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 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I also converted my own Morathi out of the witch elf, black dragon, chariot, cauldron of blood and Dark Eldar scourge kits...I just had some bits lying around.
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i might say a sorceress is a clearly good addition to any darkish elf military. The lore of darkness is exquisite. I wouldn’t put her on a cold one even though, in the event that they fail a stupidity test she will’t solid. I’d placed her on a steed with the warlocks or walking with the crossbows or spears. preserve her out of danger. if you give her lore of beasts you may forged wild form on any of your devices making them greater effective in melee, in particular warlocks or witch elves.

You certainly want a war preferred bearer. I generally positioned mine with cold one knights. Glittering scales and dawnstone on a cold one with a sea dragon cloak, lance and protect will give him a 1+ re-rollable armour shop at -1 to hit.

2 gadgets of 5 dark riders are a ought to in every army.

I’ve by no means had a whole lot achievement with corsairs to be honest, and i suppose you have too much center. You need extra heavy hitters like executioners or bloodless one knights.

Gangland wrote:


Yes this is for very casual 8th edition games. Basically me and 4 other friends who got into fantasy too late and play with what we can get.

There are some units you cant easily get, like Empire Knights, but I have gone on a post AoS purchasing spree of WHFB and found the only army I truly have to write off are Tomb Kings, barring a good deal on ebay. Some factions are slightly harder to collect than others but nearly everything for WHFB is still sold by Games Workshop. Beastmen and Ogres are now back and they were close to a squatting. Chaos Dwarfs are still on Forgeworld, but you can get them from Mantic. Norba ans MOM Miniaturas will provide your Bretonnians. Pretty much the entire chaos line is present with some improvements and Vampire Counts are getting easier to collect. High Elves, Wood Elves and Dwarfs are mail order from GW, so is most of Empire. but you can back that up with select historicals. Dark Elves are all there but split between several categories. The Lizardman range is fully intact as Seraphon. O&G needs a bit of work, especially if you want standard orcs
Extra characters and special characters are lacking, but you can get character models from all over, and pay attention to made to order specials.

The biggest bugbears are the lack of bases, but there are 3rd party manufacturers for those.

All in all I am not having too much trouble filling out my Warhammer collection.

I’m pretty much done collecting for High Elves and Skaven (started with IoB, picked up another, and then got other much needed things for decent enough price).

Hardest part I’ve found for Dark Elves are the witch elves but as I mentioned on my last post on page 2 I’m working on those (probably get some premade minis and some boxes of the age of Sigmar ones)

I’ll probably make a seperate thread when I get to them but I got a Chaos Battalion (6th edition I think, comes with knights instead of chariot) for pretty cheap and also picked up a Slaves to Darkness boxset to round them out plus got the book.

I was going to pick up some dwarfs I saw on eBay, basically 2 battle for skull passes worth, but my friend already has dwarfs, the book is idiot level of expensive (I know there is a pdf out but I like having books) and one lot went higher than I wanted to go so I decided I’d be fine without. (Rather get a faction we don’t have for the play group but I feel like I’m probably going to stop buying and focus on building and painting. At this point I’m not looking to expand unless I see a deal)

Back to my updated Dark Elves list on the last page, I’m thinking of taking out a cold one chariot so I can allocate those points elsewhere (beef up my other characters and units). Feels like too many models without enough upgrades. May think about a 2500pt build as well but right now sticking to the 2k build.

Chaos Battalion with knights is fairly recent, certainly not 6th.
Chaos knights were metal in 6th.

yep slaves to Darkness round the out, but get a box of Marauders - 20 is enough for a single unit, a box of Marauder horse - this will make two units and one to two boxes of warhounds - your warhounds bulk out a chaos army which can otherwise look way too small. Marauders help also with this.
Give Marauders either axe and shield or flails, both work. Oftimes your small elite chaos warriors need an adequate cheap unit as filler for support. Dont give Marauders marks, just rely on basic troops with static bonus. Use them to secure a flank, as backup or to hold an objective.
Dragon ogres are not the best monsterous unit, that would be chaos trolls, but you cant get the latter. Three dragon ogres with any loadout, I prefer halberds, can help a lot.
You can still also get the warshrine and the manticore, both of which are nice add ons to stiffen your army.
You ca make a very nice chaos undivided army with current availability. If you want a marked army buy specific units instead. core AoS boxsets for Khorne, or Arcanists for Tzeentch. I went pure chaos undivided myself, and was happy with the results and i started my Chaos army only AFTER Warhammer was cancelled..

Gangland wrote:
Ok so I sat down, laid out all my boxes for Dark Elves again and made a list using what I had. Far more updated from last time. Here is my in progress 2,000 point 8th edition Dark Elf Army list:

I think you may need some proxies for your Corsairs or Executioners.
Both units are way too small to be combat effective in a 2000 points batte. One round of shooting or magic would render them useless.
Double their size (at least) if you want to field them.

 Arnizipal wrote:

Gangland wrote:
Ok so I sat down, laid out all my boxes for Dark Elves again and made a list using what I had. Far more updated from last time. Here is my in progress 2,000 point 8th edition Dark Elf Army list:

I think you may need some proxies for your Corsairs or Executioners.
Both units are way too small to be combat effective in a 2000 points batte. One round of shooting or magic would render them useless.
Double their size (at least) if you want to field them.

I have 30 Corsairs. What would you recommend I take out to free up the points?

Still waiting on an Executioners box so I should have 20 soon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
Chaos Battalion with knights is fairly recent, certainly not 6th.
Chaos knights were metal in 6th.

yep slaves to Darkness round the out, but get a box of Marauders - 20 is enough for a single unit, a box of Marauder horse - this will make two units and one to two boxes of warhounds - your warhounds bulk out a chaos army which can otherwise look way too small. Marauders help also with this.
Give Marauders either axe and shield or flails, both work. Oftimes your small elite chaos warriors need an adequate cheap unit as filler for support. Dont give Marauders marks, just rely on basic troops with static bonus. Use them to secure a flank, as backup or to hold an objective.
Dragon ogres are not the best monsterous unit, that would be chaos trolls, but you cant get the latter. Three dragon ogres with any loadout, I prefer halberds, can help a lot.
You can still also get the warshrine and the manticore, both of which are nice add ons to stiffen your army.
You ca make a very nice chaos undivided army with current availability. If you want a marked army buy specific units instead. core AoS boxsets for Khorne, or Arcanists for Tzeentch. I went pure chaos undivided myself, and was happy with the results and i started my Chaos army only AFTER Warhammer was cancelled..

I just got the WoC book so once I get a good grasp on things I’ll decide what I want to make. Probably undivided though.

Gangland wrote:

 Arnizipal wrote:

Gangland wrote:
Ok so I sat down, laid out all my boxes for Dark Elves again and made a list using what I had. Far more updated from last time. Here is my in progress 2,000 point 8th edition Dark Elf Army list:

I think you may need some proxies for your Corsairs or Executioners.
Both units are way too small to be combat effective in a 2000 points batte. One round of shooting or magic would render them useless.
Double their size (at least) if you want to field them.

I have 30 Corsairs. What would you recommend I take out to free up the points?

Still waiting on an Executioners box so I should have 20 soon.

Those are fine.

Gangland wrote:

I just got the WoC book so once I get a good grasp on things I’ll decide what I want to make. Probably undivided though.

I made a fully undivided army, I think its better than taking vanilla chaos and giving it a colour scheme to show a mark. Most models are undivided, mark specific models should look the part.
Also I heavily disliked how people would make a unit Khornate to synergise with extra hand weapons, or Tzeentchian to synergise with a shield. Chaos armies worship a particular god because their tribe does, not because it buffs specific loadouts. While marks are points efficient Warriors of Chaos are a strong list and don't need the buff, taking no marks makes them fairer in actuality. Fourth marks do add up, and as chaos armies tend to be expensive and small taking no marks allows you to take something more like an army. Tooled out chaos armies were often two dozen models or less at 2000pts, and occasionally less than half that. If you go fully chaos undivided and bulk out with about 15% spent on warhounds and marauders you can muster a fairly sizable army. You will still likely be outnumbered but your army will look and feel like an army and not a party of chaotic evil player characters plus retinue.
You will not regret a chaos undivided theme, made my army 100% chaos undivided, which meant no juggernauts, marauders on steeds of Slaanesh or vortex beast. But it was worth it for theme. I did miss not fielding a vortex beast, so I built one anyway and called it a gigantic chaos spawn. I used the vortex itself as a spell effect marker, it looked stupid on the monster anyway and the rules for the gigantic spawn were al;so more straightforward..

 Orlanth wrote:
Those are fine.

Do MSU tactics work with infantry?

 Orlanth wrote:

Gangland wrote:

 Arnizipal wrote:

Gangland wrote:
Ok so I sat down, laid out all my boxes for Dark Elves again and made a list using what I had. Far more updated from last time. Here is my in progress 2,000 point 8th edition Dark Elf Army list:

I think you may need some proxies for your Corsairs or Executioners.
Both units are way too small to be combat effective in a 2000 points batte. One round of shooting or magic would render them useless.
Double their size (at least) if you want to field them.

I have 30 Corsairs. What would you recommend I take out to free up the points?

Still waiting on an Executioners box so I should have 20 soon.

Those are fine.

Gangland wrote:

I just got the WoC book so once I get a good grasp on things I’ll decide what I want to make. Probably undivided though.

I made a fully undivided army, I think its better than taking vanilla chaos and giving it a colour scheme to show a mark. Most models are undivided, mark specific models should look the part.
Also I heavily disliked how people would make a unit Khornate to synergise with extra hand weapons, or Tzeentchian to synergise with a shield. Chaos armies worship a particular god because their tribe does, not because it buffs specific loadouts. While marks are points efficient Warriors of Chaos are a strong list and don't need the buff, taking no marks makes them fairer in actuality. Fourth marks do add up, and as chaos armies tend to be expensive and small taking no marks allows you to take something more like an army. Tooled out chaos armies were often two dozen models or less at 2000pts, and occasionally less than half that. If you go fully chaos undivided and bulk out with about 15% spent on warhounds and marauders you can muster a fairly sizable army. You will still likely be outnumbered but your army will look and feel like an army and not a party of chaotic evil player characters plus retinue.
You will not regret a chaos undivided theme, made my army 100% chaos undivided, which meant no juggernauts, marauders on steeds of Slaanesh or vortex beast. But it was worth it for theme. I did miss not fielding a vortex beast, so I built one anyway and called it a gigantic chaos spawn. I used the vortex itself as a spell effect marker, it looked stupid on the monster anyway and the rules for the gigantic spawn were al;so more straightforward..

]

Yeah I hear you. I’m in no rush to get to my chaos army right now though so I’m going to read through the book and take my time deciding what I want to do with them. With undivided though it seems like I can more easily get away with switching up the list to make a full Khorn, Nurgal, or which ever centered god if I feel like mixing it up.

 Arnizipal wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Those are fine.

Do MSU tactics work with infantry?

30 elf core and 20 elf elite are not MSU. They arent giant units, true, but they are not small. Generally you dont want anything larger because of nuke spells.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gangland wrote:


Yeah I hear you. I’m in no rush to get to my chaos army right now though so I’m going to read through the book and take my time deciding what I want to do with them. With undivided though it seems like I can more easily get away with switching up the list to make a full Khorn, Nurgal, or which ever centered god if I feel like mixing it up.

You can use very specific sculpts for champions of each god plus undivided. A unit of chaos warriors with a standard black or iron colour scheme goes well enough with a specified champion of the gods. In the private fluff the mark is on the leader, not the unit (but is handled normally and thus lingers if the leader dies).

I thought about doing this, and have seen it work, but the more I looked art it the more I wanted Chaos Undivided as a permanent theme. In 6th Edition and in 9th age, undivided armies are more viable, becvause in both the Mark of Chaos Undivided/Mark of True Chaos has its own effects. Only in 8th (maybe 7th) is it a lack of a mark.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Arnizipal wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Those are fine.

Do MSU tactics work with infantry?

30 elf core and 20 elf elite are not MSU. They arent giant units, true, but they are not small. Generally you dont want anything larger because of nuke spells.

Ah, I misunderstood.
I thought you meant 15 Corsairs and 10 Executioners are fine (hence the MSU question).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gangland wrote:

 Arnizipal wrote:

Gangland wrote:
Ok so I sat down, laid out all my boxes for Dark Elves again and made a list using what I had. Far more updated from last time. Here is my in progress 2,000 point 8th edition Dark Elf Army list:

I think you may need some proxies for your Corsairs or Executioners.
Both units are way too small to be combat effective in a 2000 points batte. One round of shooting or magic would render them useless.
Double their size (at least) if you want to field them.

I have 30 Corsairs. What would you recommend I take out to free up the points?

Still waiting on an Executioners box so I should have 20 soon.

Depending on you opponent you might drop the two units of Darkshards.
Against T4 opponents for example, they don't even make a scratch.

Good to know. So when facing my friends Dwarfs leave them home. If I ever play against my future Chaos army, leave them home.

But they should do well against my High Elves and Skaven, and my friends Greenskins (as most of them are goblins).

What about the two chariots? Is it worth it to drop one? Should I forgo the Executioners in favor of my Cold One Knights? (I only have 5)

Also what is an ideas number of Executioners and Black Gaurd? I’ve found some decent deals on minis for those (May need to strip them but that will be something fun to learn) so I’m curious how many I should look to acquire. I’d say the most points we will ever field will be around 2500 (maybe 3k).

One last little update is I did end up buying 20 Witch Elves (prebuilt and half pre painted probably to get stripped). Halfway to 40.

Darkshards are useful anti chaff, dwarfs are not likely to chaff you though. Chaos might, your darkshards can kill warhounds, marauder cav and other disruption units but mighty elite where it needs to be.Chaos relies on to get its thin You cant afford to waste spell or bolt thrower fire on such units vs chaos, you need to thin down the nasties.

Darkshards help there, but are not your only solution. Almost nobody can run a nasty skirmish/anti-skirmish line like the dark elves can, the remaining contender is in Athel Loren.

So I actually just got a lot of 41 repeater crossbows for pretty cheap. Now it becomes what should I do with my warrior boxes?

Doesn’t seem like spears and sword are popular, plus I have the 30 corsairs, and 40 witch elves on the way (rejoice you witch elf fan boys).

With what I have I can make 42 sword and shield or 32 spears (I could just run my metal sword and shields in the spear unit as proxies making 42 spears)

I can also make some money back on my Dark elf collecting as my warrior boxes are still sealed. But I wouldn’t mind having some veriaty either.

You CAN make an army core around them. They may only be S3 but by fire volume they are fairly efficient. Each is the same as two Bs3 archers with regular 24" bows, but cost less than double, and critically inhabit half the space.

One of the man issues with bowfire is that to get enough you need to get enough shooters in the range bubble, double shot helps with this.

That being said you cant rely on them to stop an infantry block on their own, there is very little shooting in warhammer that can. Know your limitations.

Alright, now that I got the heavier stuff how is this:

Lord:

Supreme Sorceress - 290pts
+Steed +Cloak of Twilight +Lvl 4

Heroes

Master - 119pts
+BSB +Steed +Repeater Crossbow +Enchanted Shield +Heavy Armor

Core

(40) Witch Elves - 485
+Full Command +Lichebone Standard

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Full Command +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Full Command +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

Rare

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

Special

(28) Executioners - 411
+Full Command +Razor Standard

War Hydra - 180
+Fiery Breath


This leaves me with 5pts to spend as needed on some magic items depending on the army I'm facing. Idea is to put sorceress with warlocks and the BSB with Dark Riders.

Gangland wrote:
Alright, now that I got the heavier stuff how is this:

Lord:

Supreme Sorceress - 290pts
+Steed +Cloak of Twilight +Lvl 4

No problems so far.

Gangland wrote:

Heroes

Master - 119pts
+BSB +Steed +Repeater Crossbow +Enchanted Shield +Heavy Armor

First mistake, putting the BSB in a cavalry unit with an infantry core. Second mistake putting it in a chaff cavalry unit. Put him in with the Executioners, along with the general.

Gangland wrote:

Core

(40) Witch Elves - 485
+Full Command +Lichebone Standard

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Full Command +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Full Command +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

Rare

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

Special

(28) Executioners - 411
+Full Command +Razor Standard

Very cookie cutter, has Naggaroth forgotten how to recruit basic infantry.
However nothing wrong with the list other than how samey it is.
Effective though.

There is no tourney scene anymore, so there is no need to minimax. My 'pointer' for you is to get some Dreadspears, make your army look like an army not a Slaanesh cult

Gangland wrote:

War Hydra - 180
+Fiery Breath

Drop the fire breath.

I just went with what seemed to be everyone’s favorites. I think I’m going to actually start putting them together (well technically some are already cause I got them 2nd hand)

Anyway I’ll tinker with it a little more. Found the new cauldron of blood box set, may pick that. What size base would I need for it though?

60x100

Re tinkered

Lord:

Supreme Sorceress - 240pts
+Steed +Lvl 4

Heroes

Master - 119pts
+BSB +Heavy Armor +Great weapon +Banner of Eternal Flame +Seadragon Cloak

Core

(30) Witch Elves - 485
+Standard +Hag +Lichebone Standard

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Musician +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

(5) Dark Riders - 130
+Musician +Shields +Repeater Crossbows

(30) Bleakswords
+Champion +Standard

Rare

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

(5) Doomfire Warlocks - 125

Special

(28) Executioners - 411
+Champion +Musician

War Hydra - 160


I figured bleakswords are more resilient with the parry as opposed to getting an extra rank attack (they aren't there to deal damage, just to hold for the flankers). But that brings me to exactly 2000pts.

if you're going for a casual list you've overdone this tbh. Horde of executioners, horde of witch elves and 2 doomfire warlocks units+a hydra is basically a competitive list. If i was bringing a casual list vs what I thought was a casual opponent and came up vs this I'd be a little miffed.

We were light years from casual when witch elves were suggested. The standard has been raised, who will answer the call?

I think it behooves you to make sure you can play both ways, casual or competitive.

The trouble with Dark Elves is that none of their units are particularly resilient except the monsters, none are particularly cheap, yet there is a large gap between the high power units and te low powered. When facing tougher armies there is a shortlist of effective troops to take.
Yes Executioners, Witch Elves and Warlocks are cookie cutter, but cant be replaced by anything.
Cold ones, both knights and chariots, Black Guard and bolt throwers are your swap ins, though great weapon shades can also pile on hurt.

I cant recommend Bleakswords though. Take Darkshards instead of Bleakswords, they are the same, once you have shields and yet they stand and shoot. Units of 20-24 in two ranks, then combat reform them
Bleakswords simply wont do anything, they are cheaper, true but dont add anything to your army. Darkshards are anti-chaff and serve as light combat blocks with 5+/6++ as needed.

When you get your Corsairs they fill out the variety.

S3 vs dwarfs, everyone who has S3 has that problem, and not just about dwarfs. S3 attacks are not plentiful enough to deal with massed opponents, T3 opponents are too cheap, elves excepted and T4 opponents are too tough. However this problem is more or less the same for everyone. Shooting is there to deal with chaff, not ranked infantry, so in a way is S3 fighting.
Your Darkshards will make a worthy flank for your army, dwarfs dont have many light flanker but they do have slayer and gyrocopters to kill.

Well let me put it this way. Yesterday I played 1k high elves v my friends 1k dwarfs.

I had an Archmage lvl 3 (lore of Metal), lvl1 mage (fire), 20 seagaurd, 5 reavers, 20 swordmasters, and a Bolt Thrower.

Dwarfs were 10 miners, 10warriors with a Thane, 10 handgunners, 2 Demon slayers, acannon, a grudge Thrower and 10’Ironebreakers... and I’m sure none of that doubles with the amount of points.

I was able to win fairly decisively. We played to the last man (well elf or dwarf) and I only lost my reaver unit, the rest had causultys but no panic test. I took out war machines by turn 2 (grudgethrower first then cannon) using magic. Reavers and seagaurd stayed away from the ironbreakers, miners and slayers advancing taking potshots with arrows (almost took out the miners befor they were charge distance) seagaurd took out miners, then slayers, reavers got taken out ironbreakers, swordmasters swordmasters turned warriors and thane into Skaven ground beef, Bolt Thrower took out gunners (losing 1 crew member)

However I am trying to build up beefy builds for my Skaven, High Elves, and warriors of chaos.

What size table did you play on?

Such small units in the Dwarf army... They wouldn't have lasted in close combat if you had chosen to engage them.

 StygianBeach wrote:
What size table did you play on?

5’x3.5’ or so.

Just my friends table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arnizipal wrote:
Such small units in the Dwarf army... They wouldn't have lasted in close combat if you had chosen to engage them.

A few were actually 12 dwarf units but yeah.

How many Power Dice at 1000 points?

A L3 and a L1 mage at these points is overkill.

I guess you weren't able to field more miniatures because you are just beginning to play, right?

I would suggest to take max 2 heroes at 1.000 points, and cut the power dice to half the amount, rounded up (as well as dispel dice). Rule of thumb is 25 % in Characters

So if you can reach 1000 points only if you take a lord choice for 300+ points and the other has to take 2 slayer heroes to get the same, rather reduce the total points to 750 or 700 than using too many characters.

My friend plays 2k games with another of our group at 2k where I do know they play end times rules, in that they have a 50% Lord allowance to get to the points. I don’t really know their list compositions off the top of my head, but the dwarfs add an anvil and rune Smith and maybe 1 or 2 more units of the bare minimum (10-12). At 2k he faces Greenskins who are composed of half the Battle For Skull pass and the battalion. Dwarfs aren’t tye other half of Skull pass + whatever he got at the game store before they switched to Sigmar.

My elves were composed of 2 island of bloods and the Bolt Thrower. I was going to do a prince but went with the archmage for that sweet sweet magic. I guess I could field my prince on foot and a lvl 2 mage to equal it out.

From what I hear the dwarfs don’t fair well against the green skins either. I don’t know all he has off the top of my head but he could have fielded more troops instead of the slayers, but that’s what he chose for his list.

As for power dice we stuck to the normal winds of magic rules.

 Orlanth wrote:
Yes you could use old metal executioners, butt those have the draich added on at the hilt and are notorious for breakages.

On the other hand, they look way better than the plastics and are really distinct armour-wise from the Black guard which makes for a nice contrast on the tabletop. The plastics, being effectively a head and weapon swap lose some of that and so come across less as two distinct units and more just variants of the same unit.

That works fine for spear/sword/crossbow elves forming the core of the army but special units should look distinct from one another, each with their own style. At least in my opinion.