress (who can use the Dagger to make more power dice out of them.)

Crossbows are pricey but versatile. Naked, they throw out an annoying number of shots. Now that you can shoot out in 2 ranks all the time, multiple blocks of 10 don't eat up a lot of space in your battleline. If you have the spare points, it's worth looking at if you can buy a larger unit of like 24 with shields and command - deploy 12 wide and 2 deep and chuck out ~50 shots a turn - when your opponents get close, reform into a steadfast block that is surprisingly durable.

Since all cav took a nerf due to the Steadfast rules, Cold Ones are worse than before. However, they still hit hard and 5 naked knights can be used to chase down support elememts/add combat punch to an existing combat. A bigger block with the Lord and BSB can be used as a grindy hammer but costs alot of points.

Polonius wrote:I'm also kicking around the idea of a DE army. I have an empire army, but only played a little in 6th. I'm bored with it, and I've always loved the look of the old 5th edition metal dark elves.

In 6th, you really couldn't do well with blocks of spears, RXBs, and cold ones. What about now?

Blocks of spears aren't that great from my personal experience. They're built for grinding an opponent down with lots of attacks from supporting ranks but with T3 elves with light armour and shields that's not the best plan as they die way too easily. People often take a small block of spears with bare minimum equipment (so no shields and only a musician) for a sorceress to bunker in. Give her the magic item Sacrificial Dagger and you can sacrifice one soldier per casting attempt, gaining a power dice to cast the spell at the cost of losing a cheap infantryman. With Dark Elves you often do better on the offensive as our troops cannot survive on the defensive with T3 and 5+ saves, so Corsairs are more often taken as they can put out more attacks and have a better save against shooting. That's just my experience as I prefer a very aggressive approach and breaking the enemy swiftly and decisively rather than grind them down.

Repeater Crossbows can be lethal against low armour, low toughness enemies as they will rip through them, often provoking panic tests from 25% casualties. When the enemies start to go up in toughness and armour, though, they become less and less effective. So against Empire they'll scythe down state troops but against Chaos they just bounce off. You can also equip them with shields and reform them into a block to tie up an enemy charge. They have the same basic statline as a Spearelf but can parry with their shield, giving them a tiny bit more durability at the cost of fighting from an extra rank. Generally though, after you've filled your core points Shades become the better choice for shooting units. They're more accurate and with Scout they can be set up ready in position to harass the enemy from turn one.

I haven't used Cold Ones in 8th yet, as the rules for disruption and steadfast have made small units of cavalry much weaker against blocks of infantry. They pack the only strong armour save on non-hero/lord Dark Elf units though. A unit of them in two ranks to cause disruption could be an effective hammer to smash an opponents flank, with S6 on the charge at I6. They're pretty expensive though so that unit would probably come under quite a bit of fire from shooters and magic. They could be useful at getting the Ring of Hotek (causing any magic cast within 12" to miscast on any double) into range to shut down an enemies magic for a turn or two before he wipes out the unit but a master on a Dark Pegasus could do the job for less points (with a better armour save) and not have Stupidity to worry about.