Starting Dark Elves, how to balance characters

[Barnie25]

Hi guys I've just started Dark Elves and I have a few questions regarding the prioritizing of characters. As far as I can tell there isn't a good or bad choice to go for a combat lord with hero caster backup or vise versa, and in bigger games we can just do both. In my LGS we never play 2400 games, the games are usually 2000 but the last tournament was 1500. In this point total I find it difficult to come up with a good balance without having to consolidate to much on one of either parts of the game.

A different question is regarding special characters. How does a Morathi compare to a supreme sorceress on Pegasus? I really like the model and the force I bought also contains the model so at first I was inclined to center my army around her. But after a few days of reading posts on the forum I am much more weary about fielding her as the consensus seems to be that even though she probably is the most competitive special character, you can still better run a normal lvl 4.

My current collecting consists of the following models:

Malekith on Dragon
Morathi (can be used as a Sorceress / Supreme Sorceress)
Malus Darkblade on Cold One (can be used as a Master / Lord)
Master/Dreadlord on Pegasus (magnetized to also be able to be mounted on a Dark Steed)

12 Cold One Knights
20 Darkshards
20 Dreadspears

And I am planning on getting a box of Warlocks

As my financial priorities lie elsewhere at the moment I won't be buying more units for at least a month or 2. So for the time being I will be using these models to get to know the Dark Elves.

What type of list would you guys construct from this pile of miniatures? I am looking to play anywhere between 1500 and 2000

The list I made now look as follows:

Supreme Sorceress on Pegasus Lvl4 <insert Lore of Random> Talisman of Preservation D scroll

Master on Cold One BSB HA SDC Dawnstone Dragonhelm Lance

Master on Dark Pegasus HA SDC CoT Lance

13 Darkshards Musician
20 Dreadspears FC

9 Cold One Knights FC Banner of Swiftness

5 Warlocks

1500

This would give me a main hammer of Knights, decent shooting, two fliers and Warmachine hunters with the Warlocks.

How am I doing so far? Are these viable lists? The most opponent I will be facing in our club never field WAAC lists and are generally a bit softer than your average tournament list.

My last question is regarding Malekith. For the 810 points the model seems extraordinarily bad seeing how every average combat lord one third of his cost will kill him without taking a sweat. Does anybody field him? Or uses his model as a Dreadlord for the matter? I hope he will get beastly stats like Karl Franz did in our EoT book.

I hope you guys can help me with some tips and tricks.

Edit: I see that my battlescribe contains an error, Masters can take only 50 points worth of gears as supposed to the 100 my Battlescribe displayed. This changes some things.. so I changed some things around.

[Amboadine]

With the new 50% Lord/Hero allowance you can now go overboard on characters very easily.
Whilst it is possible to run character heavy lists of multiple peg masters and steed masters, I like to ensure I have at least a few basics in there.

For example, pretty much all my list will contain the following key units;

2x Units of Dark Riders
At least 2 RBT's
At least one unit of Warlocks
1x Shades

You can then decide to fill your core with further cav, melee blocks of witches etc or some shards for missile cover.

Once you are happy with the units take a look at the points you have available. A lvl 4 is a stable in many lists, as are the CoT peg master.

For the models you have available you are not going to be able to put together the most synergic list and are probably far too character heavy, but if you are not in a very competitive environment you may be okay.

As for Malekith, he will get a new profile at the weekend, which is good as he is not great for his current cost.