I
figured I should start this new series with Dark Elves, since it’s the Fantasy
army I know best. The goal here is NOT
to build the cheapest army. It is NOT to
build the most competitive army. The
goal is to build an army that is both cheap and competitive so that a fence
sitter might get that final push to pick up the game.
So
for the first thousand points I’d like to establish a nice base of Core units
and a Hero choice to lead them.
Let’s
start with the Hero…
Dark
Elf Sorceress. This a $13.25 model and
for the purposes of a 1k list, she is about 185 points as a Level 2 caster with
equipment. The best part about this
model is that it can also represent a 400 point Sorceress Lord when we expand
the list to 2k. Nice, now that is value!
Moving
onto our Core units…
Let’s
grab two boxes of Dark Elf Warriors.
That gives us 32 baddies. We’ll
use 30 of them to make 3 units of 10 Repeater Crossbowmen. Each with a standard bearer and musician
comes in at 348 points. And leaves us 2
models to spare…
What
the?! Let’s buy another box of warriors
and make them, and the two spare from the first batch into spearmen… but
wait. Paint them differently (black and
gold) and you have Blackguard, since the DE spears look like halberds. This is a neato trick and by far the cheapest
way to get your Blackguard. This gives
us 18 Blackguard. With full command, and
the champion carrying the Crimson Death, and standard of Murder, this clocks in
at 316 points of very killy death
And
to finish the list, we have a Hydra! I
know $66 isn’t a cheap model at all, but we do need this list to be
competitive. 175 points for a War Hydra
brings us to a total of 1,024 points.
Let’s see how we did…
$184.25
-20% internet discount
$147.40
out the door.
Not
bad at all, and a very, very tough 1k list.
Let’s
expand it to 2k.
We
already own a Sorceress model, but this time she will be a 435 point Sorceress
Lord. Nice! Next!
We’re
gonna need two more boxes of Warriors.
One of them becomes more Blackguard.
One of them becomes more RXB.
So
we now have four units of 10 RXB. Each
with a standard and musician and shields.
This gives us a Core unit fill of 504 points
We
also have enough Blackguard to make two units of 20 strong. One gets Sword of Might, one gets Crimson
Death. One gets banner of Murder and one
gets Razor Standard. Total Specials: 663
points.
Let’s
finish up with…
A
final Hydra. At 2k, two War Hydra are
nutty good.
Total
cost for the 2k expansion…
$136
-20% net discount
$108.80
out the door.
So
the final 2k List…
Sorceress
Lord
Level
4
Misc
Equipment
=435
10x
Repeater Crossbowmen
-Shields
-Musician
-Standard
=126
10x
Repeater Crossbowmen
-Shields
-Musician
-Standard
=126
10x
Repeater Crossbowmen
-Shields
-Musician
-Standard
=126
10x
Repeater Crossbowmen
-Shields
-Musician
-Standard
=126
20x
Blackguard
-Full
Command
-Crimson
Death
-Banner
of Murder
=335
20x
Blackguard
-Full
Command
-Sword
of Might
-Razor
Standard
=345
Warhydra
=175
Warhydra
=175
Total:
1,969
Total
Cost: $256.20
So
for around $250.00 we have a very competitive 2k DE list. The only thing I would do differently to make
it more competitive would be to drop equipment off the Sorceress and lose the
champ in the BG and their equipment to buy a Master BSB which would cost you an
additional $15 or so, and I highly recommend that. The only reason I didn’t make it part of the
list is the two BG units are Stubborn and ITP which means the list as a whole
is pretty good about leadership tests.
What
do you think?
Excellent idea man, look forward to more of these.
ReplyDeleteVery cool, I like the idea of using the warriors as black guard. Only thing I don't get is how you get 3 x std + music from 2 boxes of warriors?
ReplyDeleteAlso feel something small should be done to the spears to really show they are blackguard - but I bet that could be done with bits of sprue or some other equally cheap method.
Cool series my friend, I'll be happy to keep watching. It would be nice to get another fantasy army on the cheap :-p
ReplyDelete@Tristan - the Warrior sprue includes command parts, so you actually get four command groups' worth of bits in the box.
ReplyDelete@Nikephoros - Foreseeing the endless objections to Spearmen without shields counting as Black Guard, might I suggest working some Corsairs into the buy? About half and half.
The idea is that you kitbash the Corsair heads and torsos onto Spearman legs and arms to make your Black Guard (armoured, cloaked, big helmeted) and the spare legs, torsos and Crossbow arms go together to make your Crossbowmen core (armoured breastplate, pointy boots on the legs, shields over the shoulder, less extravagant helmets). The units look different and thus whining is abated.
Plus you've kitbashed more or less every model in your army, and the leftover Corsair weapons could go rather nicely on Wood Elf bodies to make Shades and Dark Riders.
The buy I'd go for would be... let's see... four Corsair kits and three Warrior kits. That's £120 at Workshop prices, $193 in your money, $154 after discount. Total for the list comes out at $270 if I've done my sums right, so for $14 extra you abate nerd drama, get a cooler looking army, and lay in a stock of parts for two other good unit types if you want to expand down the line.
I may have spent quite a while thinking about this back when I played Dark Elves...
Good advice, Von. It depends on the gamers/nerds in your area. Personally, if they were painted in a very different, appropriately blackguard, scheme from the RXB I wouldn't have a problem with it. But if your group are a bunch of cocks, your method would probably look a lot cooler.
ReplyDelete@Von Thanks for the info. I think that's a brilliant idea - it would also serve to make your army very unique!
ReplyDeleteI prefer to think of it as looking cooler first and cock-foiling second. :p
ReplyDeleteout a great number of complications. Sometimes it will be regarding internal space as well as outdoor place that is quite difficult.cedar fence posts
ReplyDelete