Questions for active gamers

[Zakath the slaughterer]

Greetings fellow wargamers!

Runes of browsing were cast and rumours of the End Times reached my craftworld. I started playing Druchii some 18 years ago and have since sold all my stuff but never lost the interest. Now that the End Times are here (there?) I have some questions regarding returning to the hobby:

Is it true Elven factions might get crammed into one? Is it plausible that Dark Elves could get combined into an armybook with another faction?

Do Dark Elves really have ASF? What does that mean for Zakath's personal retaine... Executioners?

How do you guys convert your Pegasus Masters? Haven't found any memorable pics and was just wondering...

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions and that they and these three couldve been answered by just browsing the net better but I'm a bad person so here we are.

Thank you,
Z

[direweasel]

Greetings fellow wargamers!

Hey

Is it true Elven factions might get crammed into one? Is it plausible that Dark Elves could get combined into an armybook with another faction?

I don't get caught up in the rumor stuff. I play the game as it is now, and when a new edition comes out, THEN I worry about what's changed.

Do Dark Elves really have ASF? What does that mean for Zakath's personal retaine... Executioners?

Yes it's true. In the case of Executioners, being an elf grants ASF, the greatsword means Always Strike Last. They cancel each other out, meaning the models strike in Initiative order. Which usually means you are swinging before your opponent, but not always.

How do you guys convert your Pegasus Masters? Haven't found any memorable pics and was just wondering...

Some people use Brettonian pegasi. I still have the old ones. eBay can be your friend in that regard. There are other ideas you can find in the models section of this site.

[Holt]

Is it true Elven factions might get crammed into one? Is it plausible that Dark Elves could get combined into an armybook with another faction?

There isn't much to go by on this rumour but it does seem like it has the potential to go that way. In some of the background in the Nagash book there is a paragraph where one of the High Elves (can't remember which one) is talking to someone which he refers to as cousin. This is believed to be Malekith and the way that they are talking gives the sound that they will be helping each other out a bit. This, coupled with what has happened to the Undead in the Nagash book and Chaos in the Glotkin book, gives a fairly good reason to think that High Elves may be fighting alongside Dark Elves in a future book.

Repeater Boltthrowers to team up with your Reaper Boltthrowers?

Do Dark Elves really have ASF? What does that mean for Zakath's personal retaine... Executioners?

Yup, ASF all around for elves now. Executioners also have the ASL rule so they simply cancel each other out and they play as if they had neither rule, so strike at Initiative order and don't gain any re-rolls to hit from ASF.

How do you guys convert your Pegasus Masters? Haven't found any memorable pics and was just wondering...

I currently have 3 converted. One from Morathis pegasus with a wing swap just to make it look a bit different from when I am using Morathis model. One is an older pegasus that GW used to sell for Dark Elves and the third (and fairly common) one is from a Bretonnian pegasus. People tend to think these look boring but they paint up well and are very easy. Other people have recently been using the coldone models with Vargheist wings, this looks good but requires a bit more effort than the Bret peg option.

[Amboadine]

Many a rumour has been thrown out. But there will be an Elven based ETs book, which would suggest at least some changes will be coming early next year.

Others have already answered your other queries.

[Zakath the slaughterer]

Indeed D.net is still the fastest site alive! Thank you for the quick and informative replies, much appreciated.
Vargheist wings and cold ones do give me certain ideas, I might end up mounting an elven steed instead of a jetbike for the next year's tournament season

Ps. Oh my gods that Medusa is beautiful..!

[Zakath the slaughterer]

To keep from cluttering the forum I continue here:

Which of the three Elven factions is best at the avoidance game and why? I'm interested in collecting a band of brothers, wandering collection of warriors searching riches to get back into their society after being exiled. I'm thinking of using parts from each faction but I have no idea on what armybook to use!

I hope you don't just answer druchii out of principle...

[Haagrum]

Coward Wood Elves are probably the best at full avoidance. They have several Fast Cavalry units (including casters and units with access to magic arrows), fliers, scouts and snipers. Plus, they can clutter the field with forests and teleport through them with the Moonstone.

In short, if you want to frustrate the hell out of someone while never letting them get to grips with you except on your terms, few armies can match the Asrai.

[Red...]

Dark elves can be fairly nifty in that role:

- Most of our characters can be placed on superfast flying beasties (particularly pegasi) and can carry repeater crossbows.
- Dark Riders, who have fast cavalry, can have a 4+ armor save, and can carry repeater crossbows, are core.
- Shades, who are excellent scouts and skirmishers, with repeater crossbows, are special choices.
- Harpies, who can fly and count as skirmishers too, are also special choices.
- Warlocks, who are also fast cavalry, possess offensive magic spells, and possess a 4+ ward save against almost all opponents, are rare.

That means you can, empirically, field an entire army that is either fast cavalry, on a flying monster, scouting, or flying, with much of this fielding missile weapons or offensive magical spells. Avoidance extraordinaire!

[Omnichron]

Whether the elves get united or not remains to be seen, although I have the feeling it will happen somehow. Fluffwise to make that happen, the elves have to be attacked on all fronts (from chaos most likely), and forced to join arms... To actually take that step to fight together, I believe that some characters has to die to close the most hatred gaps, or Aenerion has to rise again with the Widowmaker in hand to unit all elves.

Anyways, whether it will happen or not remains to be seen.

IMO, the dark elves can do avoidance just fine, and has the extra strength in close combat. Shooting is quite nice, but if you want the extra shooting power, the WE is the thing for you. I, on the other hand, would prefer Dark Elves as I could make several kinds of lists, some avoidance and some more close combat oriented. If you are afraid that you can't make a viable avoidance dark elf list, fear not... DE are great at it.

My pegasus riders are made of the wood elf horses (can probably use the dark elf horses to some degree now), and then use the Vargheist wings (cutting the arms off a bit and fasten mostly the wings to the horse). Then I use cold one knight models with some extra bits from different places to make the masters/lord. Quite the simple process, although I would try to have some of those pegasus models a bit higher in the air or raise the wings a bit for my future additional pegasus models... Have a hard time lining it up with other troops or joining other troops in close combat as it is now with wide wings.

[Dark reaper]

I have to agree with Omnichron that DE make great avoidance lists. In an uncomped environment, I would argue that we are the Asrai's equals. Dark Riders in core, fast cav characters and Warlocks are extremely good at this.

For pegasus riders, I have actually kit-bashed the riders from the executioner/black guard and Dark Riders sets as well as used a Dark Eldar Archon and put them on Screamers of Tzeentch. I am not the greatest painter or the most creative modeller, but I am fairly happy with how they turned out.