Dark Elves (vs) High Elves- 4,000 points

[Jabroniville]

Battle Report:

Dark Elves (vs) High Elves (4,000 points)

My Army List was keyed around... well, basically all the models that I have- my army is only this big, and contains only 5 other Cold One Knights and some character models. I desperately want to use a Cauldron of Blood, Witch Elves, Dark Riders and Chariots, but I find the minis either too hard to find (DR, Chariots), or unspeakably ugly for the monetary cost (WE, CoB), so I never got any. I'm hoping for the next army book to have a more complete army. Ordinarily I wouldn't take the fragile Executioners against HE.

LEFT FLANK
10 Crossbowmen, 20 Executioners (w/ Death Hag- D3 Attacks), Lvl. 4 Sorceress (w/ 4+ Ward) on Black Dragon, 25 Corsairs (w/ +D3 Attack Master and Frenzy Banner), Lvl. 2 Sorceress
(VS)
15 Silver Helms, Dragon Mage & Sun Dragon, 25 Spearmen, 20 Phoenix Guard (w/ Archmage & Prince)

CENTRE:
2 Bolt Throwers, 20 Crossbowmen, War Hydra
(VS)
Bolt Thrower, 30 Archers (w/ Sea Helm)

RIGHT FLANK:
25 Spearmen (w/ Lvl. 2 Sorceress & Sacrificial Dagger), 20 Black Guard (w/ Dreadlord on Cold one, Kaeleth Pendant & Toughness-testing Sword), 25 Corsairs, 10 Cold One Knights
(VS)
20 Swordmasters (w/ Loremaster), Flame Phoenix, 10 Dragon Princes (w/ BSB)

My Deployment ran a bit contrary to his, but much heavier on one flank since I had three infantry units there, along with the Cold Ones.

ROUNDS 1-2:
REALLY not my game early on- the first attack of the game saw his Archers kill 5 Crossbowmen, who then panicked and fled, and weren't a factor for the rest of the game. His Silver Helms charged the 10 Crossbowmen, who fled to lure them into getting charged by the Executioners. Unfortunately, his Sun Dragon edged up to them and killed ELEVEN OF THEM in a single Flame Template! Thankfully it was then charged and then run down by my Black Dragon, but not before the Dragon Mage killed the Sorceress before she could do much damage. The Dragon then got charged by the S.Helms and ran off, never becoming a factor in the rest of the game (failed to rally, then got Stupid). The Executioners then charged the Silver Helms (after failing a charge in one round, costing them some time), chasing them around, and fought them for the rest of the game.

The Level 2 Sorceress exploded debuffing the Phoenix Guard of -1 Strength & Toughness. My Bolt Throwers sent 6-7 Swordmasters to their dooms, however, the Cold One Knights got the charge on the Dragon Princes, but utterly failed many attack rolls and eventually got chased off, ending them entirely.

ROUNDS 3-4:
My Frenzied Corsairs got caught by themselves thanks to the Executioner/Silver Helm debacle, and actually lasted one round against the unkillable Phoenix Guard (thanks in huge part to a debuff from the Miscasting Sorceress earlier), but a flank charge from the Spearmen soon ended that. The Hydra charged and slew all of the 30 Archers & the Sea Helm, while barely taking any wounds himself. However, the other units took quite a while to get into combat- my opponent held everyone back, then simply charged the nearest unit- the 25 Corsairs, and blew through them with the Swordmasters & Phoenix.

ROUND 5-6:
The Executioners & Silver Helms all fought to the last, dropping 3-4 each turn- in the first last phase of the game, my last Executioner Champion killed his Silver Helm champion (the Hag was killed easily already), keeping half the unit's points intact despite getting hurt terribly by bad luck in the first rounds! The Spearmen easily killed my Crossbowmen, then my Bolt Thrower, while another fell to the HE Bolt Thrower. Said Bolt Thrower then died to MY Hydra. My Spearmen turned to face the Phoenix Guard, but got CRUSHED, nearly screwing my entire battle plan as they fled in front of my Black Guard, but thankfully they rallied and reformed out of the way, and the BG were able to charge and FINALLY kill those accursed Swordmasters- costing them their re-rolls with the ASF Banner.

The Black Guard then charged the Dragon Princes, but astonishingly they WON the combat due to their insane Armour Saves, nearly costing me the game. Thankfully, I was still Stubborn on 10s. I could have charged the Phoenix Guard with my Hydra & Black Dragon, but the Hydra's 1-wound remaining (thanks mostly to the Phoenix repeatedly flying over) & the BD's stupidity (because the rider was dead) prevented that- they would've just died anyways.

RESULT:
In the end, it was 3,201 to 2,513- I lost by 708 points. Not good, but not horribly bad (especially compared to my Orc Army against the same HEs). I was kind of disappointed, but my DEs had to lose SOMETIME (I think I've been running nearly all wins with them), and the new HEs are TOUGH.

Units of the Game:
High Elves:
* The Phoenix Guard- Believe the hype. With the Mage boosting their Ward Save, they're basically unkillable. I think that's actually the biggest part of the book I find unfair- it makes them too hard to beat, even moreso than Stubborn units.
* The Dragon Princes- An expensive unit, but they handily beat charging Cold Ones, then nearly beat my Black Guard.
* Swordmasters- Very vulnerable to shooting, but they'll kill anything they hit. It took my best unit, with a great banner specifically designed to kill them, to beat the unit.
* Phoenix- Didn't do much in combat (it's stats aren't terrific), but all those Flyovers can add up, especially since they can fly.

Dark Elves:
* Executioners- Killed 15 Silver Helms, netting them more than their points back. Not bad for a unit that got DESTROYED by a Breath weapon.
* Hydra- Obviously, still a killer unit. Hard to kill, over-the-top killing power (7 attacks just seems like "too much"), and it wiped out 30 Archers, a Sea Helm, and a Bolt Thrower, only taking damage from 2 Phoenix Fly-overs.
* Bolt Throwers- Killed some Swordmasters, which helped big-time.
* Black Guard- Took forever to get into combat, but they killed the Swordmasters, which is something.

Disappointments:
Supreme Sorceress on a Black Dragon- 650 points of killing power, only to die in one round to a Dragon Mage & Dragon's attacks (I failed four 4+ Ward Saves in one round), then fail to a Silver Helm charge because the overrun wasn't super-great.
Crossbowmen- Killed nothing until they got charged, at which point they fled anyways. Just a bad Leadership tests gone wrong- the 10-strong unit killed 1 Silver Helm and then was gone.

In all though, my units just didn't do that well with each other. I had so many bad tests and poor luck (failing Charges and having a hard time getting into combat, even) that I never got any momentum. The problem with "sit there and shoot" armies, especially fast Elves, is that they can kill numerous units, then gleefully charge whomever they want if they get lucky, and blow through your lines. And HE do SO much damage that you can fall to CR even by killing many of them. I'd have liked to have some Dark Riders out front to eat a charge from one of those units, thus allowing a counter-charge should they overrun another infantry unit- I need those models.

Not as depressing as my Orc battle (which basically featured almost NO wins for my guys until the very last round), but still rather annoying. The High Elves now have some VERY good exploits, and short of throwing an inhuman number of attacks or using a lot of cheap "Chaff" (a fighting style I never really developed or preferred), I don't have a good handle on how to stop them just yet. Maybe if my Mages hadn't all died by Turn 2 mostly...

[Calisson]

Thanks for the report.
And a nice welcome to D.net! Not often do we get so high a quality of posts so early in a D.net carreer.
Looking forwards for more.

[Jabroniville]

Thanks! Dark Elves are my third army, so I'm used to the Warhammer forums in general- I usually go on Da Warpath and Lustria Online because those were my first armies . Because of that, I know some of the terminology, though some bits still escape me.

[Jvh792]

LVL 4 sac dagger fire mage did REALLY well versus the HE for me. Blew up TONS of sword masters.
Having a unit of 20 RXB next to your sac dagger mage is cool because fulminating flame cage is DEVASTATING versus high elves. The trick is that you need them to move, and it's not easy to convince someone to have every single model take a str4 hit.

[Jvh792]

Also, the sac dagger pluspower of darkness PLUS Fire's Lore ability makes your offensive magic phase nearly unstoppable.
If you play high enough points, take a dark magic LVL 2 with Tome of Furion on a pegasus. Giving her the pendant of Kaleth makes her very hard to kill as chances are that she will roll the soul stealer spell and run around with 6 wounds (since the pegasus gives her +1t and +1w)
Another amazing character choice against HE is the Pegmaster BSB built like this:
Master BSB
Peg
Cloak of Hag greif
Dawnstone
Heavy Armor, Shield, beastmaster scourge

That gives him 4 S4 AP attacks with a +1 reroll armor save versus shooting. In my game, he took 3 round of shooting from 30 sisters of Avalon (the rare unit archers with S4 shots). They were hitting of 3 and 2+ and getting NO wounds. If you do the math, it takes about 600 shots to kill this guy. But the REALLY amazing part is when you get him into combat against the archers.
My guy sat there and killed about 4 or 6 per round taking no wounds in return. He beat a high elf hero in a challenge even when the hero drank a strength potion!!!!!
Eventually the unit lost steadfast and broke.
He won me over 400 points on his own along side soaking up all of the foolish HE players shots (bolt throwers AND archers) and taking NO wounds.

[Jabroniville]

Cool stuff- I once used a Lvl. 4 w/ Dagger against the Vampire Counts and she did really well. But this time, I wanted to try out my new Sorceress/Dragon model, so the Lvl. 2 had to be the Dagger-caddy. But in any case, my magic phases stank because 2 of three Wizards were dead within 2 turns. Would you ordinarily recommend the Dragon/Sorceress combo? I don't like forcing all my killing power onto one model all the time (Dreadlord/Dragon), and I figured the extended mobility & fightiness would make the Sorceress more powerful. But the incredible points cost makes it MORE unlikely to do it's Points back in victory points, so I'm not sure.

I sorta considered Lore of Fire (it's an old standby against Elves- my Slann MESSED UP some High Elves with it once, including the Flame Cage thingie an edition or two ago), but I liked the buffs of the other lists, and I've heard they're all solid against HE.

Sadly, I have no Pegasi. I can't think of how to convert a Bretonnian Pegasus Knight into a Dark Elf properly, and the existing Dark Pegasus model is just ugly to me- what is it, twenty years old now? It's a unit I'd really like to try, because I think Pegasi are cool, and the mobility would be a great boost. Similarly, I never figured out how to make a Dark Elf BSB from an existing character model (I could theoretically do it with the Dreadlord/Cold One mini and some bits from other DE sprues, but the fact that he'd look EXACTLY like my Dreadlord bugs me)- a BSB would have been a BIG help, especially for its magic banners.

This is kind of a recurring problem with my DE- they're my smallest army because I find the minis either hard to find or way out of date, and I want to wait until the new Army Book before buying some. I like a bit of converting- my Hags are all based off of Dark Eldar ladies- but I'm having trouble deciding on some of it. Matches like this make me want to hunker down and try to convert something, even as a stand-by until new models come out.

What kinds of Magic Banners are ideal? I use the default Frenzied Corsairs, Hag Graef on the Black Guard, and threw Armour Piercing on the Spearmen and a re-roll First Leadership Test one on the Cold Ones (which I of course forgot about). I like the other two expensive DE ones, but the cost makes me throw out other units.

[Jvh792]

Armor piercing on the black guard make them able to take on knights no problem as they can soak up a charge an remain stubborn they eventually chop them down one by one. Frenzied on the corsairs works pretty well too, but most times they need a magic buff. I've only ever put Hag grief on the cold one knights to make sure they hit first on a charge. Hydra Banner BSB in the CoK is also awesome, but it can be easily snipe by high magic's new spell that wounds like metal and blows up one random magic item (and since he can only have one if he takes a magic standard... It's not random at all).

For conversions, I've been trying to get some dark elder mandrake models to run as my witch elves. They aren't armored so they fit the fluff there. They look BAD ASS. They have a sweet sword and some evil/poisonous looking magic coming out of their other hand too. That makes it look like two hand weapons, add in the frenzied and they fit the fluff. Except they are men. But men I actually think that could be cool and unique with a decent enough back story.

You could always use Dark Eldar Wyches for witches, but they look so ugly and mannish. I don't care for them too much. Incubi make amazing executioners and/or black guard. I can't afford that though, so I use Khabalite warrior bodies with phoenix guard halberds and corsair biceps to make the phoenix guard arms fit onto the bodies. I'm super pumped with how they turned out. I mixed in the kabalite heads with some left over glade rider heads I had. They look awesome. You could ever use the other Dark Eldar infantry called... wracks? I think? To make some crazy cool looking witches or even some crazed black guard.

[Jvh792]

ALSO! Try your best NOT to fight them head on because they fight in more ranks than you with rerolls as well : /