Returning to the Land of Chill

Hello slaves,

I picked up DE for a bit back when the book first came out. I had some laughs, shed some tears, and generally enjoyed myself. However, Fantasy fell out of favor with me and I quit playing for a while. I sold off my DE, figuring that Skaven would be all the army I'd need, and moved back over to 40k (IG to be specific).

Well, my interest in Fantasy has been peaked again thanks in part to the new Skaven book coming out this week. Reading Stelek's review and checking out his other thoughts on Fantasy helped too. So, I went over to the FLGS to pre-order the Army Book, a Plague Furnace and Doomwheel. After taking care of business, I noticed they were having a sale, clearing out old stock. Everything was half off and I stumbled across the Dark Elf Spearhead. One impulse buy later and I'm off with the Spearhead, Battalion box and Glade Guard box. Go me.

So I'm back to square one with the Dark Elves. I've got a good idea of what I want to build towards, keeping it as cheap and effective as possible. I think they'll make a great counterpart to my Skaven.

Here's what I'm looking at for 2250

Lords/Heroes

Supreme Sorceress-level 4, Sacrificial Dagger, Pearl of Infinite Bleakness, Lifetaker, 1 Null Talisman
Lokhir Fellheart
Sorceress-level 2, Darkstar Cloak, Dispel Scroll

Core
2x 14 Corsairs, musician
18 Warriors, lordling, musician
11 Corsairs, handbows, musician
Assassin-2hw, Rune of Khaine

Special
2x 5 Cold One Knights-musician
2x 5 Shades, great weapons

Rare
2x War Hydra

Total-2249

Power Dice-9 (plus dagger and PoD, so lots)
Dispel Dice-5 plus scroll

Obviously this is based on Stelek's DE army, I wanted a good baseline to work with and this fit what I wanted to do with the army. As I playtest it I'm sure things will be modified accordingly. Most DE armies I've seen are deathstar armies with souped up characters and lots of shooting. I went for a more MSU feel since I don't put much stock in deathstars (plus I've got a Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace in my Skaven army :P).

The army splits down the middle, with 14 Corsairs (7x2 for maximum attacks), Cold One Knights and a Hydra to each flank. Lokhir is fucking awesome. Corsairs do mean things to people, but Lokhir destroys ranked up units. Combine that with a flanking unit of COK andor a Hydra, the Corsairs' nets and Lokhir's slaver rule and you can break, run down, and get DOUBLE VPs for just about anything. The Shades go after war machines or just annoy people (I would like Harpies, but monies are a problem). The Sorc goes with the handbow Corsairs and provides more magical doom. The SS and her battery deploy somewhere safe and sling magic all game, with the Assassin and handbow Corsairs for protection. Between the Lifetaker, Assassin and handbows I should see off any squishy unit that can make it back there.

I left out unit champions and standards because I don't think DE do well in stand up fights (apart from Warriors and Black Guard), so why bother trying? The 1 extra CR isn't a huge deal since I have ample flankers and everything is disposable, plus since all my units are fairly small I'd be basically handing my opponent VPs. It's all aggressive and if need be I can flee and use the musician to get back in again. Corsairs to the front with flanking COK and/or a Hydra will break most units, and with the Corsairs combined with speedy Knights/Hydras I can run them down quite easily.

So, does that make sense? Anything off base? Any ideas on how to improve it while still keeping it relatively inexpensive $$-wise?