1500pts list vs Dark Elves

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Prince of Spires
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1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#1 Post by Prince of Spires »

Hi,

I have a 1500pts battle comming up against Dark Elves. It will be a friendly match (against a relatively new player), so it doens't have to be cheesy. Although I do want to win of course. I'm expecting to see corsairs, witch elves, executioners, cold one riders, 2 assasins, a sorceress and some other stuff.

This is the list I came up with:

Hero's:

General:
Noble
Ring of Fury, Mask of Merlord, Dragon Armour, Great Weapon 149pts

Mage
level 2, Seerstaff, dispell scroll 185pts
Thinking of going for High Magic and choose Curse and either Flames or Fury of Kaine

Core:

20 Lothern Sea Guard
Shield, Full command, War Banner 305pts Noble goes here

Special:

10 Swordmasters
musician, banner bearer, banner of balance 213pts

10 White Lions
Champion, Standard Bearer, banner of sorcery 224pts, mage goes here

1 Lion Chariot 140

5 Shadow Wariors 80 pts

Rare

2 Repeater Bolt Trowers 200 pts


Should be 1496pts. What do you guys think. Is the lone level 2 mage enough? I could drop the level, turn him into a caddy, drop the banner of sorcery and get a tiranoc chariot.
Or perhaps drop the LSG to spears and use those points for a Tiranoc chariot.
Or do both and get the chariot and a BSB.
Or do something completely different.

Any comments / sugestions? Don't have too many models available, so can't change too many things.

Thanks,

Rod
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#2 Post by pk-ng »

Why mask of the merlord? To be honest I think it's a crap item. If you want the better armour save why not get talisman of protection? at least you get a 6+ WS. I don't really like the general to be so vulnerable with a 4+ AS (which you currently have) As DE have stuff that can hit pretty hard (S5 or S6) which means you lose you AS. Might be a good idea to give you general AoC + GP and esp with a GW he'll hit hard and be hard to kill.

TBH I would drop the SMs to 7 and vanilla
Increase the WLs to 14 FC with banner of Balance. If you have points left over you can get a champion with ToL on your SMs.

I don't rate 10 SM or WLs base on the fact is that they are either too big to do any good or too small to hold out. with 7 vanilla you don't the chance of losing banners and you can do suicide runs in and target his general with ToL it's bound to die. Hitting on 4s wounding on 2s and forcing rerolls on successful saves.
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#3 Post by Prince of Spires »

Thanks for your comments.
pk-ng wrote:Why mask of the merlord? To be honest I think it's a crap item. If you want the better armour save why not get talisman of protection? at least you get a 6+ WS.
I overlooked the talisman of protection, which is why. I know that he is quite vulnerable, but I like the boost to my magic phase that the ring of fury provides. Which partly explains this.

I like your suggestion of the TOL on the SM champion, I'll see if I can make some room for it.

You also suggest dropping the banner of sorcery. Do you think I can still have a viable magic phase with just a level 2? Or shall I also drop the level and go for a scroll caddy? This would also free upthe magic points allowance of the noble for more protection. Together with the 3 SM and the banner of sorcery it should leave me with enough points to get a tiranoc chariot in there, the TOL and 4 white lions. (give or take a bit).

Rod
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#4 Post by SpellArcher »

Fair points made but you could keep things as they are, the magic phase is strong for 1500. I'd swap the magic standards on the elites though. I'd also look at putting Gem of Courage on the Swordmasters if you can find the points.

Is is conceivable to cut the LSG to 14 to increase the other elites?
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#5 Post by pk-ng »

If you are going to bring BoS I think you might as well bring two level 2s as it gives you the flexible of two lores and keeps your oppoent guessing as to what spells your casting next and you can maximise on the BoS.

If you only have 1 caster you generate 4 PD + 1 - 3 from BoS that's 7 PD which you can only use 6 of. While if you have 2 level 2s you generate 6 PD + 1 - 3 from BoS which you can cast 2 - 4 spells.
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#6 Post by SpellArcher »

pk-ng wrote:If you are going to bring BoS I think you might as well bring two level 2s as it gives you the flexible of two lores and keeps your oppoent guessing as to what spells your casting next and you can maximise on the BoS.
Is the second level 2 affordable here though? What to drop?
pk-ng wrote:If you only have 1 caster you generate 4 PD + 1 - 3 from BoS that's 7 PD which you can only use 6 of. While if you have 2 level 2s you generate 6 PD + 1 - 3 from BoS which you can cast 2 - 4 spells.
I think you can live with wasting a PD if you roll a 3. Or you can take High Magic.
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#7 Post by Prince of Spires »

Thanks for all the comments. I was indeed planning on going for high to get 3 spells (picking Curse of arrow attraction and Fury probably). The banner of sorcery would allow me to cast either 2 and 3, 3 and 3 or 2, 3, 2. This, together with the ring should give me a solid magic phase and possibly weaken my opponents.

The consensus seems to be that the infantry blocks should be bigger. Perhaps the following list:

General:
Noble
Ring of Fury, Mask of Merlord, Dragon Armour, Great Weapon 149pts

Mage
level 2, Seerstaff, dispell scroll 185pts
Going for High Magic and choose Curse and Fury of Kaine

Core:

20 Lothern Sea Guard
Shield, Full command, Banner of sorcery 335pts Noble goes here

Special:

7 Swordmasters
Champion, TOL 127 pts

14 White Lions
Champion, Standard Bearer, banner of balance 273pts, mage goes here

1 Lion Chariot 140

5 Shadow Wariors 80 pts

Rare

2 Repeater Bolt Trowers 200 pts

This should come in at 1489pts (I'm calculating out of my head), which leaves 10 points for an interesting item of the White Lion Champion (or something like that). Better? I could also drop the banner of balance for another standard (lion standard?) to put more bodies on the table.

Rod
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#8 Post by SpellArcher »

The problem is First Among Equals only lets you take a 25pt banner.

The only place in your list I can see for Sorcery is the Swordmasters but that probably means a unit of around 14 or so. I personally think 10 White Lions can work (though I run 15). The trouble is that without a BSB, they could really do with Gem of Courage which would also go nicely on the Swordmasters. Perhaps go Talisman of Loec on the SM and keep them close to the General, so any Fear tests are on Ld9.

Maybe if he's not got any large Fear-causing units you can get away with Sorcery on the Lions.
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#9 Post by Chracian »

Would you be prepared to swap the white lions for phoenix guard? They would make an excellent place for the banner of sorcery.

I would make your noble a BSB and stick him in the PGs so they can kill something. I'd sooner have loec on the noble than a bladelord and drop the mask.

Give seaguard lion standard then a lot of the army is immune to fear (or causes it).
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#10 Post by Prince of Spires »

SpellArcher wrote:The problem is First Among Equals only lets you take a 25pt banner.
Thank you for pointing this out. I missed this part of the rule. Back to the drawing board then. :(

I don't mind Phoenix Guard as such and I can see that they make a great place for the banner of sorcery. However, I'm not sure they will work well in this list. PG need to appear in big numbers (compared to SM) to be effective, which probably means dropping a few other things as well. And for me they never do much besides die (slowly). They make a good anvil, but I already have the LSG and partly the WL (depending on enemy and terrain) for that role. To add in the PG I would have to change the LSG to archers and the WL to PG. I'll see if I can make a list for this when I get home (probably some time tomorrow).

I'm not too worried about fear causers. I don't think my opponent will have a lot of them. I'm not very familiar with DE's, but I'm guessing only a unit of cold one knights. So I might get by without fear protection. What if I change the Banners back to War banner on the LSG and banner of Sorcery on the WL? This would then give me 2 extra SM (or WL), which makes them a bit more resilient to shooting. No fear protection, but works pretty well in each phase.

Rod
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#11 Post by dabber »

rdghuizing wrote:I'm not too worried about fear causers. I don't think my opponent will have a lot of them. I'm not very familiar with DE's, but I'm guessing only a unit of cold one knights.
A Dark Elf army without a Hydra (Terror) is extremely rare.
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Re: 1500pts list vs Dark Elves

#12 Post by Prince of Spires »

dabber wrote:
rdghuizing wrote:I'm not too worried about fear causers. I don't think my opponent will have a lot of them. I'm not very familiar with DE's, but I'm guessing only a unit of cold one knights.
A Dark Elf army without a Hydra (Terror) is extremely rare.
True, I forgot about Hydras. However, my opponent doesn't own a Hydra yet, so I wont be facing one in the short term. :)

Of course, when he does get one (or more...) I'll have to update my list. But by then we'll probably move up to higher point levels which should give me a bit more room to play around with banners etc.

Rod
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PS: Bring cookies!

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