1500pts DE vs Goblins

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**earache666**

Well people heres my collection and im after any tactical edge you can give me against a pretty experienced goblin adversary in a small 1500pt battle?

Also, keep in mind, I can substitute units I have for units I dont have....eg. Dark riders for doomfire warlocks....etc

1 x Dark Lord on Black Dragon
1 x Supreme Sorceress
1 x Sorceress
2 x Hydras
1 x Reaper x-bow
2 x Assassins
21 x Cold One Knights
33 x Repeater X-bowmen
40 x Spearmen
5 x Corsairs
5 x Dark Riders
20 x Naggarond Black Guard
5 x Executioners

**thedarkavenger**

A few questions to help me write you a list.

Mono Goblins?

Do you want to crush your opponent?

Do you want to remain friends with said opponent?

**HawaiiMatt**

earache666 wrote:

Dark riders for doomfire warlocks....etc
1 x Supreme Sorceress
2 x Hydras
33 x Repeater X-bowmen
40 x Spearmen
5 x Dark Riders

Level 4 Sorceress, Opal amulet Death Magic
2x20 Spearmen, full command
3x10 repeater x-bowmen
2 hydras with breathe
5 warlocks
Use the deathmagic to assassinate his general first, BSB 2nd. Force terror tests with hydras. Use the magic missiles and shooting to kill fanatics and manglers.

Honestly, dark elves is the single toughest match up for my goblins.
Remember that goblins treat all elves as causing fear. Combine that with very poor leadership, and they are in a world of hurt.

-Matt

**earache666**

OK so I play in an hour and heres what I have....my final list....

Lord - Supreme Sorc Lvl 4 Shadow Magic with Cloak of Twilight

Hero - Master with Halberd and heavy armour and BSB in with my Black Guard with Razor Standard

Core - 10 x Corsairs w/full command with repeater handbows/brace of repeater handbows
10 x Corsairs w/full command with repeater handbows
13 Darkshards w/full command

Special - 10 x Black Guard w/full command (master in this unit)
1 x Reaper Bolt Thrower
1 x War Hydra w/fiery breath
1 x War Hydra w/fiery breath

**thedarkavenger**

If it's mono goblins. You can exploit the LD stuff far, far better than Matt suggested.

First, take a level 4 dark magic with the cloak of twilight, and tome of furion. She chooses shroud of despair.

Then take 2 level 2 death mages. This gets you doom and darkness.

All your core should be darkshards and dark riders.

Special is 4 bolt throwers.

Rare is two Kharibdii.

The way it plays is you doom and darkness the general's unit. Then your level 4 flies into a position where she can bubble Shroud to hit all the units.

Then you open fire on a single unit. With everything.

Watch the panics strike as the goblin army runs away.

**earache666**

Hmmmmm, that might be a tough army to field with the minis I have....even substituting with what I have at hand?
But i'm loving all this tactical advice!!
CHEERS

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and not to sound too stupid, but what are mono goblins?

**HawaiiMatt**

earache666 wrote:

Oh, and not to sound too stupid, but what are mono goblins?

Mono goblins would be an army without orcs.

-Matt

**thedarkavenger**

That list I gave becomes better with 3 units of 10 shades. Having run it at 2400 and panicked off an entire ogre army, with the exception of an iron blaster in a phase(once the spells were off), I can say that it works.

**Sigvatr**

DE vs. Goblins is almost an autowin. Goblins excel against smaller, heavily armored armies. DE have tons of shooting and can easily take out any chaff, on top of being vastly overpowered uncomped.

**thedarkavenger**

Sigvatr wrote:
DE vs. Goblins is almost an autowin. Goblins excel against smaller, heavily armored armies. DE have tons of shooting and can easily take out any chaff, on top of being vastly overpowered uncomped.

Or you can do what I do and panic armies like mono goblins in a round. <.<

**earache666**

OK, try again, game on tonight 8pm.....
Final list is as follows.....

Lord - Supreme Sorceress Lvl 4 Shadow with Earthing Rod and Talisman of Preservation (in my Darkshard unit) Hoping to get off spells like Mindrazor and Pit of Shades

Hero - Master with BSB, Halberd, heavy armour, Sea Dragon Cloak, shield, Dragonhelm, and Dawnstone (in my Blackguard unit)

Core -
11 x Corsairs w/full command, repeater xbows, Reaver w/brace of repeater xbows, and banner of eternal flame
15 x Darkshards w/musician and standard bearer with standard of discipline.

Special -
13 x Blackguard w/full command with wailing banner
1 x Reaper bolt thrower
1 x war hydra w/fiery breath

Rare - 1 x Kharibdyss

OPINIONS.......?

**thedarkavenger**

Units are all too small. Black Guard need at least 21. Corsairs add nothing to the list.

**earache666**

At 1500pts I cant fit anymore blackguard in and what should I put in instead of corsairs?

**thedarkavenger**

Replace Corsairs with Dark Riders. You should have two blocks. It helps guarantee matchups.

I'd also drop the Black Guard for executioners. They're cheaper. And drop the Kharibbedforherpleasure to bolster their numbers.

**Warpsolution**

thedarkavenger wrote:
Units are all too small. Black Guard need at least 21. Corsairs add nothing to the list.

Corsairs are good models. They're just not as good as the rest of the choices. But compared to other books, they're quite solid.

21, huh? At 20 models, Black Guard don't work. Not at all.

As to the OP: the sea monster's S7 isn't going to do much to a goblin list. Though forcing Ld tests on 3D6 is great.
Shadow magic also seems pretty lack-luster against Goblins. You're already hitting them on 3's, in many cases they're hitting you on 5's. Many of your units will wound them on 2's...you don't need to drop their WS or T or I. If you're going to pick a Lore based on your opponent, for Goblins, I'd go with Dark, Death, or Life.

**thedarkavenger**

Under the old book, where we had no reason to take the other specials, due to the meta, 20 black guard worked. Not because they were good in combat, but their rules made them the most cost effective. They were, and still are, designed to lose combat and grind. But they're a T3 elf unit with minimal armour. Albut now, when every other unit, bar witches, were made awesome, they're a unit with no home. The army sing designed to lose combat. 21 against an ogre army is good, as you're stubborn against the gutstar, until a combat unit hits them in the flank.

Against goblins, they don't do anything worth paying 15 points a model for.

**HawaiiMatt**

thedarkavenger wrote:

Against goblins, they don't do anything worth paying 15 points a model for.

They get hit on 5's, and that's why you take them. 5+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 5+ to save is fairly durable, and don't break in a poor round of combat.
Corsairs are nearly as durable, but with the chance of nets making them S2, black guard pick up an extra 2 kills while netted. Combined, the slightly easier to kill corsairs combined with them hitting slightly softer, actually puts you into the range where you risk losing combat when netted.
Executioners are better vs goblins. You have the same defense (5+hit/4+wound/5+save), but even when netted you're still killing on 2's with re-rolls.

Best vs goblins is witch elves. 14 witch elves are looking at 13 wounds inflicted, and taking 2 or 3 in return, even netted they are dishing out 8 kills. (vs 6+/6++ night goblins).
More importantly, they are just as good against the monsters, trolls and chariots.
O&G really don't get counter for witches. They don't have that heavy armor that witches struggle with. Best thing O&G could do is hope for fanatics to massacre the witches (which is difficult and risky).

-Matt

**thedarkavenger**

OnG have the perfect counter for witches.

MANGLERS, FANATICS AND WAR MACHINES.

You might as well label the section as "Anti-low-toughness-low-armour-models".

The best thing vs goblins is, and this is as an elf player, avoid getting held up in combat. We have the movement advantage. Pew pew and panic them off.

**Warpsolution**

Fanatics levy a -3 to armour. Manglers a -4. Bolt Throwers and Doom Divers don't allow any armour at all.
Witches are T3, sure, but so is the rest of your army. Between Witches, Corsairs, Black Guard, and Executioners, Witches are the least tempting target for any of that stuff. I'll shoot them with arrows, and leave my armour-reducing stuff to the other (usually more expensive models).

Dark Elves might fair better if they dance around the goblins...but they can still charge in and do just fine.

**earache666**

Well we played on Thursday night and, im a bit ashamed to say, I got beaten......

After a few turns I had him on the ropes but then his chariots came to the party and smashed me. They say that games are won and lost in the movement phase....well I lost. I had first turn and didn't move far enough to get my level 4 sorc in range to bomb off anything of any use. I was advised to keep her out of combat at all costs. So I kept her at the back in her unit of 15 darkshards accompanied by the corsairs for a bit of protection. My hydra smashed his trolls with its fiery breath and then my blackguard finished them off. unfortunately my kharibdyss got slayed by his chariots before it even got an attack. My bolt thrower was doing a bit of damage to his chariots but they got wiped out too early by a couple of wolf rider packs.
After the trolls were defeated his general fled, my blackguard tried to chase him down but didn't quite make the distance so then the next turn they charged his goblin horde and started hacking through them with a mindrazor spell on them to assist. They wiped them out but took serious casualties as well as they got flanked by 2 wolf packs.
His chariots then targeted my darkshards and lvl 4 sorc. On his first charge he wiped out all 15 of my xbow men leaving the sorc all alone. I actually had the chance to block the charge in my previous movement phase with my corsairs but instead I reformed to shoot a wolf pack, which failed anyway. As soon as he declared the charge I was screaming profanities at my own blunder. Needless to say he quickly cleaned up my sorc and my corsairs with his chariots and a wolf rider pack and that was basically game over.....
I really did snatch DEFEAT from the jaws of VICTORY.....

But I was a lot more competitive this time than last time. And also keep in mind he is a very experienced player and this was my first game in about a year and probably only my 4th or 5th complete game. So with that taken into account I was only slightly disappointed. I was more annoyed at the fact that I was so close to winning and then lost.....

**HawaiiMatt**

I'm glad you saw the errors and aren't blaming the match ups.
Goblins chariots are fierce. Possible the best chariot/glass cannon in the game.
Good job pairing off the hydra against the trolls.

-Matt

**earache666**

Good job pairing off the hydra against the trolls.
Yeah, that was one plan I had in advance, I was pretty sure he was going to use trolls and possibly a giant So, I planned to pit my fiery breathed hydra against his trolls and my kharibdyss against his giant. He didn't take his giant.
I was actually a little bit ripped off the other night too. He had actually set up his side of the board as well as all of the terrain on the board in advance. So instead of going unit for unit he already had all of his down under a sheet.
Then I think I also got ripped off by not using my hydras thunder stomp. Do they even still have that special ability?
Also I didn't get to utilise the special abilities of my darkshards and corsairs with their repeater xbows and handbows....armour piercing and quick to fire....

Most of that was probably my own fault for not knowing my own army well enough but im sure he knew all of it....? Hell he probably knows my army better than I do....

But, as this was part of a small tournament and I lost by a mere 23 pts, these rules could've made all the difference between a win and a loss.....?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
[quote
]Good job pairing off the hydra against the trolls.

Yeah, that was one plan I had in advance, I was pretty sure he was going to use trolls and possibly a giant So, I planned to pit my fiery breathed hydra against his trolls and my kharibdyss against his giant. He didn't take his giant.
I was actually a little bit ripped off the other night too. He had actually set up his side of the board as well as all of the terrain on the board in advance. So instead of going unit for unit he already had all of his down under a sheet.
Then I think I also got ripped off by not using my hydras thunder stomp. Do they even still have that special ability?
Also I didn't get to utilise the special abilities of my darkshards and corsairs with their repeater xbows and handbows....armour piercing and quick to fire....

Most of that was probably my own fault for not knowing my own army well enough but im sure he knew all of it....? Hell he probably knows my army better than I do....

But, as this was part of a small tournament and I lost by a mere 23 pts, these rules could've made all the difference between a win and a loss.....?

**ALEXisAWESOME**

Nope, you don't get to Thunderstomp Trolls, they are Monstrous Infantry.

**Warpsolution**

Indeed.
I wish Stomps worked like Fear, though. Big guys Stomp little guys. Giant guys Thunderstomp little guys and Stomp big guys.

That form of deployment is weird, but it's not really going to hurt you any more than it hurts him.
Setting up the table ahead of time is something I might take issue with. I try to lay out a fun, varied, sensible table on which to play out a battle-narrative. If my Wood Elf opponent chooses forests for all 6 of their terrain pieces...that'll get old.

**earache666**

Nope, you don't get to Thunderstomp Trolls, they are Monstrous Infantry.

Ah, thank you for that. So he wasn't cheating......

**KingSautepIII**

Well i have next to no knowledge about Dark Elves but i play Orcs and Goblins and i cannot stress this enough:Hit Them In The Leadership.

Find a way to kill the general and bsb and use fear elves to beat the hell out of them (Also if possible get Aspect of the dreadknight to cause terror.)