I got a new army of dark elves at christmas and now I got small 2-3k band of elves next to my massive daemon collections. This new army is not the reason I have been off from these forums lately though, I have been really busy with my job, studies and organizing big convention animecon for next summer. But to the topic!

I have played few games with my new elves now and noticed some intresting things about them. Mainly that they are insanely powerful, more powerful than daemons in most parts and cost helluva lot less. This post will be just my musings about dark elves and daemons in general, their fight power and way of fighting.

As usual I started out making some -oh so lovely- mathhammering about the elves. I have always liked idea of gunlines, so naturally I checked all those repeater crossbows first. Against T3 6+ save models 21 crossbows deal 10,50 kills while flamers deal 9,33 kills. Both cost the same amount, but crossbows have better range and bit better static resolution in combat while Flamers hit harder in melee and have fear, instability and wards that surely help more than crossbowmens 6+ save. The thing that really sounded quite strange to me was that flamers are comped in almost every tournament here while crossbowmen are core choice and have little to no comps at all while they are still more powerful and get much better benefits from buff spells.

Moving on, I checked some more shooting possibilities and found out that Shades are quite nice. Scouting unit that is unlimited in size and shoots even better than crossbowmen. 14 Shades will cost 4pts more than Flamers, but have superior BS of 5! and deal exactly the same number of kills than flamers, 9,33 against T3 As6+. Quite a treat to deploy to opponents flank and throw ~9 kills per round at them unless they reform and start attacking them directly. Last night I tried an insane shade deathstar for a first time and got 50 shades with great weapons and moved characters with ASF banner and all sorts of buffing items in the unit. They shot 100 shots per turn, got rerolls to hit once in game and hit abour 20 times with S5 before opponent in melee. Only one unit got in combat against them in whole game and every one of it got pulverized, such was the shooting power of the unit. I am getting out of the topic, but I think you see my point; Delfs have 2 superior shooting units and neither of them is limited like flamers are even though they do the shooting thing much better and can be customized more with additional hand weapons, shields, banners, 2h weapons, assasins...and stuff like that according to the scenario and opponent that you might face.

And speaking of Assasins. It costs 146pts to have an assasin that hits 4+D3 attacks on Ws9 ASF I10 and hatred and adjusts his strenght to maximum of 6 according to opponents toughness. So to make make it simple, delfs get assasin that hits hard as Keeper of Secrets / Bloodthirster at 146pts and can position this character on any normal unit too. Having 3 Similar assasins is cheaper than greater and hits 3 times as hard as one and will surely annihilate every monster or character that nears the unit they are in. Oh yes, and assasins do not take any points from characters or anything, so you could go all nuts with them. Sure, they are not as durable as greaters are, but with offensive power like that they usually do not need to be.

And now that I mentioned Greater daemons, I could also mention Dreadlords. Spirit swallower can make up a nice anvil that can hold pretty much anything in place, but delfs get stubborn pegasus lord with 1+ save and reverse ward that is pretty much invulnerable and can hold anything with ridiculous ease! And again, pendant of Khaleth is not banned or restricted in ETC for or any other tournaments, but daemons every gift is limited to 1, LoC is nerfed (wtf?!) as are khorne heralds and unit sizes and stuff like that. And now that I think of it, neither is ring of Hotek any way penaltized. What about the killpower then? Well, Dragonrider is actually stronger than bloodletter. Standard set would be something like S6 for lord and invulnerability from armours. Result is 4S6 hatred hits from lord and 5S6 hatred hits from dragon followed by breath weapon. And again, Dreadlord has tons more customisation options than greaters. And again, the lord himself is pretty much invulnerable.

Now how are the troops then? Well first of all I got to say that flee as a charge reaction is freaking awesome. Dark riders and harpies can bait and tease opponent to the ends of the world if needed and thats something no daemon can do. Anyone who says that having no flee option on daemons isnt a bad drawback hasnt really used this to the fullest. Core options are pretty solid and against unarmoured Ws3 T3 models or similar they get very strong cost effectiveness like 0,063 from warriors and 0,066 from corsairs with frenzy banner (0,051 for letters with herald). I will make comparisons to letters frequently in this post since letters have pretty much the best cost effectiveness against everything on our book. This is balanced much by a fact that delfs dont do well against High T and big armour foes. For example against Ws4 T4 As5+ Dwarves warriors get cost effectiveness of 0,024 (basic cost effeciveness for almost all units in game) and 0,025 for corsairs (0,041 with letters). So overall core units do bit better against unarmoured models than daemons do, but strong armour gives them trouble, sounds all fair.

Special units are something different though. Even against highly armoured dwarves, witch elves would get cost effectiveness of 0,051 (0,104 against Ws4 T3), Shades would boast 0,033 melee with 0,022 shooting power, Executioners 0,062 Cold ones 0,039 and Black guards 0,043. So only shades that are not exatly the melee unit would lose to bloodletters badly in killpower against those tough dwarves. Cold ones would also lose barely but they are much much more durable than letters on the other hand and strike at S6 at the charge.

Now you might think that all of these units have their own restrictions that makes them somehow worse than Bloodletters. Well yes, Witch elves do not have ward and they can lose their ITP, but they can get ward save from cauldron, similar to bloodletters getting a hatred with their herald. For example 30 witch elves with cauldron cost 500pts. 30 Bloodletters with herald cost 475pts. Thats not much of a difference when you think that witch elves have over double the killpower of Bloodletters and if needed, cauldron can provide them +1A each or killing blow instead of wards. Executioners have ASL due to their weapons, but again with ASF BSB 30 exes would cost 500pts and then compared to Letters they would have 1 higher S, I and Ld than letters but no Ward if cauldron did not buff them. Both of the units would be stubborn if 12" away from cauldron which imo is much better than instability.

Cold ones lose in killpower to letters, but in survivability beat them hands up. 30S3 Ws3 hits will deal only 1,25 wounds to cold ones while letters suffer 5 wounds. Cold ones also have higher movement and better strenght to compensate more to this. Then there is ofcourse Black guard, who have better cost effectiveness than letters without any buffs, but could be buffed with cauldron. They are ITP, always reroll misses and can bring big variety of magical standards with them. And worth to mention is that all champions of previously mentioned units can carry magic items worth of 25pts which can make any unit ITP for example if needed.

And then ofcourse there is Hydras. These fellows have cost effectiveness of 0,031 against Dwarves and they have a great breath weapon too that can hit even with insane S5! On top of that hydras are great anvils with 4+ save and regeneration. Well, what can be said, everyone knows they are tough and they are atleast limited in many tournaments to single choice.

There is also plenty of other fun stuff, like every sorceres knows "boon of Tzeentch" spell regardless of what lore they have. They can also get sacrificial dagger that will add +D6 to casting of spells by killing one model from the unit. They can get very similar ability to lore master to the level 4 sorcerers by 15pts (one extra spell) and focus familiar that you can use to cast spells even from combat.

...Well, thats pretty much it. A quick comparison between some units and differences between delfs and daemons. Having done all the math and written this little post I again keep wondering: WHY IN THE WORLD are daemons comped so harshly but there is nearly no comps at all to delfs?! Delfs always seemed like the toughest foe to me and I had most problems on beating them, but now that I have played few games with them I have realized that they would need comping tons more than daemons ever needed. I have won every match so far, even against daemons and with some rotten luck on dice rolls. Time will show how they will turn out and will our gaming group learn to fight them, but for now they seem to be absolutely unbalanced and horrible book. And no, I am not abandoning my babies and lovely Nurglings and other daemons. And definately NO, I am not painting my delfs with those "we are so goth that we fart bats" theme, I use lots of white and red on the theme and will remove all extra spikes and weirdings that they have =P

You've pretty much nailed my opinions on DE.

Whenever I face a well-built DE army with my daemons, I know I have the following to work with:

- They will outfight me (hatred on their elite infantry is nuts. I'm particularly looking at khainite units here, but even on base infantry it's incredible)
- They will outshoot me (Flamers are great and all, but points in Rares are limited. xbows arrive in core)
- they will outmagic me. (daemons have poor magic defence and struggle to fit in a level 4 wizard. DE with a dagger and caster power of darkness generate an ever stronger magic phase than a Slann...)
- I will outmanouver them (Siren banner and Siren Song are still game-winners)

That's not a great deal to work with. (Incidentally, while the assassin is pretty hard-hitting, he's still only woundingon a 3+ most the time, and struggles to dent really big armour saves. I'mnot saying he isn't scary, but he really isn't a greater deamon's worth of hitting power...)

-und_ed

You summarized my long post quite well and I definately do agree with that. Against dark elves you NEED those siren songs and fast units. While assasin isnt that tough against Daemons, it definately is a threat to almost every other character in game. Massive 6 hatred attacks that wound on 3+ will really make a dent on most characters. On my last game it killed Ogre Bsb in one round only!

And oh those Khainites. Excited about math I made some quick calculations and got following:

30 Witch elves against 30 Bloodletters with herald:
Elves kill 18,52 letters and letters follow with 11,11 kills
Elves kill 8,67 daemons and remaining daemons deal 4,44 wounds
If Daemons didnt melt yet, rest of them will now die.

And thats without cauldron buffs, so we are talking 300pts vs 427pts now. With cauldrons buffs results would be like this:
Elves kill 22,22 letters and letters follow with 8,15 kills
If daemons didnt melt because of instability, rest of them will die now.

Well, thats witch elves for you. Luckily they can be shot down pretty easily with flamers and magic.

You really want to get high on a power-rush?

Consider the following:

1) Always take at least two Khainite units, three if you're feeling vicious.
2) Always take a cauldron, with BSB.
3) in most games, only one unit will commit to fighting a Khainite unit each turn (unless the enemy is suicidal)
4) Fighting unit gets the 5+ Ward.
5) all are stubborn with your cauldron / BSB.
6) Just for the hell of it, you can (if needed) give killing blow to your Hydra from the cauldron, giving it 13 killing blow attacks with hatred (7 Hydra, +6 from handlers)

by Khainite, I'm also including Executioners, who in 8th became one of the most ruthless units in the game. The reason I mention that there is usually only one meaningful combat in every turn is that your comparisons of value-for-points usually entail cauldron + X versus Herald + X. By noting that you're going to have one combat at a time, you get redundancy out of the cauldron, effectively splitting its cost between three units.

You really want to lose friends? include the dagger-sorc and go Shadows. You will probably be giggling insanely for a good half an hour after math-hammering 40 witch-elves under occam's mind-razor versus pretty much anything (make it chaos warriors, just for kicks)

-und_ed

Yep, DE are king of the hill, that book is insanely powerful and hideously undercosted. Absolute bargain for the power gamer.

I was more shocked than happy when I noticed the huge balance issues of the book to be honest, so more than giggling I facepalmed when I inserted the values and noticed that 30 witch elves with razor would deal 37 kills on one turn against pretty much anything and 44 with cauldron buff added to it. Sure thats awesome, but having breaking power like that is plain insanely undercosted. Only thing that gets me more sad is to see how little tournament organizers care =P

It is absolutely insane how everyone is so willing to bag on Daemons yet ignore the insanity that is DE. There should never be a complaint with them running amok. Visually I like em, fluff wise I like em, but game play they are just over the damn top.
I know people who claim that HoK locus is OP but realistically its 100+ to get it! If they made a standard of hatred and charged that much who the **** would take it. I know HE have re-rolls and none of the drawbacks but they lack units that can pump out the punishment like DE's.
So what is the general consensus for whooping these racist elves back to their homelands around here?
I have never played DE with Daemons, generally going into a tournament how paranoid should I be?

yup. The sickening thing is that it's reliable under DE - with the stupid number of power dice they can generate, your opponent pretty much has to choose one spell to stop - this means he might stop Occam's, but then you're dropping his WS/Init/whatever by D3, dropping his T by D3, and just for kicks dropping a pit of shades onto another unit. Possibly also getting your repeaters xbows +1 to hit with a level 2 Metal wizard... (DE are one of the very few armies that actually makes use of a low-level wizard in addition to their Lord-level, owing to the aforementioned silly amount of bonus power dice)

The good news is DE hate Slanns even more than daemons do. A couple of well-placed Dwellers can really wreck a DE-player's day. Sadly, this is small comfort to daemons who really struggle against both armies...

-und_ed

To Bonesaw: Like und_ed said earlier, siren song and fast movement is the key against dark elves. So with that in mind I would suggest having daemonettes with siren song, flamers to reduce their numbers and Nurgle magic since they all have low T of 3. Flesh hounds would also be nice idea, since they are bit tougher and can advance fast. Big block of fiends works well too, but in the end, good delf player wins equally good daemon player in most cases if dice roll equally for both.

It's really tough, bonesaw.

Siren Song is a great start, letting you mess around with his battle-plan. You'll often have to get creative to make it really stick, though. I'm really fond of getting near his wizard-bunker and siren-songing that one, either assassinating the silly dagger-sorc or getting a round free of her tricks as she chooses to flee.

Flamers are always good, and since only one of his units has a 5+ Ward, you can shoot do the others with impunity.

Biggest trump card we have is a Spirit-swallower Kipper. DE don't have anything resilient enough to survive her, or to kill her, and Thunderstomp hurts something fierce. She will take wounds, but healing them up she'll be fine. (Just keep her away from the bloody Hydra - no thunderstomp, handlers annoy you, and with Regen and T5 the hydra can take a pounding without dying. Also, I'd avoid charging her into the cauldron - I've now lost an unhurt bloodthirster to the idiotic thing twice, and the kipper has one less attack and no armour)

I disagree with Kitsune about Nurgle magic, since htat means taking a GUO. Like I said above, the Kipper is a terrifying threat to DE, and if you're going nurgle-magic-heavy it means you're getting into a wizard's duel against a vastly superior foe. Not a prospect I fancy.

In short, you can make a solid game of it, just go in with your eyes open, knowing it's going to be an uphill battle.

-und_ed

To add a thing to what und_ed said, try to stay away from pegasus Dreadlord with double 2+ saves and stubborn. It can hold hordes and greaters quite well on its own.

To be fair I don't think the power of DE has been ignored by gamers at large, all though it is of course flabbergasting how Daemons are consistently comped into the ground in comparison. Especially in 7th DE were tough as nails in my experience. I probably had a 9/1 loss/win ratio against them with Daemons in 7th. 8th Edition - being the great equalizer this great Edition really is - at least my win/loss ratio is an even 50-50 (or actually a little better than that but I attribute that to playing bigger games than normal people where Daemons somehow grow a pair..)

The comparison between DE crossbows and Flamers is very true. I'd take crossbows any day if presened with the choice. Stubborn inverse ward lords. Double cauldrons. Sheesh.. Dark Elves just got everything and in each instance a little bit better than everyone else it seems.

As a pretty strict Daemon-player I worry less about the Hydra though. I am pretty used to facing two of them and of course they allocate a shooting-phase from my Flamers but that's about it. Against any other army though I can certainly understand how they are concidered pure filth.

As for the general 'mystery' of how the power of DE somehow evades the massive comps that Daemons are getting I think the explanation is two-fold and in both cases very subjective:

1. DE first came out with a really underpowered book from what I hear. So there was this whole whine-fest about how unplayable they were. GW did something quite unique and revamped the entire army mid-edition. After that alot of people just haven't been able to get into their thick heads how powerfull they really became.
Whereas Daemons, of course, came out pretty powerfull right off the bat from getting their last book. And Mat Ward even supposedly saying something along the lines of that Daemons should be powerfull because they're Daemons. So that made it open season for the whiners.
2. While insanely powerfull in many respects, Dark Elves still operate according to "normal" Warhammer rules (at least on paper). Daemons have the Gifts, the Instability, the army wide ward and are thus probably percieved as more "alien" compared to Dark Elves. And concequently easier to bash I guess.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with DE in their next book. Some things will be toned down for sure, I just hope they don't swing the nerfbat to liberally..

But yeah, DE always were and still are way nastier than Daemons. Thank god for 8th Ed (and game-sizes at double the tournemant-standard) or they'd be sucking alot of fun out of our meta.

Well the Tournament is 2200 so unless I ran a magicless Keeper then things don't look none too good...
To the Dread Lord I have experienced this with my VC, WoC etc and yeah it's filthy, if I have ever seen anything in need of a comp.
Unfortunately I have avoided the whole Siren Song in my list which is a shame, but on occasion it makes me feel a little guilty. I may have to revisit my list inane take another Hound or two to mess with the x-bow units...

it all depends on 2 things

first is the comp system that the tournament is using. do you already have one in mind? if there is no comp at all (or very light), prepare for the least amount of fun you've ever had playing warhammer. uncomped DE are mind-numbingly powerful. we are better equipped than most to handle them but be prepared to fight tooth and nail for every little gain and you'll need to run a tight ship because any mistake can instantly be pounced on and exploited.

if the comp is medium to heavy, you'll have the advantage. we can build much more competitive lists without our most powerful toys than they can.

next is the skill of the DE player (which you'll be able to discern as early as spell generation or deployment). if you have an inexperienced player, you'll be able to roll him because even though they are stupidly broken, they are still a "finesse" (using the term loosely) army of T3 models.

if you have an experienced DE tourney player, be prepared for a wild (and unpleasant) ride.

this quote actually sums it up very well-

here's a funny quote in someone's sig on druchii.net that i thought i'd share :P

That's very true Maynard about DE being a 'finesse' army. Forgot to mention that myself damn it.
Daemons are more 'even' like that. It's easier to collect a bag of Daemons and field a tough army compared to the little tinkerings that goes into "breaking" Dark Elves.

Also, just a little note at Bonesaw's theory on getting more Hounds for dealing with those Crossbows: I've found that Bloodcrushers actually love to stampede all over these little fellas. It's rare to find an Assassin in those units.. but if he puts his Level 2 with Dagger into that unit it might be an indication to worry a little. ;)

Ah yes! I completely forgot to add that have metal lore Herald. Signature spell and hounds will easily kill double ward lords in one shot only.

Except that 90% of them are packing flaming wards. And metal is seeing a resurgence due to the ogre book around here so I think the other 10% are probably going to start buying flaming wards too. Do your tourneys usually have comp Kitsune?

Pit of Shades is quite useful against Dark Elves imo; open one of these suckers up underneath a Cauldron and you can save yourself some pain at least.

Instead of a comparison between Witch Elves and Bloodletters though; I'd like to see a comparison between Witch Elves and Daemonette's.

It's not pretty, Feez. I'll do Witch-elves versus Daemonettes, horded and non-horded. Both cases the Daemonettes will have ASF, and the witches will have a 5+ Ward Save (being the best combat-res-efficient option from the cauldron). I'll work with units of 30 witches since that's the most common setup I face. I'll keep points even and leave daemonettes same size.

So first, Daemonettes:

P(Hit) = 2/3. (higher WS, but witch-elves have higher Init so so rerolls)
P(Wound) = 1/2
P(failed save) = (2/3)
P(Kill) = 2/9

Witch-Elves:

P(Hit+Poison) = (1/6) + (1/2)(1/6) = 1/4
P(Hit without poison) = (1/3) + (1/2)(1/3) = 1/2
P(Wound) = (1/2)
P(Failed save) = (2/3)
P(Kill) = (1/4 + (1/2)(1/2))(2/3)
= (1/2)(2/3)
= 1/3

So horded up.

Expected Daemonette wounds = (40)(2/9) = approximately 9 kills
Variance = (40)(2/9)(7/9) = approximately 7
Std Dev approx 2.5
so expected range of 6 to 12 casualties.

Assuming mean (9) casualties, witches strike back with 41 attacks
Expected wounds = (41)(1/3) = approximately 14 kills
Var = 41(1/3)(2/3) = 9, Std Dev roughly 3, so casualty range from 11 to 17.

This becomes even worse for the daemonettes if the units are both 40-strong, since the witch-elves don't lose attacks from wounds. (it's the same expected 17 wounds that Kitsune calculated against the 'letters, unsurprisingly)

Now lets have the units 6-wide.

Daemonettes first again, with 18 attacks.
Expected wounds = (18)(2/9) = 4
Variance = 4(7/9) = approximately 3, std deviation rounded up to 2.
so between 2 and 6 casualties.

Witches strike back with 24 attacks.
Expected wounds = (24)(1/3) = 8
Variance = 8(2/3) = 5.33
Std Dev is approximately 2
So casualties range between 6 and 10 dead daemonettes.
(As you can see, the fewer extra ranks involved the more witch-elves capitolise on their extra attacks over the 'nettes)

The bottom line is that the daemonettes are on a losing wicket in almost every scenario. I'm a bit lucky that my resident Khainite player doesn't like to horde up, so I end up with my 40 horded 'nettes versus his 30 6-wide witches, which is sadly a mostly-even fight.

Short answer - bring flamers. Make 'em count.

-und_ed

There is no Comp on the tournament were heading too. I have only gone once thus far but it has been a great experience, all armies have to be painted and based which is awesome as it is just fun to battle painted armies (I painted my VC in 2.5 weeks when I went last year, was still painting Dire Wolves the night before the Singles, all the while being harassed by Baty as we had an appointment to meet at Roxanne's in Waterloo).

So in theory I could bring every filthy underhanded trick I could to the table but I prefer to make sure my opponent is having as much fun as I am. If I luck out I may miss fighting any DE's running rediculous ****, doubt I will get past Skaven as I feel like 25% of the people there were playing them.
I am a little worried about my list or the lack of units within it to be more accurate, maybe I should resort to Daemonettes... Is the flame ward that prevalent in everyone's Meta!? I swear I never see that thing unless its strapped to a TK!

I'm looking to do something a little different, I would love to run a KoS but my BT is freshly painted waiting for a base that'll take him to the next level...

It's nice to know I should keep my Bloodletters the hell away from his Witch Elves, how about a little mathematicals on PB's versus them! With a Herald of course...

I do have to agree about the Hydra, for the first time I don't have to really worry about them. BT with FSB will make quick work of the POS (I know it may not be optimized but he can pick his fights quite well and I love the A-Bom death it brings!)

I won the Hard Boys 2010 nationals with Dark Elves and I don't consider myself the smartest player I know - not by a long shot. The army is solid and half of how I won was by running a Hellebron army with tons o' witches. People feared the Hydra, they didn't fear the Witches - should have been the other way around.

Having played Dark Elves to the point of being bored of them, I have since played some demon builds against other Dark Elf players and done remarkably well - but probably because I build my lists with a set of prepackaged answers.

Flamers are a must, just never shoot at the pendant character on pegasus - the Dragonhelm is a no-brainer on that guy since it's a cheap +1 to his armor save that doesn't require a shield hand.

Bloodletters are dead weight against most Dark Elf units - Cold One Knights being the sole case where you can crack open their unusually high armor save. Units like Black Guard and Witches will waste a superior number of Bloodletters and even Spearmen will, point for point, win any fight against 'letters.

Siren Song plus Furies are a great way to disable Witches. Place furies in front of some Daemonettes with a Song Herald and call in the Witches. They will have to move around the furies so that they can't maximize and, with any luck, one or two Witches is locked up with one or two Daemonettes. The fight will likely be a loss but Banner of Ecstasy will make the first round underwhelming for the witches. The furies keep the Witches from reforming in any meaningful way and you can now bring in support and fight them without their hatred advantage.

A Lord of Change is a fantastic rival to a Dark Elf army. Glean will let you fling down cheap Pits on their own hydras (because let's face it, your opponent will likely have shadow magic if he's got Hydras) and the cheap magic missiles are remarkably useful against those piddly high elves. A Lord of Change can easily stay out of reach of crossbows and be used in late game fights versus Hydras.

I played DE in 7th and the start of 8th ed, and they were better in 7th but still excellent in 8th. I always loaded up on spears and no khanites to make it sporting, but still did well against daemons.

Hydra is just nasty, but we have good solutions.

Most other DE units are much like bloodletters.. hit like a train but cant take the hits. If a DE army is combat oriented we cant just push it forward and engage. The crossbows encourage us to do so, but luckily flamers skirmish, are fast, and if thrown in a forest or building they are hard to shoot. DE magic also tends to usually be shadow.. this doesn't hurt us much unless you run a big nurgle block or engage in combat.

The icon of endless war is important as we need to have a combat of our choosing, on our turn, so we have the hex/buff for the win. Forget mindrazor.. a simple miasma can throw the fight heavily either way. Redirecting furies or single fiends should help us choose our battles.

HoK with jugger and armor are also nice as many DE units cant deal with armor.. icon of despair helps a bit with the stubborn unkillable Ld10 lord.

The grass is always greener, isn't it?

I'm just sayin'...

Not if your dark elves its not lol. all the greenest, most undercosted grass is on their side of the fence

Dunno about that.

I play six different fantasy armies, so I like to think I'm moderately objective.

While I don't play DE, I do play both Skaven and Lizardmen, and it's not difficult to see why they are both so universally despised. (I have a hard time deciding between those three armies as to which is the top army currently, although I'm leaning in favour of DE just for the reliability, although you could make a very strong case for Skaven to hold that spot)

All armies really are not created equal.

-und_ed

That's true. And I know how much you dislike that. :)
Not exactly liking it myself I guess.. In 7th I have to say I thouroughly enjoyed having Dark Elves (as an opponant) up there on a pedistal as a foe that was really tricky and rare to beat. It was a refreshing challange to have that uphill struggle that's all.

For what it's worth, and what I take from this thread and actually enjoy, is the fact that Daemons no longer deserve being mentioned in that infamous "Top3" tier or whatever you want to call it.

It was actually one of the most disenchanting things to ever happen to me in Warhammer: Comming back to the hobby after a long break (in 7th) and picking up Daemons 'cause our group needed another 'evil' race and I happened to like the models. Then when I ventured out into the Forum-world I started running in to all these posters who basically thought of Daemon-players as lesser people just for liking Daemons.

So unfair.

Glad it's over.

I wish it was, DReign. I really wish it was.

I still get dirty looks for my daemons, even from players using armies that are consistently doing better worldwide than daemons (namely Warriors of Chaos). There's a lot of legacy resentment, and it's extremely annoying to still run into it.

-und_ed

I got to echo a bit on what Toonces said about LoC. My god that Glean magic kicks some serious delf butt! =) Not only Glean magic is good, but lore has tons of cheap bolts to throw upon delfs that have little to no armour usually. Also LoC with his flaming attacks can deal with hydras relatively well. Perhaps thats the reason why ETC board nerfed him a bit, after all it can counter delfs quite well ^.^

And yeah, Brother mayard brought up a good point. They usually do have that flame ward, even more often if they have that regeneration armour on them. And yes, my tourneys and gamedays usually have comps unless we intentionally want to go for it and play full fledged "cheesehammer" where everyone brings worst/best of their lists =) Many tournaments in Finland favour ETC comps, even though they are not playing ETC or tweak those comps a bit.

Mmwell yeah, I started the post when I got the models and played some games with them. I got both armies now and I would also call myself pretty biased towards daemons, but cold fact is that Delfs just do things so much better in most cases. Granted the opening post was bit "flamy", but I am really shocked how little attention delfs have gotten on comps discussion while daemon haters are gonna hate and keep requisting more severe nerfs. I mean really. Was this needed? Does this balance the game somehow?

On Etc this means that LoC takes up 2 PD being loremaster and himself, so he cannot create more dice any way, no channeling, spells, lore attributes or anything. I mean really, was this even needed?

I've played Dark Elves as my primary army since 3rd ed, and TBH they sucked balls up until the current army book. I don't disagree that the book has some horrendous potential builds, although I will say that anyone who thinks they are the be all and end all has obviously never seen me play :lol:

In the hands of a highly competent general, with unrestricted army selection, yes they may very well be near-unbeatable. But they do require a lot of finesse to play well - they are certainly not a fire-and-forget type of army. And when all is said and done, they are still T3 with little or no armour.

FWIW, my army is almost entirely spears and xbows. I do own a hydra and cauldron, have fielded the former once and the latter never. And I've never fielded the unkillable peglord.

I'd never accuse unarmoured T3 elves of being unbeatable. that's pushing it quite badly. What I will say is they have an (often significant) advantage over the other guy, which needs to be acknowledged.

Incidentally, if you're refusing to field all the choiciest bits in the army, that doesn't make the army less powerful, it just means you're handicapping yourself for whatever reason. (Cauldron, Executioners, Witch-elves, Hydras and dagger-Sorcs are unquestionably the choicest cuts of the DE steak)

Every now and then it's nice to venture out beyond my Daemonic home and taste the joys of other amries - it gives you perspective. (Even if you don't own other armies, challenge your local gaming buddies to turnaround games. You'll both learn a thing or two). When I want to feel what the downtrodden go through, I now pull out my TK. When I want an unbridled power-rush, I yank out the Skaven.

-und_ed

Turnaround games are great fun and in my opinion one of the best ways to learn to play different kinds of opponents. I have told this story quite few times, but its still fun so here we go: On our gaming group there is a O&G player who thinks that daemons are the worst cheese out there and it is absolutely ridiculous to even try fighting them. I suggested a turnaround game and let him make cheesiest list he can while I played without any special characters, deathstars, super gunlines or anything else like that. I won the game in 2 turns without losing a single unit of greenskins and wiped out every single daemon from the board. After that he accepted that tactical skills and list building -might- affect the outcome of the battle a bit *hehe*.

FWIW I have a worse record with DoC since it was released than I do with WoC, and Beastmen.

I had a similar story with our local Dwarf player complaining about my Skaven.

I let him use the army he was upset about, and I built up a much better-designed Dwarf list. I had him tabled halfway through turn #4, and after learning from that game he's now one of the top contenders with his Dwarves in all the local events.

-und_ed

No army is unbeatable. Some just have more tools toget the job done than others. To get back to comparisons...

With Elves: what's their best match up? Flamers then what plague bearers? Witches have only S3 correct? Do they come with poison or is that an upgrade? (been a couple few years...)

Executioners: seeing as how my Flamers are going to be blasting hydras and witches... I suppose anything that hits before them? Combo charge a BT with Letters and hope there is none left? (I say combo because that will drastically limit the number of return attacks on my GD)

Hydra: first time in my gaming career where I have more then an answer for this POS, Forestorm blade.

Black Guard: the guy in our GG never had em, they look nasty... Magic with extreme prejudice? What is these bastards WS? Would hounds screw em up(only strength 4 w/ha correct?)

Cold Ones: Bloodletters, Greater Daemons... Juggers withthe Icon of War to surprise em...

single fiends or flamers are their best matchup. 25 or less, shoot em to death, 26+, send em somewhere they don't want to go.

if he has the bsb in the unit with the ASF banner, she's not with the cauldron, and is going to be naked and incredibly easy to kill. and she's also frenzied so you can sort this unit out with standard frenzied-horde-handling procedures.

yeah hydras really are a non-issue for us, we have a ton of high strength flaming attacks, flaming shooting, and our favorite magic lores all have solutions. generally, new DE players will bring one, intermediate powergamers will bring two, and the real experienced generals (the guys i hate facing) will only bring one if they bother at all. once you've reached this stage of DE generalship, you've learned to min-max the book in such a way that even the hydra (an absolute STEAL in any other army) is an overcosted, underperforming liability.

these guys don't have the damage output of other horded DE elites, but in any comped environment (particularly ones that place a point cost or model cap on units), they are incredibly powerful and very, very dangerous. keep greaters AWAY from these guys. and no, hounds will get shredded insanely fast and then you just gave them a reform from victory. these gentlemen are to be taken very seriously, don't trust something like this to dogs.

again tons of solutions, these guys aren't really a problem.

EDIT: figured i'd add what i consider to be the real problem children

shades- the most dangerous unit in the book imo. stupid effective shooting (BS5) and they can be mindrazored up to do crippling damage in CC, and flaming sword on these guys is ridiculous. can be home to rending star assassins for extra fun.

frenzied corsair horde- mindrazor makes this unit RIDICULOUS.

black guard- insanely tough in comped environments where the model cap is not a big deal. stubborn and warrior elite with a great stat line, these guys mean business.

cauldron- this thing has to go ASAP, making khainites stubborn and the buffs are just heinous.

sac dag shadow level 4- the b***h that makes the whole thing come together. pick a unit (any unit) and give it +1 A from the cauldron, virtually guaranteed mindrazor from the level 4 (due to throwing as many dice as possible and sac dag to fuel the power pool), coupled with their high I, additional hand weapons, and re-rolls from hatred and you turn ANY unit in the book into a killing machine (why's he charging his shades into my death star? oh...).

So fear the magic phase...
And be paranoid of everything I once was before... Just not as much...
Sounds promising!
Same **** as before only a little different <_<

Witches I intend to just park chaff infront of and drive them in circles, hopefully this will cost them some much needed shooting (worked with WoC hounds, enemy shot the hounds to prevent me tooling his WE horde around) place lone Jugger in the way and they has to overrun, repeat.
Seriously though what is the S of a Blackguard? 4 or 5?
ASF banner only cancels out ASL so what is the Executioners Initiative? Is this a unit banner or do they need to take a BSB?

With hatred army wide could we not potentially use chaff in the same manner as Siren Song? They have to Overrun so place said units in a way that you butt **** your foe? If you can win combat from the flank no rank and goodbye... Except for the Infernal Khanite units... Icon of Despair and attack the BSB with extreme prejudice?

Wish the tournament was big enough (2200) to warrant a kitted out KoS... Or that he was painted

In my case, it's mainly because I can't be arsed assembling and painting them :lol:

exactly, this is why horde witches are monstrous on paper, but you'll never see them in a horde in competitive play. you'll see them in units of 7-14.

depends...if they're in the critical, game-winning combat, its whatever their LD is :P but otherwise its 4.

it has to be on the BSB, who has to be a death hag, who can't have ANY protective gear. this is why horde execs are not that scary, they need the ASF banner to be really fearsome but she's stupid easy to kill, and like i said before, means the BSB isn't on the cauldron.

another hangover from the previous edition :P , hatred doesn't have to overrun, frenzy does.

there's a lot of talk about horde witches and horde execs but to tell you the truth, competitive DE lists don't look anything like that, they look like this:

stubborn pendant dreadlord on peg and 1+ save, 2+ flaming ward

level 4 w/ lifetaker, sac dag, and shadow

level 2 w/ scroll and fire or metal

hag BSB w/ cauldron

25 warriors w/ standard of discipline

smaller warrior unit or witch darts

30 corsairs w/ FC, AHW, and serpent standard

5 harpies

3X6 shades

20 black guard w/ muso

hydra

To answer Bonesaw: Do not rely on Plaguebearers against delfs. Most competitive builds will have shadow lore and you know what pit of shades will do to your bearers. If they dont have shadow they will likely have fire which hurts your regeneration. Also 30 witch elves would deal 12,50 wounds to Plaguebearer horde that has regeneration. 15 wounds if they have cauldron buff. But like brother_maynard said it is uncommon to see huge witch elf hordes since they are so easy to shoot. Small units of 10 will still dish out 10 kills with cauldron buff even against regenerating Plaguebearers and main trick seems to be using mindrazor on them that ups attacks to 17,5 kills from only 10 models! And yes, witch elves do have free poisoned attacks. Fortunately corsairs dont have that luxury, but they have 5+ armour and 4+ armour against shooting in return.

So actually it would be magic phase that really makes delf army tough as nails. Almost every unit has tons of attacks to dish out, so even 10 witch elves can deal insane amounts of damage when buffed with magic. Since they are stubborn around cauldron you cannot even brek them easily in combat. Shadow in general is very dangerous when facing tons of small attacks and high casting costs dont matter much, as delf player gets extra D6 for each spell by sacrificing some cheap spearmen. You could be sneaky and instead shoot all that you got on those spearmen sacrificial lambs and reduce the dicepool of enemy magic phase. After all lore of shadows is expensive lore to use. Also mind the signature spell and withering, as both will increase kills quite much.

Another thing is that delfs are really fast and most are good fighters. Witches have Ws4 I6, Shades Ws5 I5, Exes with ASF banners Ws5 I5 (S6!), Cold one knights Ws5 I6 and Black guards Ws5 I6. This means that in most cases they will hit you first and deal immense damage. Like Maynard said, shades and Black guard are more common than big witch elf units though. So watch out that deployement! if you leave enough space you might find 18 shades behind your greater daemon and quickly notice how he becomes a pin cushion in turn 1 (3 wounds without any buffs to unarmoured greater and 6 wounds if affected by withering). And just like Maynard said, they can again deal tons of damage with mindrazors.

I really havent thought Black guards as that much of a threat really. Big reason to this is that their maximum unit size is 20 which means that even though they would deal 10 kills against Bloodletters for example, 20 letters would follow with 14,76 kills if in basic horde formation that has herald in it. This means that even though Black guards hit hard, you will usually have bigger horde and can swamp them down with numbers (one guard costs 13pts), though expensive this might be.

And lore of light is awesome. -1 To hit means a lot if you are facing hail of 100 arrows or 50 attacks in melee. Speed of light will also let you hit those squishy elves before they have chance to retaliate making fights really easy for you. And signature spell hits hydras quite hard.