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19 Corsairs with full command and Sea Serpent Standard
19 Corsairs with full command and Banner of Murder

15 Executioners with full command
Death Hag Battle Standard Bearer with Banner of Hag Graef

3 Assassin with extra hand weapon, Rune of Kaine and Touch of Death (one in each of the above units)

6 Shades
6 Shades

5 Dark Riders with Repeater Crossbows
5 Dark Riders with Repeater Crossbows

Level 2 Sorceress (Dark Magic)
Level 2 Sorceress (Dark Magic)
(one in each Corsair unit, I suppose)

Dreadlord on Black Dragon with Armor of Darkness, Pendant of Khaleth, and Warrior Bane (had 5 points, wanted to be able to hurt Ethereal)


Not a lot of experience yet with 8th edition. I fear my units may be too small (though I don't own more Corsairs or Executioners, and the Shades are only with me proxying crossbowmen for them to try them out).

I'd really like to use Executioners and Assassins, as they are my two favorite units in the book.

I wanted to use a Hydra, but I don't really have the points unless I get rid of the Dragon.

The Dragon, and the Dreadlord too for that matter, was pretty much an afterthought; I needed someone to be the general, there wasn't a unit that he could walk around with comfortably, and putting him on a lone Cold One seems like it's just asking to get killed. And I do quite like the Dragon model.

Would it be worth using a Supreme Sorceress in addition to the two Sorceresses already there? Or is that just asking to not have enough power dice to fuel all of your spells? I do quite like the magic aspect of the Dark Elves.
Was going for a magic and subtlety sort of thing; the fast skirmishing ranged attacks from the Dark Riders and Shades, the assassins lurking everywhere, Corsairs with a flurry of precise strikes rather than the brute force of a ton of spearmen or the gunline of crossbowmen for Core.

Considered a Cauldron for some extra protection/strikes and to make the Executioners Stubborn; is that worth it? (still need to get the model, traded away my ancient one; speaking of which, the new one has no wheels...is it still able to move?)

Opinions? Thoughts? Suggestions while staying within the basic idea of the army?

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:19 Corsairs with full command and Sea Serpent Standard
19 Corsairs with full command and Banner of Murder

19 is too small to make proper use of corsairs. 25 or 30 is the optimal size IMO

15 Executioners with full command
Death Hag Battle Standard Bearer with Banner of Hag Graef

Black Guard are a better bang for your buck, again IMO. Also, if you are taking a BSB at all, make it a cauldron of blood. Worth its weight in gold.

3 Assassin with extra hand weapon, Rune of Kaine and Touch of Death (one in each of the above units)

The only assassin build that works is Rending Stars+Manbane. Combat assassins are wasted points as they will die rather quickly after causing the few wounds they might pull off

6 Shades
6 Shades

You could always take more XHW don't hurt either if you end up needing them to flank something late in the game

5 Dark Riders with Repeater Crossbows
5 Dark Riders with Repeater Crossbows

Dark riders are again a waste of points. Harpies are faster, cheaper and more useful, and shades are better/more reliable shooters. If you HAVE to take them, take musicians

Level 2 Sorceress (Dark Magic)
Level 2 Sorceress (Dark Magic)
(one in each Corsair unit, I suppose)

No magic items? A dispel Scroll and sacrificial dagger are almost compulsory choices for DE mages.

Dreadlord on Black Dragon with Armor of Darkness, Pendant of Khaleth, and Warrior Bane (had 5 points, wanted to be able to hurt Ethereal)

A better build would be: Dreadlord, Dragon, Armor of Eternal Serv., Dragonbane Gem, shield, sea dragon cloak. This leaves you with 60 points which would be best spent on Crown of Command and Crimson Death. That right there is a stubborn lord who regens OR gets a 2+ ward with a 3+(1+ against ranged) armor save. Total cost is 659 points of Narcissistic death.

At least 1 hydra is again an almost compulsory choice in the army. Way strong for dirt cheap. Same with a cauldron.

I'd definitely put the death hag bsb on a cauldron instead. ASF isnt as important now with step up, especially because the executioners wont get to re-roll misses because they have ASL. Cauldron can still move and provides good buff for all your units. Deathhag in a unit wouldnt survive a round of combat.

Executioners are good though I'd run atleast 20. They die pretty darn fast.

With step up, assassins are really frail. You'd probably be better off running cheap masters.

shades are good for redirecting and war machine hunt, extra CCW would really help them though.

DR with RXB seems a bit too expensive this edition. They arent really gonna kill a lot with their range attacks and they lost quite a bit of utility.

For wizards, 1 Lv.4 and 1 Lv.2or1 would give you a pretty solid magic phase.

I wouldnt worry about running the dreadlord on a Cold One, with PoK he is extremely hard to kill and you can give him crown of command and turn him into a one man tarpit.

Nothing wrong with the Dragon, though since you have no Hydra or any other monster it will attract every warmachine fire on the field.

Instead of armor of darkness, go with full mundane armor plus Dragonhelm. You get 1+ save (heavy, cloak, shield, mounted and dragonhelm) and 2+ ward versus flaming attacks, which is handy against those lore of metal spells that bypass your PoK. I'd find some points to give him at least a sword of might or whip of agony.

Some good advice here, thanks a lot for that, as well as some advice I just can't put to use until I get more models, sadly. I'll reply more once I'm not on my phone, since it's difficult to quote through it.


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Aerethan wrote:19 is too small to make proper use of corsairs. 25 or 30 is the optimal size IMO

I suppose I'll need to buy more of those, then.

Black Guard are a better bang for your buck, again IMO. Also, if you are taking a BSB at all, make it a cauldron of blood. Worth its weight in gold.

I just prefer the Executioners, thematically, model-wise, and as models that I actually have more than 10 of. As for the BSB, the entire point of taking it was getting the standard into the Executioners so that they can strike at initiative order. Though I do see your point in saving 90 points by not taking two Death Hags.

The only assassin build that works is Rending Stars+Manbane. Combat assassins are wasted points as they will die rather quickly after causing the few wounds they might pull off

That's really a shame. Always liked the idea of Assassin's hiding in each unit to give them more punch, maybe even murdering a character before he can do any damage. Not great against just rank-and-file, but that's not what they're there for.
I do like the idea of super-shuriken ones in with the Shades, though, I'll have to give that a try. Technical question: Rending Stars are S+1. Does Manbane kick in before or after the +1?

You could always take more Shades XHW don't hurt either if you end up needing them to flank something late in the game

Had it at 7 each, shaved points. Also forgot to mention that they have XHW already. I'll try a few more, see how it goes. Think units of 10 are overkill?

Dark riders are again a waste of points. Harpies are faster, cheaper and more useful, and shades are better/more reliable shooters. If you HAVE to take them, take musicians

No longer own any Harpies, and I'm not a huge fan of them thematically. Music for the reforming? And I don't HAVE to take them if I take more Corsairs; they were in there because they were some quick harrying units that helped with my Core requirement.

No magic items on Sorceresses? A dispel Scroll and sacrificial dagger are almost compulsory choices for DE mages.

Had planned on a Dispel Scroll, perhaps the Tome of Furion, didn't have the points. The dagger started to look iffy when I realized I'd be shanking 10-point Corsairs. Might still be worth it, though.

Dreadlord on Black Dragon with Armor of Darkness, Pendant of Khaleth, and Warrior Bane (had 5 points, wanted to be able to hurt Ethereal)

A better build would be: Dreadlord, Dragon, Armor of Eternal Serv., Dragonbane Gem, shield, sea dragon cloak. This leaves you with 60 points which would be best spent on Crown of Command and Crimson Death. That right there is a stubborn lord who regens OR gets a 2+ ward with a 3+(1+ against ranged) armor save. Total cost is 659 points of Narcissistic death.

Hmm, could work. The Pendant of Khaleth is really tempting, but that does seem viable. I'll play around with it.

At least 1 hydra is again an almost compulsory choice in the army. Way strong for dirt cheap. Same with a cauldron.

I'll see if I can make room for them. Both seem quite useful.

I assume taking a Supreme Sorceress on the dragon instead of a Dreadlord is just asking for her to get killed, even with the Pendant of Khaleth or Black Amulet or something?

Even with the pendent it makes her a major target as your entire magic phase depends on her and she can't hide on a dragon.

For DE you have to choose between taking a lv4 or taking a dragon. Can't really have both without a ton of risk.

Aerethan wrote:Even with the pendent it makes her a major target as your entire magic phase depends on her and she can't hide on a dragon.

For DE you have to choose between taking a lv4 or taking a dragon. Can't really have both without a ton of risk.

Kind of looking at a couple of Level 2s for Chillwind to shut down shooting and something else for a little extra damage, and then a level 4 with Shadow to Hex the enemy, make my troops hit harder and last longer.

Eh, something to play around with. Part of my problem is I'm not sure where to put wizards. Alone they'll get shot. On a pegasus, they'll get shot. In with my combat troops they'll have turns where they can't cast much because they're in combat. In with my shooting troops...my shooting troops are Scouts and Fast Cavalry. So I don't really know.

For my setups I have 3 units that bunker my sorceresses:
2 units of 20 Crossbows and 1 unit of spearmen(lv4 with sac dagger here).

Although I don't take 3 sorceresses in an army. If I have the dagger I put it in the spearmen, if I have 2 lv2's they go with crossbows.