.::. Dark Elf Lore Analysis .::.
Assuming the following: We leave the Star Dragon at home, which gives us shooty OK, Dwarfs, Dark Elves avoidance-shooty and cavbus HE. Let`s assume HE want Death. This leaves Shadow for Dark Elves. How does this affect the army and how does this affect the team overall? For this analysis, the sample lists linked
here will be used.
Beastmen
Decent initiative, you can`t push 100% because of their magic and snipes are largely ineffective as they are well protected. Shooting is the key to winning here, which means Shadow is superior because of the Withering. Miasma also helps controlling any blocks wanting to break out. Advantage Shadow.
Bretonnia
Shooting is very good here, but so is purple sun. Double scroll however stops crucial spells most of the time, so trickling is key. With Life, Death snipes have a hard time killing much I`d think, whereas Shadow`s RiP spells help your defense. Overall I don`t see either Lore as dominant. Tie.
Chaos Dwarfs
I don`t know if it`s viable to push against them with Darkshards. It probably is, deploying them 1-rank, since none of the CD shooting is particularly effective then. This means that Purple Sun is devastating. Shadow is largely ineffective, Pit is strong but not as good as PS and the rest aren`t all that useful. Advantage Death.
Daemons of Chaos
This is a tricky one. I`m tempted to say Death, but Withering is really, really good for putting damage on flies/beasts/plaguebearers. As DoC don`t have scroll, 5-dicing is much, much better than 4-dicing. Miasma also greatly helps contain threats. Death snipes are largely ineffective. Significant advantage Shadow.
Dark Elves
Withering is usually overkill vs Elves as two casts of soulblight do what you need. Miasma is great in a mirror matchup to contain either witchelves or darkshards bunker. Snipes are hard to land on anything that isn`t LD10 4++ I would think. I feel RiP slightly puts this in Shadow`s favour.
Dwarfs
Dwarfs are weak to all manner of Death spells. Withering and Enfeebling doesn`t matter too much, but miasma is good. Pit is good. Death is just insane though, so significant advantage death.
Empire
This is a tough one. I think both lores are strong. You don`t like Light Magic though, so RiP might push it slightly in Shadow favour. Death has the potential of getting an important kill or two or force him to bunker up though, so overall I`d say tie.
High Elves
One word: BOTWD. Yes, it`s an abbreviation but you get my point. Withering on the other hand is truly terrifying though with all those RXBs. Death does have an advantage vs SD I think (pit is still strong), but against all other lists this is a significant advantage Shadow.
Lizardmen
Snipes are decent, Purple Sun is terrifying, withering and enfeebling are overkill. Miasma is the only saving grace for Shadow, but it`s far from enough. Significant advantage Death.
Ogre Kingdoms
This is interesting. Vs shooty Ogres you can`t advance enough with the bunker to make Purple Sun a threat, can you? Maybe it`s possible, but I feel Shadow is better because of Miasma being a must-dispel, with withering and pit being super-strong as well. I`d say advantage Shadow, but not significant. Vs a deathstar it`s advantage death because he will have to get in range of purple sun to even remotely have a chance at winning, which is a terrifying prospect for any OK list.
Orcs and Goblins
I don`t know their setup too well. D&D is very strong since they always run Trolls. Snipes - can they do anything? Pit and Sun are both good, but withering is a lot stronger than soulblight. D&D is just so good here though, so overall I`d say tie.
Skaven
Oh Skaven, how I hate thee. So with the Bell (and whistles) death snipes are useless vs Grey Seer, but can target the BSB to great effect. Miasma really helps your board control though and withering means you can actually kill the bell with a little luck. It also helps greatly in defense. PS isn`t that great, not that much better than Pit anyways. Double soulblight is largely irrelevant for our DE list as it cannot grind to save its life. I`d say tie, because Stormbanner and Howling Warpgale are really good for reducing our damage output.
Tomb Kings
Withering is either overkill/useless, same for enfeebling. Pit is strong, miasma is meh. Death is nothing but awesome. D&D and Fate are bad, but Spirit Leech, Caress and Sun are all super-strong. Significant advantage death.
Vampire Counts
I don`t see Shadow as vital here. Enfeebling allows you to engage the bunker on paper, but setting it up in practice can be hard. Snipes can pose a threat and sun is really strong. Withering is good vs a blocker type of VC army, where you might suddenly find yourself capable of winning big just by shooting. I`d say advantage shadow vs blocker, advantage death vs pusher.
Warriors of Chaos
Chaos fear 2 things: losing combats and losing characters. Death with its snipes and D&D are well suited for both. Your shooting is already very strong and your flyers can contain his. Shadow is thus largely overkill, whereas death is just brutal. Significant advantage death.
Wood Elves
With a proper bunker you won`t be in range of his mages, or if you are, he has a 4++ or better on the important stuff @LD9. Shadow is largely overkill but Miasma is quite good here. So is D&D though. Tie.
Let`s take a look at the matchups where we lose utility by discarding Death for Shadow then:
- Chaos Dwarfs
- Dwarfs
- Lizardmen
- Deathstar OK
- Tomb Kings
- Pushy VC
- WoC
Chaos Dwarfs. I doubt any of our other lists fear this matchup. High Elves love it. Will have to playtest both Dwarfs (which I assume is 0 for DW, could be -1 though) and shooty OK (assumed to be +1 for OK by standing at 24" and blasting away). I think this matchup is +2 for DE anyway: I don`t see how CD can stop DE from getting into combat and winning the grind: Infernal Guard + characters simply aren`t strong enough. DE arrive too fast with too much. Maybe Death pushes it from +1 to +2, but I think it`s +2 regardless. I`ll try and playtest this.
Dwarfs. Dwarfs mirror is ok. Shooty OK awaiting playtesting but assumed to be good. Bus-HE with Death absolutely loves this matchup. Death pushes it from +1 to +2 I think, but the same is true for the HE bus (with high magic I don`t think there`s enough grinding power to take out enough for a big kill against a skilled DW player).
Lizardmen. I really don`t know how this holds up in our other matchups. The HE-bus is equally strong against them with High and Death.
Deathstar OK. Deathtrain HE can easily take them. Shooty OK can easily take them. I even think DW are good against them, but I could be wrong here as Ogres are fast, durable and hit hard.
TK. Deathtrain HE is hugely better than High here. I think Dark Elves can take this matchup regardless of magic: stay at a distance and win the shooting war. The one list that could cause problems is the Ushabti-shooty one, but against these you can`t push anyway to get in range of PS.
Pushy VC. HE-bus love them anyway. OK hate them .Dwarfs are fine. I don`t think Shadow vs death makes too much of a difference.
Warriors. I think all our lists can take these on
For HE it doesn´t matter if you go High or Death.
To conclude, it would appear that although Death is stronger than Shadow overall, we gain more by having our one death army as HE to get the mobile PS. A lot of the above analysis suffers from the fact that an M5 caster just isn`t as good at getting within fate of bjuna/purple sun range as an M9 in a BOTWD unit. Thus my initial analysis is that if we take bus HE, then DE should leave Death in favour of another lore as it hardly makes a big difference in our pairing options whereas HE with Death suddenly have tons of super good matchups (including the usual suspects such as DoC, OK and SD-HE).
Thoughts?