2000pt Dark Elf list (local gaming group tournament list)

[Scotty80]

Hi all,
My local gaming group is setting up a small 2000pt tournament in a months time (8 players). Currently this is what I'm looking at fielding.
I'm very new to dark elves and 8th edition (2 games so far!) so any critique or suggestions are appreciated.

Lords:
Supreme sorceress, level 4, pendant of khaleth, sacrifical dagger, black dragon egg
Lore: Shadow (likely to be deployed in the spearmen block).

Heroes:
Sorceress, level 2, lifetaker, tome of furion
Lore: Dark (deployed in a crossbowmen unit).

Master, battle standard, heavy armor, sea dragon cloak, banner of hag graef
Deployed in spearmen or black guard depending on opponents.

Core:
37 * warriors, shields, full command, lichbone pennant
14 * crossbowmen, shields, musician, champ
15 * crossbowmen, shields, musician, champ

Special:
5 * cold one knights, full command, ring of hotek
19 * black guard, full command, banner of murder, null talisman, ironcurse icon

Rare:
war hydra

Opponents are likely to include:
High Elves (cc weighted with Teclis with lore of life)
Skaven (lots of jezzails and other ranged nastiness).
Empire (again more ranged killiness from mortars/cannons)
Ogres
Lizardmen (skink skirmishers heavy with 1-2 stegadons)
Daemons

Thanks for any responses
Edited to remove points values.

[Druchii marquis]

I was in a similar situation. I've got a gaming club tournament this Saturday...2000pts and with about 8-12 players. I would suggest you take a look at my thread and have a look at the advice some other Druchii.net members gave me. The thread can be found here.

Some things I would do are:
- RxBmen: Make one unit nice and big with 20 RxBmen with Full Command and shields. The other unit decrease to 10 and give them shields and Musician. This unit can be used to deal with infiltrators and fliers while your bigger unit concentrates on damaging other "main" regiments.

- Harpies: At 11pts a pop, even 1 small unit of 5 can be an effective screen that can Fly and won't cause Panic if they flee through Druchii units. They can also Mage and Warmachine hunt!

- Shades: A unit of 5 can sit in a wood and shoot and harass like hell. With Additional Hand Weapons, they would have 10 Ws10 S3 attacks. Nothing wow, but with a CoB blessing they could be given an extra attack each or Killing Blow

[Meteor]

They're also steadfast in forests too, and enemy blocks lose their rank bonus and steadfast when majority of the unit is in a forest. Harpies can help redirect them into such disadvantages, your shades can goad them in then actually break them.

Today my five AHW shades got charged by 14 Dryads with a Branchwraith in it. They dealt zero wounds, I wounded them twice, they broke and fled. I didn't catch them, but it was my turn next, so I could've chased them off the board with a charge, but decided it just wasn't right haha. So Shades are definitely worthwhile!!!

[Dreadimperator]

I actually looks pretty good to me except for the lack of warmachine hunters. I feel that in the current edition they are essentially mandatory for tournaments, and you should find a way to include some shades and/or harpies if you can. Maybe drop a couple crossbowmen and the champs from each unit.

[Camaris]

I'd give the spearmen unit either banner of eternal flame or the warbanner instead of licheborne pennant. I'd also give the blackguard banner of murder instead, as this makes them more versatile since they can now fight high armour opponents As others have said, warmachine hunters(DR/Shades/Harpies) are almost essential in 8th, especially since two of your opponents are bringing gunlines; make sure your dark mage takes chillwind when you are facing these gunlines. Remember to deploy the cold ones far away from your mages, since the ring effects them as well. Otherwise, I think the list looks pretty solid.

[Thanee]

scotty80, you are new and you have probably missed this...

http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=46803

...but please adhere to the rules set here. Thanks!

Bye
Thanee

[Thanee]

As for the army... what others have said, you lack warmachine hunters. Some Harpies or Shades would be good.

One more thing... the Master BSB... he won't survive any combat with that setup. You better stay away from the magic banner and give him something to actually protect him from harm. Or do what most are doing these days and get the Cauldron of Blood with BSB upgrade.

Other than that... very solid!

Bye
Thanee

[Burizan]

Regarding the BSB you should at least stick a beastmaster's scourge and shield on him if nothing else, I would recommend keeping the banner at home too. Even after loading him up with protective gear he can still be taken out quite easily (as everyone is aware of bsbs)

I have used rxbmen in the same size units you have above and tbh it has worked reasonably well. Whatever you are comfortable with is fine, be it 3 x 10men, 1 x 30 men, or anything inbetween. Ditch the champion though!

The CoK love the gleaming pennant, its only 5 points and it means the first time they're stupid (usually once per game without nearby BSB/ld10) they get to reroll it, which can change the course of the game! You can of course stick them next to the BSB but they lose a lot of flexibility that way

[Scotty80]

Edited for points as per Thanees' request (sorry about that).
Thanks for the responses so far.
Realised after posting that I hadn't given the BSB all the items he can have. Is giving the BSB better protection likely to be a better idea than the banner of HG? (which is there to effectively give spearmen rerolls every turn or allow blackguard to go toe-to-toe with high elves). Is the 3+ save for the BSB (once given a shield) likely to be enough otherwise?

Seen mention of the banner of eternal flame. Was is the big draw for this? Lichebone pennant is currently there as a big infantry block seems a nice magic target.
Gleaming pennant on cold ones is a nice cheap idea, thanks for that.

Don't think I can squeeze both cauldron for BSB and shades into the list. Shades seems the best general consensus on the most important thing to add (now I just need to decide what to drop!).

[Masamune]

I'm not that big into the flaming banner but I get why take it. Lots of opponents have targets that rely on regen (like us with hydras for example) which the flaming attacks can negate - or sometimes flammable targets like trees of course.

I'm in your camp where I prefer things like lichebone pennant since I don't find the flaming attacks that useful as usually the stuff you want to use it against picks it's own targets and more often than not it isn't your spear horde.

The BSB's #1 mission in life is to stay alive as long as possible and provide you with all those rerolls to everything in 12". Ideally this is all game. Remember that if he dies you lose not just all that awesome rerollage but your ASF too. The cauldron does a good job of this but if that's not your flavour then you really want to get him at least a 1+ or ideally a ward/regen on top. The thing also is that if you make it a cauldron then you can use +1A or killing blow which may even be more useful than ASF.

[Thanee]

Yeah, the BSB reroll is really potent in 8th, so you want that around for as long as possible.

I don't think the magic banner for 1-2 rounds of combat (which is about the time he will stay alive, because ALL possible attacks will target him, once it is clear, that he cannot have any magical protections; i.e. once you declare the use of the banner) can compete with the re-roll for (possibly) the whole game.

Bye
Thanee

[Meteor]

3+ AS with no other form of protection? Nope he's not going to stick around that long at all. Unless you drop the enemy's strength by D3 and WS by D3 so that they're hitting on 5+ and wounding on 6+.

At least give him a CO so he's got a 1+ AS if you're going for a magic banner.

[Thanee]

CO means, he is template-bait, though (no watch out). And those big stones can hurt.

Bye
Thanee

[Scotty80]

Thanks for all the replies.
My only query on the shades is, how best to use them?

They are advised as being included as warmachine hunters, but I'm not too sure how to use them in such a role.
When the cannons/mortars etc are in the middle of an enemies deployment, you aren't really going to be able to get too close to them without exposing yourself, which isn't going to go too well for T3, no save models.
I can see their use as general harassment, keeping out of charge arcs and reeling off shots, but can't see how to get close to warmachines in the backline without getting shot to pieces first.

[Meteor]

It certainly isn't easy, which is why we include harpies in our lists too, to fly past enemy lines and straight into warmachines our shades can't get into.