The list used can be found here in a long and ever growing discussion topic, Beginner Dark Elves list.
Deployment
Here were our final deployment options, you can see it seems fairly evenly matched with nothingreally out of position. That's mainly due to us having played a game a few hours before, so he knew my deployment and tactic as he wisened up this second round. First match we played was really one sided, his War Sphinx was on the other side of the building and never saw combat, Harpies stalled it significantly and he blew up half of his army and characters from three miscasts in three phases so yeah, wasn't fun. He took archers this second game too, so I elected to deploy a bit further back in case I got second turn and he had the opening volley. It'd force him to advance deeper into my side of the board first too, before I moved forward a bit to close the gap between our two armies. It was also annoying his archers hit on 5+ no matter what, throwing Harpies as effective screeners out the window. That was another reason why I was being wary of his 20 Archers and deployed a bit back too.
But I will walk through my thinking process during deployment to show how I got my final setup initially. Upon spotting a building terrain where it was, I knew I was going to be focusing on one flank, which is what I usually do anyway. I knew that our battle will be fought on the right side where it was more open and wider in room space, I also had a hill so I was definitely going to take advantage of that and as a first drop, I placed my 20 RxBs on it first, they're angled inwards so their front arc covered most of the battlefield where the enemy will be marching into. It saved needing to angle them later in the game when the enemy marched closer, thereby removing that -1 to hit penalty for moving and shooting later on.
The enemy deployed their War Sphinx first, so I still didn't really have a good idea where his units were dropping, so I placed the 10 RxBs down next, it was a less important unit but it helped marked where my battleline will approximately extend to. He dropped his Skeleton2 where it was next, I was a bit confused by that, perhaps he was planning to spread across the table? It was fine by me anyway, But I needed to know where his Archers were going first before I placed my chaff down since they're fairly vulnerable to their auto 5+ hit attacks. I began connecting my battleline together by placing the Spears next to the 10 RxBs, followed by the BGs and the unit of 5 WE next to them. By that stage most of his army was down, so I was able to keep my Harpies safe from the Archers and placed my WE on the far flank because they can threaten whatever's taking shelter in the building as well as able to take advantage of the building covering their flank when charging the enemy's marching next to the building. The 5 WE in front of them were there because I wanted to keep the army central and as compact as possible, I'm wary of the Casket of Soul's bound spell, it hurts chaff so I needed the general's Ld to help mitigate extra possible damage. It also proved useful that I play with a compact army where supporting each other was easy and always within reach. It pretty much saved me from total annihilation!
Oh and the spells generated were the following;
Lv4 - rolled 1,2,3,5 - no doubles, but got my all important word of pain which is all I care about really.
lv1 - rolled a 6 - exchanged it for signature spell (Miasma) - I don't see the need to use mindrazor, nor practical on a lv1, nor do I want to use it personally because it's too game changing. Miasma serves as a backup Word of Pain for further 'crowd controlling' which is the reason why I take Shadow on Lv1, best of all, you're guaranteed to get Miasma since it's a signature spell! What's better than something that's for certain in an uncertain game?
Game mode was a simple beat them up, to keep it simple for my TK opponent and so I can focus on testing this army's capabilities rather than achieving objections so much.
Turn 1 - DE
As luck would troll me like usual, I got first turn, which normally isn't a bad thing, but when you planned for your opponent to get first turn, it throws things a little out of whack. As such, my first turn was fairly wasted, I moved my PM behind the building, readying to tie up the Archers or destroy the Casket of Souls lingering at the back there. Magic was dismal, casted Miasma on the Skeleton2 unit but got dispelled, didn't risk anything else in case I got an accidental IF. I don't like taking unnecessary risks where I don't need to, and blowing up a chunk of my army or killing/ wounding some wizards right off the bat is not an ideal first turn! Unlike my friend's first turn on game 1...hahahaha....
Going first wasn't too bad, since it meant I got to use the CoB right away, and there were a lot of units it needed to shield, but I elected the large unit of WEs instead, just in case he somehow could shoot them with his archers.The rest of my army stood still and waited for him to advance forward first, that way we get to react and reposition our battleline in accordance to how the enemy marches.
Turn 1 - TK
The undead surged forward using their magic, my opponent focused on augment spells so there wasn't anything scary to worry about dispelling, his Archers shot since magic brought them into range, and wounded a few spear elves, nothing spectacular on our opening turns.
Turn 2 - DE
PM flew out from behind the building, she stayed a bit further back so she had charge arc to a number of units. The main targets at the moment is the Casket of Souls or the Archers, tie them up so we remove the shooting threat. CoB kept its ward on the large unit of WEs, the WEs on the right moved forward to funnel the War Sphinx into our lines first. The rest of our lines stayed still or shuffled forwards a little to get into more comfortable counter charge range. We attempted to cast Chillwind but it got dispelled, not too big of a deal since the Archers don't hurt TOO much. Doombolt wounded the hirotitan, and shooting wounded the War Sphinx twice, figured if we weakened them prior to combat, it'd be easier to remove. Nothing significant at this stage since we're still a fair distance away. We'll need to use our Harpies to control the field soon however.
Turn 2 - TK
On this turn, to my surprise, both the Tomb Guards and War Sphinx charged my WEs, which had to hold due to frenzy. The skeleton units shuffled forwards as fast as they can to catch up, in my opponent's excitement, he forgot to use his casket this turn, which was fine, since he focused all his dice on the ward save augment instead, which he IF and took minimal damage for so I was in quite some trouble. The hirotitan attempted a long range charge onto my RxBs too, he failed by an inch... WE's got rolled, wounded the War Sphinx once more with their poisons, the War Sphinx only lost one wound so far despite everything since it kept getting healed... The War Sphinx overran into my BG and the Tomb Guards overran forwards and connected with my Spears and General unit first. I was a bit careless since I was distracted, now I need to find a way to save my general...
If you like, here is a good opportunity for yourself to decide how you'd take your Turn 3 to save yourself from total oblivion. Keep in mind the large unit of WE can't get into combat. Diagram isn't showing it too well, but in the actual game, my lv1 unit was sticking out of the unit preventing them from moving in.
Well..here's what I did..
Turn 3 - DE
This turn was frightening to be honest, it didn't look pretty and I wasn't in control of the charges and fights. The fights were definitely not in my favour either, so I had to pick carefully what to do. The first decision to make was the CoB, 5+ ward on the spears was definitely a very enticing move, it'd help lessen the pain they were going to receive. But they also needed aid from other units to stand a chance of surviving let alone winning, it worked out the 5 WEs were able to flank comfortably. The large unit of WEs unfortunately couldn't make it in because the Lv1 in the RxB unit was actually in the way. They had to spend their one free wheel to move around the RxBs first. What I was betting on now was the large unit of RxBs flank the War Sphinx, and hopefully wounds and combat resolution (CR) would let me kill the War Sphinx this turn and overrun the RxBs into the flank of the Tomb Guards too. So I gave +1 A to the RxBs instead, and betted on them overrunning. Things started to look up a bit, and there was Magic on my side too, so it could help tip the favour just enough.
So charges were made as shown, 5 WEs into the flank of the Tomb Guards, 20 RxBs into the War Sphinx's flank. The PM also charged the flank of the Archers, it'd be interesting and attempting to assassinate the general so the army started crumbling could be a nice fall back option if things didn't go too well in my deployment zone. The Harpies on the right blocked the first Skeleton horde from flanking my RxBs if things didn't go according to plan. And we moved with our RxBs and other Harpy unit to intercept the Hirotitan too, we didn't want that thing piling into the fight already happening either. The Lv1 hopped out and hid behind the building for safety.
With magic we attempted to cast first Soul Stealer on the Tomb Guard to try thin them out, we casted it with IF...the last thing I needed! So off it went, and my wizard forgot two levels of magic, luckily only lost Doombolt and not Word of Pain, and also only one PD so we could still recuperate. We thinned them out a bit, and proceeded to cast PoD with one die, which I got through and using all but two dice, casted Word of Pain on the Tomb Guard. It got dispelled because I didn't get an IF on that one. With my final two dice, we cast Miasma on them instead, and dropped their WS by three points, reducing it to WS3, better than nothing. In hindsight, I should've just used all my dice to increase chances of IF on Word of Pain since that was my primary spell for the turn. Guess I got rusty..
As such, there was no shooting, and combat was...interesting to say the least. The PM actually failed her fear test and missed all her attacks when the unit champion challenged her.. I lost because he had a muso since I had flank, charge and he had rank and banner to cancel my bonuses. Luckily I held.
On the main fight, the BG and RxBs resolved their combat first, the BG managed to deal it two wounds, leaving the RxBs to deal it three more wounds to die outright. The rolls were fairly dismal, I needed three more hits than what I got to have a chance to kill it comfortably. Nonetheless, they dealt the three wounds needed, now we just had to pray he failed his 5+ armour save. Which he did! Except...he also had a 5+ ward casted with IF...which prevented a wound.... Now I had to rely on CR, which had a high chance of happening, but he managed to deal enough wounds to just win CR too. Sooo...I was sweating it a bit now.. also, we did a quick test roll, I rolled the three more dice I said I needed to have hit to see me through, surely enough, there was that one extra wound in there which he would've failed. Bummer!
So for the important fight where my general got embroiled into, she quickly issued a challenge to escape as many KB attacks as possible. The unit champ accepted the challenge, lucky enough with her superior I and higher WS thanks to Miasma, she killed the champion before it struck her. So she was safe, however, her unit dealt some wounds, and the five WEs in the flank was actually quite devastating, but the unit had too many characters in it and the spears got butchered down to just the standard remaining. We lost the combat by 5, the WEs tested on stubborn Ld10 thanks to the nearby CoB around, I actually forgot about that, but luckily they passed on a Ld check of 4 anyway. So they held up the Tomb Guards, the spears broke, and luckily the banner died automatically meaning the entire spearmen unit got destroyed and it was just the general fleeing. Meaning she could now rally back on her normal leadership because her unit was no longer below 25%! So...all in all, things didn't go as bad as I thought. The general survived, the War Sphinx SHOULD die before it does anymore damage, and that'll mean the Tomb Guards and most of his characters will be at the mercy of my entire army for being over extended and unsupported now.
Turn 3 - TK
On the Tomb King's turn, the Tomb Guards were pretty much stuck killing 50pts of chaff so they had no say in what they were doing this turn. And fortunately we prepared for if we didn't kill the War Sphinx last turn, the 55pts of Harpies managed to prevent disaster by redirecting the horde of skeletons from flanking our RxBs. By the building, the Hirotitan couldn't flank the chaff unit of WE either, not that it was necessary anymore. So with nothing better to do now, it charged my RxB sacrificial unit. They held their ground from the terror check and that was that. The building and the blockade formed by the 10 RxBs and now the Hirotitan engaging it, prevented the other horde of skeletons from getting anywhere, so we managed to create a nice bottleneck there that bought us time. Best of all, we still had a unit of Harpies left, for now, depending on how well our RxBs held up. The Skeletons didn't enter the building either since we had 19 full strength WEs ready to send 30 attacks into them if they dared enter the building.
Magic was not too impressive, we saved our dice to dispel the 5+ ward save the enemy tried to cast, and we just allowed them to heal the War Sphinx a wound and revive some Tomb Guard. Combats resolved as shown, with the chaff that stayed dying to the Tomb Guards, who then reformed to prepare themselves for the inevitable counter charge from the BG and large unit of WEs. The Harpies died to the Skeleton charge, and the War Sphinx sure enough fell to AP BG which denied it its 5+ armour save. The 12 remaining RxBs reformed 10 wide to face the Skeletons. And the 10 RxBs suffered casualties but still had its front rank left thereby remained steadfast and did not flee from the combat. Parry saves helped a lot there. The Archer versus PM was boring, the champion died finally, and the PM lost combat by one but stayed still. In summary their general survived, the PM stayed tying up the Archers for the rest of the game and never took a wound in return.
Turn 4 - DE
Things finally looked up for DE, we saved our general, the Tomb Guard and the army's remaining characters were all at the mercy of our combined charge. This turn we will show how devastating a combined charge from DE is when it's setted up! CoB gave the BG the extra attack instead of to the WEs because the BG had a better chance of wounding T4 and would negate the 5+ save outright as well, so they were more lethal than more poisoned attacks in this instance. Harpies declared a charge against the Archers simply to get out of the way so the WEs could charge. As such, BG and WEs charged the Tomb Guard. The RxBs stood their ground and thinned the skeleton unit in front of them considerably. The RxBs were hitting on 4+ against T3 models with just shields so it was once again, lethal since the skeletons got no save against our bolts. Next turn when they charge, we get to stand and shoot to thin them out some more and then get to strike them first before receiving any return strikes, so I wasn't concerned at all to pit 12 RxBs against 30 strong skeletons.
Magic was back, but I struggled to remember when I need to roll that extra dice for a spell and when not to. That's the trouble I find with Sac Dagger, if you forget you have no models to stab...you're in trouble! Luckily I remembered, and luckily I was throwing all my dice on Word of Pain anyway, since she was now just a Lv2 mage! The spell casted and TKs failed to dispel it. That pretty much sealed the Tomb Guard's doom.
The 10 RxBs survived with just two models left against the Hirotitan, and they stood their ground, tying up the creature for yet another turn. Hooray. The Tomb Guards were all but wiped out from 29 attacks from the BG unit plus a handful of poisoned attacks from the WE. The two characters dealt a little bit of damage and the unit crumbled away from CR. They aimed at the unarmoured WE, which was a wise choice, but with WS1, most of our models lived. All the characters remaining were on one wound left. They pretty much could be written off as dead next turn.
At this point, points seemed fairly balanced still, since DE technically lost a lot of units and resources whereas the TK had only just lost its elite unit and a War Sphinx. So for the sake of wrapping things up in a more decisive manner, we played out his turn 4 and pretty much will call it there unless something drastic happened.
Turn 4 - TK
Skeleton1 charged the 12 RxBs, who as planned, held their ground and shot more models down, numbers were pretty much even at this point when the two units connected. Now we just had to make sure we prevented the unit from regrowing in the magic phase beyond our capability to deal with for this turn. Hirotitan finished off the RxBs and the remaining characters in the Tomb Guard unit disappeared from CR, we didn't need to lay a finger on them. The magic phase was not so great, so the skeletons got a handful of models back, but nothing to be too concerned about, provided we didn't fail fear check.
The RxBs actually won combat thanks to shields giving them extra armour and a parry save for extra resilience. The Skeletons didn't crumble away but weren't a threat anymore, especially since it's DE's turn again next. The WEs and BGs reformed as shown, WEs getting ready to kill off the Hirotitan and overrunning into the Skeletons.
We pretty much called it game there, but for the sake of tying things up, here's a depiction of DE turn 5.
Turn 5 - DE
CoB gave the WEs extra attack because they may not have had enough attacks to kill off the hirotitan and if they didn't, it's going to hurt. So forgoing 5+ ward save here (I mean, if you wipe out the enemy unit, then they can't strike you back anyway). BGs flanked the Skeletons to mop them up, making sure the RxBs didn't get wiped out by some freakish accident. Magic we skipped because there wasn't need to risk losing our mages to accidental IF. In these final two turns, it's really all just tying up loose ends. Mop up what you can, preserve what you can for the final points calculation. The WEs surely enough managed to land enough poisoned attacks initially and then enough 6's to wound afterwards to kill the titan off comfortably, overrunning into the skeletons for fun slaughter. We didn't want to cast Miasma or Word of Pain on the titan because we want to reroll as many missed hits for the WEs as possible, thereby increasing the chance of getting more auto wounds from the poisoned attacks. Essentially converting 3's into more possible 6's. This is one of the few instances where you don't want to have better WS than your opponent, or to force them to hit you on 5s, most of the time, it's still the more sensible choice! Harpies flew around to threaten the rear of the skeleton unit in case it was necessary. They didn't charge into the Archers in case they accidentally fed more CR than they could have earned and thereby accidentally making our PM flee and get run down!
We ended the game there, we technically ended at the end of TK's turn 4 because it was clear which side was winning. But for the sake of clarity we went through turn 5 quickly. Confirming the capability of this list in killing high toughness targets was important too. We didn't calculate points cost as it is with friendly games, but suffice to say, this DE list seems to be quite capable. The opponent might be handicapped in being not too familiar with TKs yet, but still, DE managed to pull off a miracle(?) and came back from a mistake play on turn 2 and even turned it into an advantage. It was funny the PM stayed all game tying up the Archers, which was her primary job this game. It was a pity we didn't get to show what more she could've done than tie up an enemy unit. Her S6 lance would've been devastating against the Hirotitan and even would've helped wipe out the War Sphinx on that pivotal turn that we wanted it dead on. Or even assisting in fighting the against the Tomb Guard. We only lost that unfavourable combat by 5pts. If the PM rear charged, that's at least +2 CR to us for rear charge, and then she had a total of 5 attacks and a stomp between her and her mount. That would've easily given us at least another two CR, or even tip the fight into a win for us instead! Though...that may have resulted in a dead general the next turn. It was lucky they broke and the spears were wiped to an elf. But still, it's the principle here. But at least, you can see how manoeuvrable, hard to catch and useful the PM can be. She can easily be in the enemy's backline on turn 2 threatening their rear or flanks, or go warmachine hunting on that Casket of Souls...which he pretty much ignored most of the game. It didn't do much against an army that was Ld10 all around for being near the general and BSB.
All in all, a fun session, it was great to relive my fun times playing Warhammer Fantasy, and hopefully this helps show what this list can do and some further examples on how to deal with certain terrains (like that damned building -always remember, never split your army to go around one), how devastating a well placed combined charge is (the 5 WEs flanking the Tomb Guards alone showed how deadly a DE combined charge can be) and how useful a 55pt unit of Harpies can really be!
Thanks for reading and hope it has been helpful to iamghost and other readers!
