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Help all, I'm going to be starting a dark elves army soon. Its looking like I should get some witch elves and spears for core and executioners and cok for calvary. I want to do a supreme sorc for my first hero. I want to start small and have enough for smaller type games, what do you guys think I should pick up

The Dark Elves book is literally that well balanced that you can decide what units you like based on aesthetics/fluff and not worry about how competitive they are.

Witch Elves and Executioners complement each other nicely, as they have completely different targets. Theme wise it's also fitting as they both are followers of the cult of Khaine.

A supreme sorceress is pretty much a given in most list. Access to all 8 rule book lores and Dark magic is awesome and magic is amazing in this edition.

I'd suggest Dark riders instead of dread spears. They are arguably the best fast cavalry in the game currently and along with the witch elves are very strong ways to fill your core allotment.

It's an army that does require finesse and synergy to use, but in terms of unit selections it's hard to go to far wrong.

To be honest, you can get whatever you like, as the Army Book is very good in the sense that there are very few bad units. The only thing I'd say is to make sure your units support each other, and each unit is adequately supported. So, if you had a big horde unit of both Witch Elves and Executioners, with your S. Sorceress supporting the Executioners with Life Magic, you'll need something to support the Witch Elves, i.e. a Cauldron.

In terms of what to get then, decide what you want the focus of your list to be. A horde of Executioners? Black Guard? Witch Elves? Lots of shooting? Monsters? After that, you can build the rest of the army to support your theme and key units. As for good units, you can't go wrong with Supreme Sorceresses, Dark Riders, Warlocks and, arguably, Shades, because they're all very good units that need little support of their own and can fit into almost any list. Xbows, Witch Elves, Execs and Black Guard are other very strong units, albeit ones that appreciate support, though these are by no means the only units you should include.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions, let me know!

Thanks guys, question about the cauldron, does it just follow them around and cast spells?

It's a cool looking chariot that buffs the unit. Has a number if permanent effects on the unit and an innate bound spell.

 Yellohman wrote:
Thanks guys, question about the cauldron, does it just follow them around and cast spells?

The Cauldron is a chariot that joins units like a character (just like the Screaming Bell). It makes any unit within 6" (so usually just the one it's in) re-roll to woun in combat, as well as giving them a 6++ (boosted to 5++ for witch elves). The Hag that comes with it also has various bonuses: being able to give the unit frenzy (and double frenzy) as well as being a great combat character, more so if you give her the Ogre Blade. And he can be the BSB.

As such, the Cauldron is best used to support units with high amounts of low strength attacks, such as Corsairs and Witch Elves.

Important to note one thing however.

A Death Hag riding a Cauldron doesn't benefit from LOS as it makes her a different unit type and at T3/W2 and nothing but a 5++ she is asking to be sniped. Even small units of S3 shooting will kill her in a turn. I would only make her your BSB if you absolutely have to!

Alright. So to start off, I have a supreme sorc coming from ebay. I ordered 2 boxes of dreadspears, a box of corsairs, a box of witchelves, and a box of executioners.

To be honest, you won't really use all those Core units in a single game, so I would convert those Corsairs to Shades (easily done, just smooth over the cloaks).

After that, build up both the Exec and the Witch Units, and add a Cauldron to the Witches and Tullaris/Witchbrew Hag to the Execs, you can use those Bleakswords as a Mage Bunker for your Lvl4, who should take life.

For a normal size game, you'll have to do some fiddling about with the Heroes. If you're willing to make your Cauldron a BSB, you can fit in a scroll caddy, so your Lvl4 can take the sc dagger. If not, you'll have to take a Master BSB an so give th Lvl4 the scroll, then take some Warlocks as back up magic. To be honest though, Warlocks are great to include anyway.

Once you've done all that, you can pretty much add in what you like, since most of the units in the book are equally viable.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask

Actually yes, where do you find a list of these standards. I looked in the core book and in the dark elves book am I missing something here? Also I thought that the spears were better for the mage bunker? That's why I started out with two boxes of them . I Just need to know which I should build since I'm not going to have much atm. I just made it to the magic section of the rules in the core book, is it the same way as 40k, lvl 4 = 4 spells ? What spells am I going for with this and should that unit be up in the face buffed to all hell.


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Also I've heard the dark riders are exceptional with shields and the hand bows. Is this the case?

 Yellohman wrote:
Actually yes, where do you find a list of these standards. I looked in the core book and in the dark elves book am I missing something here? Also I thought that the spears were better for the mage bunker? That's why I started out with two boxes of them . I Just need to know which I should build since I'm not going to have much atm. I just made it to the magic section of the rules in the core book, is it the same way as 40k, lvl 4 = 4 spells ? What spells am I going for with this and should that unit be up in the face buffed to all hell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I've heard the dark riders are exceptional with shields and the hand bows. Is this the case?

Standards? As in the magic standards? They're in the magic items section, at the back of the rulebook.

Bleakswords are better for a mage bunker than Spears because, thanks to their Parry save, they're slightly more durable. You lose out on a tiny bit of hitting power, but that's not what you're looking for from a mage bunker.

Magic is pretty different to 40k's Psychic Powers. You're right in that the number of spells (or rather rolls on the table) is equal to your magic level but, unlike 40k, if you roll a double, you can swap one of those dice to a spell of your choice (i.e. if you rolled two 4s, you'd have spell #4 and another of your choice), rather than have to roll again. Also, rather than having "Points" or "Charges" which you expend to cast the powers, you have a certain amount of dice (2D6) and you have to roll them and, adding your Level, beat the casting value. Your opponent has a similar system for stopping the spell. It's all clear when you read the rules. With Lore of Life, the perfect four spells you could roll are Flesh to Stone, Regrowth, Throne of Vines and Dwellers Below. The first two are absolutely necessary, really, since its those spells that'll be keeping your guys alive (which is the idea), the latter ones are useful because they make casting easier and safer or are simply really destructive (respectively).

As for Dark Riders, they are indeed one of the best fast cav units in the game, and certainly a very viable choice. Xbows are pretty necessary for them to do damage and shields are brilliant because the vast majority of other fast cav that can take them lose their fast cav status when they do so. Dark Riders, however, do not. A 4+ save for a Fast Cav unit is exceptional.

I was reading another thread and saw that they were saying you could use different amounts of dice to cast spells. Ie a spelll you don't think you could cast off 2d6, you can add another die and take away from another one

 Yellohman wrote:
I was reading another thread and saw that they were saying you could use different amounts of dice to cast spells. Ie a spelll you don't think you could cast off 2d6, you can add another die and take away from another one

Exactly. You get a "pool" of 2D6 dice each turn to cast magic and, provided you don't use more than six on a single spell, you can split them however you like on whatever spells you have.

Just read over that I see now. Though it seems you can only pick 1 lore?


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Also what do you think of taking the 10 pnt leader upgrades in units?

 Yellohman wrote:
Just read over that I see now. Though it seems you can only pick 1 lore?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also what do you think of taking the 10 pnt leader upgrades in units?

Yeah, most of the time it's one lore per wizard.

As for champion upgrades, it's rarely worth it. I'd only do it in one of two situations:

1) If it's significantly cheaper to buy a champion than another model in the unit, and that model doesn't bring more attacks than the champion

2) More commonly, if you have a character in the unit that would like to fight, but doesn't want to get into challenges with tough combat characters (i.e. your BSB)

Well I picked up my first box. Only executioners came in. I built one, primed it, and hopefully will get to paint it up tomorrow. Will post pics for ya.

Check it out for a picture of my executioner and paint style for the army. I'm very proud how he turned out. Honestly might be one of my best models. Gave him a lot of love with highlights washes etc.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/582311.page#6585748