Email In: Dark Elf Army Questions

Adam writes,

“Hello, I am a silent follower of your blog, mostly regarding your articles on Dark Elves, I am just starting to collect the army and like your lists and analysis (I wish the other parts of your Dark Elves army eval would be posted on 3++).

But to the point I am a fan of your "WHFB: Dark Elves @ 2500: Thoughts and a List" army, but I had a question for you.  I am new to Dark Elves, so I don't have access to a lot of models, specifically Dark Riders.  So I was wondering how would you change your list if you had no Dark Riders available? Depending on what you chose, how would you regear the sorcs?

Any and all help is appreciated,

Adam”

Dark Riders, RXB, Shades! Oh my!

Reply:

Hey Adam, Kirby was kind enough to post part 3 recently, so I hope you had a chance to check it out.  Part 4 should be coming along soon.

Dark Riders are a tough nut to crack.  They are overpriced and the models are old, crappy, and expensive.  My solution was to use Wood Elf Glade Riders with left over repeater crossbow bits from Warriors boxes, but I understand your hesitancy there.

You’re quite astute to notice that the Sorceresses would have to be re-geared.  They are riding Dark Steeds for defensive purposes.  The 18” march should enable them to always be out of someone’s charge arc.  Additionally, they can stand behind Dark Riders and benefit from hard cover, as well as a 4++ Look Out Sir! save.  Thanks to those defensive benefits, points didn’t need to be wasted on defensive ward save items.

Without Dark Riders, the list will be below points in Core.  My suggestion is to bring more RBX warriors to fill out the Core required points you need.  Put the Sorceress on foot, and they can hang with those units.  Thankfully, most Shadow Magic spells have decent range, so this shouldn’t be too crippling, though you might have to march the first turn to get into position to shoot/magic effectively on subsequent turns.

That handles the business end of things.  We still need a fast unit to threaten flanks and backfields.  For this, I would bring a unit of Shades.  The Shades can scout deploy so that they can turn 2 charge enemy warmachines if they are unguarded.  If they are guarded, they can shoot the piss out of the guarding unit and hopefully out maneuver it enough to avoid being charged.  Additionally, with whatever points you have left you can bring a bunch of MSU Harpie units for charge blocking/redirecting and general annoyance.  The mix of Shades and Harpies is far from ideal, but they will serve in a pinch.  The big drawback, of course, is that there aren’t cheap models for either Shades or Harpies either.  So rather than buying those sub-optimal units you might want to just get Dark Riders!

I hope this helps you out somewhat.  You can see how much synergy the list loses when it loses the Dark Riders and how replacements are clunky and awkward at best, but serviceable. 

Thoughts?  Anyone have any other suggestions?