thedarkavenger wrote:
Dark elves are a horrid matchup for TK. Elves outshoot, outfight, and outmagic TK.

Plus they have wacky mechanics that make learning the game a tad more complicated.

I recommend lizards as they're a well rounded army who are easy to learn.

 pinkbunnies wrote:
Well, I know his army has a lot of dark riders and doomfire warlocks. Obviously I plan on fighting other people too, but I want to get good at killing his first

 krodarklorr wrote:
Well, as a fellow Necron AND Tomb King player, I can tell you that aside from similarities in fluff, Tomb Kings are nothing like Necrons as far as play style goes. They're a whole different ball game. But, with Nagash and the Undead Legions out now, you'd get some cool stuff to use. =P

Plus, to answer your question, TK do decently against Dark Elves.

 pinkbunnies wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Well, as a fellow Necron AND Tomb King player, I can tell you that aside from similarities in fluff, Tomb Kings are nothing like Necrons as far as play style goes. They're a whole different ball game. But, with Nagash and the Undead Legions out now, you'd get some cool stuff to use. =P

Plus, to answer your question, TK do decently against Dark Elves.

I definitely want to do TK at some point. I don't know why I like skeletons/robot skeletons so muh lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 pinkbunnies wrote:
Well, I know his army has a lot of dark riders and doomfire warlocks. Obviously I plan on fighting other people too, but I want to get good at killing his first

You're going to be facing an uphill struggle with those two armies. The list you mentioned is one of the top lists in the game right now. And those armies don't really have the tools to deal with them.

And yes. Dark elves have a lot of shooting. In a decent list, everything bar the warlocks and characters will shoot.

Hmmm....we played a mini game(so I can start learning) with his cold one knights vs my daemonettes.....and my daemonettes kinda totally slaughtered him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
so which armies do have the tools to deal with them?

Saldiven wrote:
I've always thought Dwarves do decently well against DE, especially if you go gunline. {Warning: Gunline Dwarves are often considered a "boring" army to play against by your opponent. This largely has to do with how much of their army is shot off of the board before they can get into close combat.}

Runed cannons and stone throwers take care of things like the Cauldron, RBT, and Hydras. Without the Cauldron, Witch Elves die in droves to Stone Throwers, Organ Guns and Crossbow fire. Dark Riders evaporate before any shooting Dwarves have to offer. Even DFW struggle against massed shooting when the lowest S from said shooting is 4. Most DE armor is so light and T values low enough that virtually any shooting from the Dwarf side will inflict casualties, despite only being BS3.

If/when the DE get across the board, the Dwarves are still T4 with at least Heavy Armor and striking back at S5+ with great weapons.

I dunno if Dwarves were something you were considering, but they do decently well against DE, so thought I'd throw it out there.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
I've always thought Dwarves do decently well against DE, especially if you go gunline. {Warning: Gunline Dwarves are often considered a "boring" army to play against by your opponent. This largely has to do with how much of their army is shot off of the board before they can get into close combat.}

Runed cannons and stone throwers take care of things like the Cauldron, RBT, and Hydras. Without the Cauldron, Witch Elves die in droves to Stone Throwers, Organ Guns and Crossbow fire. Dark Riders evaporate before any shooting Dwarves have to offer. Even DFW struggle against massed shooting when the lowest S from said shooting is 4. Most DE armor is so light and T values low enough that virtually any shooting from the Dwarf side will inflict casualties, despite only being BS3.

If/when the DE get across the board, the Dwarves are still T4 with at least Heavy Armor and striking back at S5+ with great weapons.

I dunno if Dwarves were something you were considering, but they do decently well against DE, so thought I'd throw it out there.

Who says Dark Elves are going to engage dwarves? With my seven war machines that reroll to wound(Well, four war machines and 3 chariots), alongside my Metal Magic, I can happily sit back and shoot you off the board.

Saldiven wrote:
{Warning: Gunline Dwarves are often considered a "boring" army to play against by your opponent. This largely has to do with how much of their army is shot off of the board before they can get into close combat.}

 spyguyyoda wrote:
VC should be pretty good at facing DE. I haven't tried that matchup, but VC have a high body count and can field high toughness models, both things that DE hate.

The other army that does everything that DE hate is Ogres. High Toughness and fast. Not a good combo for DE.

Another combo that DE hate is tough models with good armor saves; like Warriors of Chaos.

Based on the armies you've listed, I would certainly suggest VC over any of the other options.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Against VC, I can sit back, and focus on a unit at a time. Since they can't march, they shouldn't really get to my fast cav. I I go for combat, then nothing in the army can hold up against any of the combat options listed in the book beyond a million buffs.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Against VC, I can sit back, and focus on a unit at a time. Since they can't march, they shouldn't really get to my fast cav. I I go for combat, then nothing in the army can hold up against any of the combat options listed in the book beyond a million buffs.

VC can march. Hex Wraiths are a nightmare for DE, option to vanguard, 16" march, 17" average charge range, ethereal, S5 no save attacks.
Free zombies can be summoned as a line of hard cover for other units.
Decent direct damage (2D6 S4 magic missile, curse of years, and wind of undeath).
If the VC try and go deathstar, they are in trouble, but if they instead spam 3 point models, who return at a stupidly fast rate, they are going to cause problems.
The new Legion army makes this even worse; as the casket is amazing (and being direct damage, doesn't need line of sight).

-Matt

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Against VC, I can sit back, and focus on a unit at a time. Since they can't march, they shouldn't really get to my fast cav. I I go for combat, then nothing in the army can hold up against any of the combat options listed in the book beyond a million buffs.

VC can march. Hex Wraiths are a nightmare for DE, option to vanguard, 16" march, 17" average charge range, ethereal, S5 no save attacks.
Free zombies can be summoned as a line of hard cover for other units.
Decent direct damage (2D6 S4 magic missile, curse of years, and wind of undeath).
If the VC try and go deathstar, they are in trouble, but if they instead spam 3 point models, who return at a stupidly fast rate, they are going to cause problems.
The new Legion army makes this even worse; as the casket is amazing (and being direct damage, doesn't need line of sight).

-Matt

Hex Wraiths are a problem? Sure. Against any of the armies that don't include warlocks, death magic, metal magic, fire magic or dark magic level 1s. AKA NONE OF THEM.

And they can march for one turn, unless they go necrospam. Any decent ranged Dark Elf army WILL be able to obliterate any bunker unit VC can bring.

And remember, any DD VC bring, DE bring twice as much, if not more. If the Elf player brings Morathi, that just becomes infinitely worse odds for the VC player.

Sure, you can bring those zombies back stupidly quickly, but DE take them off even faster. Last game I played, my only shooting was 30 crossbowmen and 4 bolt throwers, and I still manages to kill enough each turn to make the summons unable to recuperate the losses. As well as bolt throwering off a character in the first three turns. After that it was run away from the slow troops. If I was running the fast cav list, it would have been much easier for me.

As for the Casket point, you're relying on the army failing the LD8-10 panics. Which are likely rerollable.

It's like I said, there are 3 bad matchups for the elf book. And I listed them earlier in this thread.

 pinkbunnies wrote:
Well, I know his army has a lot of dark riders and doomfire warlocks. Obviously I plan on fighting other people too, but I want to get good at killing his first

Are there any shooters in Lizardmen? Do I need shooters against Dark Elves? I thought Skinks were shooters, but the range is only like 6' or something.

kooshlord wrote:

 pinkbunnies wrote:
Well, I know his army has a lot of dark riders and doomfire warlocks. Obviously I plan on fighting other people too, but I want to get good at killing his first

Are there any shooters in Lizardmen? Do I need shooters against Dark Elves? I thought Skinks were shooters, but the range is only like 6' or something.

The DE book has answers to most things. So best options depend on how much your DE guy builds around your list. Given that your DE guy plays a lot of fast cav, I'd think about spamming magic missles and shooting.

Lizardmen: Stegadons and Bastilodons give you access to bound spell magic missiles. Skinks put out clouds of low strength shots. Stegs with blowpipes give you some barrages of shots that help compensate for DE maneuverability. Salamanders might also be worth considering, especially if the DE guy fields big blocks as well.

Skaven: Has all kinds of wacky shooting and magic missiles. The question is whether you kill yourself faster than the other guy.

Tomb Kings: Skeleton Archers and light magic provide some decent answers to fast cav. Core Chariots give you some board control options.

Vampire Counts: Screamlists (Cavalry, banshees, etc) can remove fast cav pretty well.

I think lizardmen are probably your most well-rounded option. And they are classic DE foes.

 pinkbunnies wrote:

To a certain extent, his DE army ls in flux, partially because after Dark Eldar codex comes out, new stuff for Dark Elves is coming out or something like that. But it looks like he has 2 units of 10 cold one knights, a bunch of black guard, like 20 executioners, repeater bolt throwers, 10 doomfire warlocks, 2 units of 10 dark riders, and 2 units of 15 dark shards(?)

2 Masters(1 on Manticore) a lvl 2 sorceress hero, a lvl 4 supreme sorceress lord.

kooshlord wrote:

 pinkbunnies wrote:

To a certain extent, his DE army ls in flux, partially because after Dark Eldar codex comes out, new stuff for Dark Elves is coming out or something like that. But it looks like he has 2 units of 10 cold one knights, a bunch of black guard, like 20 executioners, repeater bolt throwers, 10 doomfire warlocks, 2 units of 10 dark riders, and 2 units of 15 dark shards(?)

2 Masters(1 on Manticore) a lvl 2 sorceress hero, a lvl 4 supreme sorceress lord.

Critically, it doesn't look like he's got:
- A cauldron
- Witch Elves
- An executioner horde (30+)
The net effect being he doesn't get rerolls on all to-wound rolls, nor having army-wide poison.

I would not put a skink on a steg, it limits his mobility and puts too many eggs in one basket. I would be wary of spending too much on toys for the Slaan, at the expense of the rest of your army. Since he's got a lot of cav, I would think about throwing some infantry Saurus heros with great weapons into your blocks. I'd also think about light magic for the slaan, as it helps vs DE ASF and can reduce their accuracy.

Good luck!

 thedarkavenger wrote:

kooshlord wrote:

 pinkbunnies wrote:

To a certain extent, his DE army ls in flux, partially because after Dark Eldar codex comes out, new stuff for Dark Elves is coming out or something like that. But it looks like he has 2 units of 10 cold one knights, a bunch of black guard, like 20 executioners, repeater bolt throwers, 10 doomfire warlocks, 2 units of 10 dark riders, and 2 units of 15 dark shards(?)

2 Masters(1 on Manticore) a lvl 2 sorceress hero, a lvl 4 supreme sorceress lord.

Critically, it doesn't look like he's got:
- A cauldron
- Witch Elves
- An executioner horde (30+)
The net effect being he doesn't get rerolls on all to-wound rolls, nor having army-wide poison.

I would not put a skink on a steg, it limits his mobility and puts too many eggs in one basket. I would be wary of spending too much on toys for the Slaan, at the expense of the rest of your army. Since he's got a lot of cav, I would think about throwing some infantry Saurus heros with great weapons into your blocks. I'd also think about light magic for the slaan, as it helps vs DE ASF and can reduce their accuracy.

Good luck!

I don't use any of those. And I regularly table witch elf infantry armies. They're literally the worst choice in the book. And that includes the medusa.

 Vulcan wrote:
I've done pretty well with combined arms DE. 30 Witches (no Cauldron), 30 Executioners w/ Brewhag, two tirestrips (10 Witches with musicians), and a nice cloud of chaff units - Dark Riders, Warlocks, Harpies, Shades, single Medusae, and occasionally even Cold One Knights/Chariots.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Those kind of lists aren't bad. Apart from the witches. Let's save my opinions for another time though. I said that the best lists are the cauldron bowlines and the fast cav lists.

 Vulcan wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Those kind of lists aren't bad. Apart from the witches. Let's save my opinions for another time though. I said that the best lists are the cauldron bowlines and the fast cav lists.

What's wrong with Witches?

(If you're going to start in about frenzy-baiting, I am sad to tell you that you are mistaken. The chaff cloud and tirestrips work quite well at stopping frenzy-baiting dead in it's tracks. In a quite literally countless number of games, I've never once had to make a frenzy check on the main blocks... in spite of determined attempts from my opponents.)

Caederes wrote:
I've used Witch Elves extensively against all kinds of army lists and they are almost always the best performing unit in my army, and that is even against gun-lines. Of course, your meta may be different.

Still, the "worst unit in the book" is a laughable exaggeration. You're saying Witch Elves are worse than Fleetmasters, Dreadspears, Bleakswords, Shadowblade, etc? Even against Warriors of Chaos my Witch Elves are by far the best performing despite the presence of Executioners and Cold One Knights.

Elf Spearmen are *useless* after significant experience with both High Elves and Dark Elves; whether you like them or not Witch Elves are point-for-point some of the best butchers in the game against light to medium infantry. And they are Core.

Caederes wrote:
As I said, your meta may be different to mine, but I play against all of those armies and have found my Witch Elves perform far better than you seem to think they do.
Corsairs don't out-perform Witch Elves as *butchers* which is what I said, I didn't say Witch Elves were a better unit overall. I don't know how much Strength 6+ you face off against but it is far too common in my meta, honestly, which means Corsairs end up being Witch Elves with less punch once they get into combat.

So you're implying my own meta - or that of other players - doesn't feature skilled players either? Do all those people that run Witch Elves regularly at tournaments at a local and country level classify as inexperienced players?

I'm sorry dude, but you are probably the only person I have ever talked to or read about online that says Witch Elves are a bad unit, let alone the worst in the Dark Elf book. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm really not, the unit annihilates almost anything that gets in its way, and what it doesn't obliterate gets hard countered by Executioners and Reaper Bolt Throwers. While shooting variants of those armies you mention are obviously a different story, once my Witch Elves actually get into combat they annihilate anything short of the 1+ armoured monstrous cavalry, and I play against all of those armies on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Fleetmasters aren't "average at best", they are absolutely terrible and your implication that they are superior to Witch Elves is mind-boggling. A Toughness 3 model on foot that can get at best a 2+ armour save and 4+ ward save with absolutely no offensive punch built around "tying up enemy units" with the Unbreakable crap is laughably bad. It might be ok for something like Skaven but for Elves that don't operate on having deep ranks/tying enemies up, it is practically worthless. I can't think of any situation where a Dreadlord wouldn't be better just so that they can actually, you know, kill something. I also wouldn't call 9 point Elves "cheap", but then I've not really taken to the Sacrifical Dagger now that its' effects aren't guaranteed.

I'm not going to debate as to whether Witch Elves are better than Dark Riders or Darkshards as I do think at the very least Dark Riders are the best Core unit in the book without a doubt, but to say Witch Elves can't deal with armour isn't entirely accurate. The unit averages a colossal amount of wounds against almost anything that is Toughness 4 or lower, once you throw the Razor Standard in those armour saves start to get drowned out in record time. It might be a moot point but they also tear apart monsters.

Again, and I'm not trying to be rude, but until I started reading your posts I have never spoken or read about *anyone* that doesn't think Witch Elves are at least a good unit. So many tournament builds I read about on various forums feature Dark Riders backing Witch Elves, especially in Swedish Comp where the former gets hit pretty hard in higher numbers.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

E) Really? Tournament builds use Witches. I can tell you, Less than an eighth of last year's ETC lists used them as anything more than chaff...

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

E) Really? Tournament builds use Witches. I can tell you, Less than an eighth of last year's ETC lists used them as anything more than chaff...

Couple of points.
ETC isn't normal warhammer. Armies are built for specific match ups not a blind draw, and the numbers you have on ETC is flat out Wrong.
10 Lists have a unit of 20+ witch elves; out of 28 lists, little over 35% of them. If you add in armies with smaller units (less than 20), you add another 5 to that list. Now your at 53% of world thinking that witch elves are a good idea.
What's more important, is that just about every single list has 4 bolt throws, and 4 characters on Pegasus, warlocks and fast cav, with ~20 or so shooters.

Here's the link to the thread, it's actually a pretty good read.
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=75357


And below is the list of the armies from the thread, edited down to just show witch elves.

Here's 2014 ETC:
Multiple Peggy Lists:

AUSTRALIA: Nick "Sigvald LeCok " Legrand, Dark Elves

AUSTRIA: Rasmus Hammer, Dark Elves

BULGARIA: Yordan Deliyski, Dark Elves
12 Witch Elves: Champion, Musician, 152

DENMARK: Daniel Hedegaard, Dark Elves

GERMANY: Felix "Monstagoblin" Dahlke, Dark Elves
13 Witch Elves: Standard, Musician, 163

GREECE: Konstantinos “Xereus” Andreanos, DARK ELVES

IRELAND: Chris DGame Smith – The Syphalitic Host

NEW ZELAND: Tim Joss, Dark Elves

SINGAPORE: Jon Wang "Big Wang", Dark Elves
28 Witch Elves: FCG, Banner of the Eternal Flame, 348

SPAIN: Manuel "Muzgot" Aviles - Dark Elves
12 Witch Elves: 132

SWEDEN: Johan Lagmo, Dark Elves

SWITZERLAND: Andy Geiser, Dark Elves

USA: Alex Schmid, Dark Elves
13 Witch Elves: Standard, Musician, Banner of EternalFlame, 173

WALES: Chris Mince, Dark Elves

BELGIUM: Thomas "Artur” Jacobs, Dark Elves
28 Witch Elves: FCG, Banner of the Eternal Flame, 348

POLAND: Aleksander "Rince" Jaworowski, Dark Elves

CROATIA: Marko Petrović, Dark Elves
28 Witch Elves: FCG, Banner of Eternal Flame, 348

ENGLAND: Craig Johnson - Dark Elves.
20 Witch Elves: Musician; Standard Bearer, Banner ofEternal Flame, 250

ITALY: Alberto Petrosino - Dark Elves
21 Witches, Musician, Champion, Standard, Banner of the Eternal Flame - 271

NETHERLANDS: Alexander Frenzel, Dark Elves
25 Witch Elves: Additional hand weapon, Musician, Standard, Gleaming Pennant: 300

NORWAY: Hallvard Haugen, Dark Elves

FRANCE: Chazeau Alain, Dark Elves
28 Witch Elves : FCG, razor standard, 383pts

HUNGARY: Pásztor Balázs, Dark Elf
28 Witchelf: FCG, Razor Standard, 383

FINLAND:
30 Witch Elves: FCG, Razor Standard, 405
10 Witch Elves: Musician, 120

LATVIA: Ioann Ban (Alhok) - Dark Elves

RUSSIA: SERGEY #DM Crew# KOVROV - DARK ELVES

SCOTLAND: Andy Potter, Dark Elves
10 Witch Elves: musician, banner, banner of eternalflame, 140

UKRAINE:
30 Witch Elves: FCG, Razor Standard, 405

 thedarkavenger wrote:


A) No decent list in all of Europe and the UK uses any infantry. Let alone witches. The entire thing about witches being one of the best unit in the book is nothing more than a fallacy. Yes. I am implying that if people do well with witches, then the meta is full of unskilled players. They are a unit with far more bad matchups than good. Against something like WoC. They do well against marauders, and at a very strenuous push, warriors. If they're marked Nurgle, then you've got nothing. The prince, Knights, Chariots, Trolls, Drogres and Skullcrushers all ruin them. Anything with a 3+ save or better ruins them. Anything that has a ranged attack ruins them. Anything that denies them rerolls ruins them.

B) Witch elves don't annihilate anything they touch, unless it's skaven, empire infantry or marauders. That's a fact. Anything with enough armour, or stats to withstand their attacks, which includes most of the stuff you want them to fight, will ruin them. As for the countering business, that is also untrue. Wild riders do horrible things to witches. And executioners. Plaguebearers do the same. As do Daemonettes, strangely enough. There are plenty of counters to witches in the meta, and most of what counters them, also counters executioners. Stuff like fast cav.

C) I'm just going to point out that fleetmasters do have some dirty tricks in conjunction with the rest of the book. Mainly the unbreakable. I've used one to great effect in the past. They're average. Just like people raved about witches when the book first came out, and called him useless, and that's mostly faded amongst skilled players, neither are true.

D)S3 with armour piercing is a -1 penalty. Anything with a 3+ armour will still just tank them fairly well. With all the monstrous cav, and normal cav about, the only infantry that has a place on the field are executioners, and even then, they're an inferior choice. My pseudo-deathstar unit of executioners(Capable of taking off 2400 points in a round of combat) is still my fluffy army.

E) Really? Tournament builds use Witches. I can tell you, Less than an eighth of last year's ETC lists used them as anything more than chaff, and no UK tournament list from any event that matters for rankings had them in. For players like me, whenever someone puts a horde of witches on the board, I clap my hands in glee and tell them, that's the 20-0 to me. 100%. The best dark elf builds out there right now are the cauldron bowline, fast cav points denial, and the warlockstar. All of which are infinitely better than witches. As it stands, witches are a fluff choice. Not a competitive one.

 pinkbunnies wrote:
Well, I love the Lizardmen & their dinosaurs, but Wood Elves might be nice since there seems to be females you can have in your army. I don't have access to their most recent codex though, so I'm not sure how I would want to go about creating a Wood Elves army.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Curse of Anriheir. Gives those witches -1 to hit, and forces dangerous tests on any movement which is failed on a 1 or 2. They do get the ward against the dangerous, but not MR.
I'd then consider a trio of waystalkers. Being able to snipe out the DE wizards can be really useful.

Vetril wrote:
The thing is (going from memory) a GG with bodkins is 8 skaven slaves. A waywatcher is 10 skaven slaves, has +1 to hit and comes with something that is better that having both bodkins and multishoot arrows. They are also skirmishers, scouts, and have 2 attacks in CC. Points for points, they are better.
Personally I see no reason to take GG with bodkins if I don't already have 20 WW. Maybe it you want other rare units, but I'm not a fan of the treeman.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
If you've got wood elves, and want them to be good in general, then you have one build.


If you want them for this particular matchup, life magic and treekin, with treemen.

And the rest is shooting.

Vetril wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
If you've got wood elves, and want them to be good in general, then you have one build.


If you want them for this particular matchup, life magic and treekin, with treemen.

And the rest is shooting.

If you tailor, the 2nd time expect to face fire mages, pegasus spam and 4 rbts.

 Vulcan wrote:
but when there are four or five buzzing around, plus all the usual DE unit-based threats...

Vetril wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
but when there are four or five buzzing around, plus all the usual DE unit-based threats...

...They'll charge all of your archers on turn 2.