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Is magicless DE possible?

Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 9:36 pm
by Sanity_is_weak
hey guys I was wondering if anyone has had any experience or fought anyone using a no magic dark elf army before and if so how did it fair? I was thinking about making a no magic list using a cauldron of blood. Any help would be appreciated thanks guys.

Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:14 pm
by Rabidnid
Check the army list forum, the majority of lists are in fact magicless. Having no magic defence is a separate issue, but if you are fast and aggressive, it is possible to do well with just Seal of Ghrond for 3 DD and the Ring of Hotek.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 12:25 am
by Willowdark
The scroll caddy is a hard pill to swallow. One of the main reasons that I've taken such a magic heavy stance recently is that I became completely tired of the mandatory character place holder. But is it really possible to go without it? I don't know.

If you did, I think you'd need something more like two CoBs. This army suffers from ranged attacks as much, if not more than, anything else. The 5+ ward will be helpful, but you'll need to spread it around if you're up against a lot of magic missiles. Anyone with less than a Lord level Caster will likely fire spells with just 1 or 2 dice at a time which will inherently refuse your Ring of Hotek advantage so you'll have to burn your DD on those. If your luck is good and they roll doubles trying to push the more powerful ones through you could make it through. And of course, the faster you get into combat the better.

If you're smart about using terrain to your advantage, staying out of range with some troops while blocking line of site to others could work, you could deny him the choices to even cast for a turn or two. Not having anything to cast is worse in a lot of ways than not being able to.

Movement spells like recasting Vanhel's will be difficult. I'd want to have a lot of Dark Riders and Harpies to redirect, but magic isn't really the way you beat VC spam phases anyhow.

In fact, if I really wanted to learn to play with no magic defense, VC would be the army I'd want to play against. Outmaneuvering and mage hunting are really the only ways to beat that army as it is, so there's no better practice army available.

The problem here, as with most armies, is that mage hunting as a tactic is generally unreliable. Most players, if they're really good, will protect their casters for at least the first turns and will only become good targets after much of his army, and yours, has been cleared off the board. If you're just already better than everyone else you play with, which you could very well be, than this won't matter as much. But if you're the knew guy around it could start to hurt.

And of course Lord Level Characters will be a lot harder to kill, especially chaos lords, VC lords and Daemons. Tomb King bound spell phases and Arch Lectors will own you, as well as most 9+ PD builds, I'd think.

You might loose a lot at first, but if you start winning I bet it will be very rewarding.

You could try something like 2 CoBs and two mobile masters, one with lifetaker and the other with the PoK and the SoM. Then 2 Hydrae for pure shock value to earn back the points and movement advantages you'll loose to magic. Dark Riders, Harpies, Shades, RxBs and some Black Guard and CoKs to tote the Ring and Seal on there Champs.

Try it out.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 5:21 am
by Phoenix49
Here's an idea for a list I had some time ago (but only tried it against Warriors of Chaos):

Death Hag - 200
Cauldron of Blood

Master - 160
Cold One, Deathpiercer, Ring of Hotek, Heavy armor, SDC, Shield

Death Hag - 200
BSB, Manbane, rune of khaine, Standard of Hag Graef

Master - 133
Null Talisman x2, Soulrender, Heavy armor, SDC


15x Warriors, full commmand - 120
15x Corsairs, full command, Sea Serpent Standard - 200
5x Dark Riders, RXB - 110

15x Executioners, full command, Banner of Murder - 235
16x Black Guard, full command, Crimson Death, Dread Banner - 308
1x Chariot - 100
6x Cold One Knights, full command, Banner of Cold Blood, Null Talisman - 232

The idea behind the Master with the 2x Null Talisman and the Death Hag BSB with ASF banner is to "be where needed", and keep switching between the units that need them.

Following the idea of Willowdark, you can remove the master on CO, 1 BG and the Banner of Murder from the Execs and add a 2nd Cauldron of Blood.

Following the idea of keeping it a heavy infantry block, you can remove the CoK and the master altogether, and add a war hydra (to stay with ur army isntead of rushing forward) and the 2nd CoB.

The problems that arise right away is the complete lack of shooting (which isnt a problem against chaos) and very weak magic abilities (which is a minor problem against chaos). Since it's a very tough close combat army, I was on par with the chaos troops and thus totally destroyed my opponent.
But I doubt this list would work against anything fielding more than 4 levels worth of magic or shooting/fast troops.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 7:40 am
by Ehakir
I totally disagree with the opinion that in a magicless list you need the Cauldrons. You are paying 400 points to give two units a little better protection? Not for me.

I have played a lot of games with armies that are magicless. No scroll caddy, no sorceresses at all. And I must admit that sometimes a spell can be hard to face, but if you have a list in which every unit is versatile enough to take up different roles in your army, you shouldn't have any problems with it.

The only magic protection I take in my lists are the standard 2 DD and the ring of hotek and crystal of midnight. The Ring prevents high level casters from casting their powerful spells as the opponent often is really afraid of the miscast table, whilst I can negate the power of a lvl-2 wizard by swallowing one of his spells. At ld 10 there is a 50% chance not to pass the test, and at ld 7-8 this is about 75%. And as many spells are not always handy, you can really irritate the enemy wizard by make him loosing one spell, even when it is at random. Horror blocks don't like to loose their spell too, by the way.
I once had a lvl 2 who had lost his both spells in the 2nd turn: one due to a miscast, the other due to the crystal... Rude...

The benefit you get from not taking a scroll caddy is that you can deploy more troops and that you can take 4 other heroes instead of 3 (at 2000 pts). As long as you make sure that you have enough treats on the enemy he will have to choose what to fry with his magic: Set up traps that make it less ideal to kill of certain units (position your dark riders so that your unit behind them can't charge other units if the dark riders stay alive, but can if one of them drops, and make sure the caster cannot cast at the unit behind the dark riders).

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 7:56 am
by Phoenix49
@ Ehakir :

Could you show an example of a 2000 pts list? I'm interested to see what kind of character you give the Crystal to, and also what are your unit/character choices.

I've been trying to find a nice magicless list but I always end up bloating it with Masters carrying 3 null talismans each. In the end, ive got lots of units but...I just dont trust :

-Corsairs with SSS, but no Killing blow from cauldron (or ASF)
-Executioners without ASF (or +1 A from cauldron)
-Black Guard without ASF

You also always need shields (harpies), shooting protection (master with ring of darkness), mobile screens (Dark Riders), and in all that u need to fit some kind of hero/war machine hunter.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 9:11 am
by Waerik
IMO the Caldron is essential in any army that seeks to beat the enemy in the close combat phase.

I would however consider two cauldrons overkill; it is unlikely that you will have two combats per turn where you need the blessing to win.

If you run a magic less army, I would not recommend using a flying monster for any of your characters, unless you have magic resistance 3, since the beast cowers is hardly affected by the ring of hothek.

A magic less army will be viable as long as you are not playing in a tournament, the reason being that you will have a very rough time playing against vampire counts.

Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:58 pm
by Niceas
Check BoLS for a magicless DE army that recently won Best General in C3:

BoLS

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 10:11 am
by Ehakir
My Magicless Dark Elf army that has placed itself 2 times on the 2nd place...

Dreadlord, Heavy armour, Shield, SDC
Pendant of Khaeleth, Sword of Battle, Potion of Strength
Black Dragon

Master, Heavy Armour, Shield, SDC, Lance
Crystal of Midnight
Manticore

3x5 Dark Riders, Rxb, Mus

5 Harpies

2x5 CoK, Std, Champ
One unit with the Ring of Hotek
One unit with the Standard of Slaughter

5 Shades, GW

5 Witch Elves

War Hydra

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:56 am
by Waerik
My Magicless Dark Elf army that has placed itself 2 times on the 2nd place...

Dreadlord, Heavy armour, Shield, SDC
Pendant of Khaeleth, Sword of Battle, Potion of Strength
Black Dragon

Master, Heavy Armour, Shield, SDC, Lance
Crystal of Midnight
Manticore

3x5 Dark Riders, Rxb, Mus

5 Harpies

2x5 CoK, Std, Champ
One unit with the Ring of Hotek
One unit with the Standard of Slaughter

5 Shades, GW

5 Witch Elves

War Hydra


This is a very poor tournament army IMO.

You will be picked apart by deamon lists, since you don't have any defence against the beast cowers (due to them having six spells, and the spell beeing reliably castable on two dice).

Furtheremore, you will have a rough time against vampire counts, since you only have one magic weapon, and since you can not contain his raising (combined with the fact that you only have two units, the witches and the dragon, that are good in protracted combats).

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:31 pm
by Ehakir
It may be very poor in your opinion, but I would like to see your face when the dragon, manti, hydra, witch elves, and knights all charge together into one unit ;)
This list owns the movement phase, and if you own the movement phase with units that can hit like a ton of bricks on the charge, it might be very dangerous.

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:42 pm
by Waerik
It may be very poor in your opinion, but I would like to see your face when the dragon, manti, hydra, witch elves, and knights all charge together into one unit
This list owns the movement phase, and if you own the movement phase with units that can hit like a ton of bricks on the charge, it might be very dangerous.

I never disagreed with your list being strong.

The reason why it is a poor tournament army, is because you will fail against well played daemon and vampire lists.

Both these kind of lists tends to be a) popular and b) successful.

The chance of facing such lists is therefore very high if you aim at a high placement. ;)

For example, what would you do against:

3 X 10 Ghouls

2 X 5 Wraiths

20 ish graveguards, containing vampire lord (with ring of carstain), vampire thrall with 1+ armor save, vampire thrall with gem of blood, Wight BSB wit regen banner.

You cannot multicharge the bunker from sides, due to the wraiths and ressed ghouls / zombies.

You only have one unit that can hurt the wraiths in any way shape or form, however, your lord will inflict around three wounds, the wraiths will then inflict around one on the dragon, thus you win by 3, so you do a total of 6 wounds with hatred.

However, since you don't have any defense against raising, the VC will easily raise the wraiths back up, at least enough of them to keep your dragon lord locked eternally (since he loses hatred, the damage he inflicts goes down).

None of your units can challenge the bunker on their own, and you will be hard pressed to kill any of the characters; your best shot would be to hope for a killing blow from the manticore, but that would be a gamble.

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:50 pm
by Ehakir
You are right: if I face more than one unit of Wraiths I will have some problem. But most vampire players do not take more than one unit of wraiths (except for me when I'm bringing my ethereal army :P).
They often get carried away by the varghulf or blood knights in the region where I play, so the wraiths do not pose that much of a problem. Besides, I would be able to charge them in a way which means that they block the movement of his other units, denying him the charges even if he has vanhel's if he holds his wraiths in the neighbourhood of the GG-bunker. And when the wraiths are gone, it is just the matter of circling around the bunker and waiting for the right moment to charge in.
you will fail against well played daemon and vampire lists

True. Well played...

None of your units can challenge the bunker on their own

True. Combination is the key...

More OT: Yes, it is possible to be competative with less-magical to no-magical DE lists, but you will find some difficulties against some of the tournament lists that are around.
But would you be able to stop a vampire from re-raising all his troops if you have a scroll caddy? I don't think so. You would need to invest a lot of points in magic to negate the VC magic. You would need to go magic heavy yourself whilst the VC player has a lot of DD as well.

Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:45 pm
by Waerik
But would you be able to stop a vampire from re-raising all his troops if you have a scroll caddy? I don't think so. You would need to invest a lot of points in magic to negate the VC magic. You would need to go magic heavy yourself whilst the VC player has a lot of DD as well.

Indeed, there are two ways of combating ressing, the first, as you mentioned is going magic heavy yourself.

The second alternative is to 'grind' them down, i.e. to take a few units that are good in protracted combats; e.g. corsairs with SSS, witches and BG.

A grave guard bunker on the other hand is an entirly different issue; this is one of the reasons why I like the cauldron so much.

Corsairs, wiches, BG and the hydra have a very good chance of killingblowing a character if boosted by the cauldron (if you have a wide frontage on the infantry, so that you can get 3 in B2B contact, however note that you don't want a champion for this), executioners with +1 attack alos work wonders.

Once the BSB is taken out, you can multicharge the bunker as normal; the big issue with the regen banner is that you even are allowed to take regen saves on wounds caused by combat resolution!

Thus; IMO if you aim to have a magic less army, you need a good combination of punchy units (see Ehakir's list) and uints that are good in protracted combat.

Furthermore, it is not viable to field characters mounted on monsters, due to the ease with wich deamon lists can get the beast cowers.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 4:37 pm
by Buddylimbeck
I was not aware VC could take regen saves on CR wounds? i was under impression no saves where allowed on the CR wounds?
MR 2 on your DL and MR on any of your units that are your hammers while keeping them near the ring of hotek is a cheaper way to protect yourself from magic then buying expenisve scroll caddy's IMHO.
If you are worried about spells that are cast that the ring of hotek does not work for then putting that ring on a Master on DP can then help you get that ring near opponents casting....works awesome against VC seeings they have no shooting..i once made a level 1 Sorceress on DP with the ring of hotek and dispel scroll and she won me the game against VC

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 6:45 pm
by Willowdark
The undead rule in the VC book only specifically states that no Armour saves can be taken against CR wounds. I think most people take this to mean that wards and regen saves are legal.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:42 pm
by Dyvim tvar
If you know who you are fighting, it is certainly possible (and it can be advisable in some case) to go completely without magic.

Looking at a tournament environment, I think you can certainly get away with having no casters. This can actualyl give you an advantage when fighting against enemies who are tooled-up to defend against enemy magic since all those scrolls and other accoutrements will be wasted points for them. Of course, you will suffer if you end up facing a truly magic-heavy list. So there is a definite gamble involved, and it is pretty certain that you won't go undefeated in a tournament since there's a good chance you'll run into Vampire Counts at least once ...

If you are going to go no-magic in a tournament, there are a few guidelines I think you should follow:

1) Use a fast, combat-oriented army. Since lots of spells can't be cast into combat, being in combat is one way to defend against them. A fast army will get into combat quickly and will also have some inherent mage-hunting ability as a result of that speed.

2) Related to the point above, have at least 4 units that can be used as disposable screens to protect more valuable targets from the worst of the damage-dealing spells. Harpies and Dark Riders.

3) Should be a no brainer here, but ... use the Ring of Hotek!

4) Have a character with a magic weapon on a flying mount who can engage and defeat wraiths.

willowdark wrote:The undead rule in the VC book only specifically states that no Armour saves can be taken against CR wounds. I think most people take this to mean that wards and regen saves are legal.


Correct. This is a change from the prior version of the VC book -- ward saves can now be taken.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 8:37 pm
by Waerik
If you are worried about spells that are cast that the ring of hotek does not work for then putting that ring on a Master on DP can then help you get that ring near opponents casting....works awesome against VC seeings they have no shooting..i once made a level 1 Sorceress on DP with the ring of hotek and dispel scroll and she won me the game against VC

The ring is however not effective against invocation of nehek, since it is cast on one dice.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 10:35 pm
by Brokenstone
so that is the small loss against stronger magic, some things will get through, but as been said before, VC are probably the hardest army to take on without any magic. They control so much more of the table if they go unchallenged. Not as much of it is directly threatening, as it is strong support to their relatively weak units. And their strong ones.

You needs piles of dispell dice if you really want to stop the VC from taking control of that part of the game because of the manner in which those spells work. Although, taking the Crystal of Midnight against a couple of lower Ld undead can make a difference, but its cost is the biggest chance you can take, fills up pts for a hero and may not be at all usefull

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 10:44 pm
by Dyvim tvar
Personally, I think Crystal of Midnight is too much of a gamble. Assuming the Leadership test is failed, there is no guarantee that you get rid of a spell your opponent really cares about. Great if it works, but you only have one shot. Plus it's 35 points -- more than the Ring of Hotek which is far better and on a Hero it pretty much ties up your entire item allowance.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:42 pm
by Brokenstone
Yeah, that is why it is the most gamble based effort, which is essentially everything we go into, but it is a bigger gamble than some others. And the loss is that it doesn't cut down their casting dice, so against VC, if it does work, they will just be more commited with another spell. I was just thinking of you want to go really counter the magic, that is one of the few tools in our belt if we don't take your own magic

Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 6:57 am
by Ehakir
Assuming the Leadership test is failed, there is no guarantee that you get rid of a spell your opponent really cares about.


I think as well that the Ring is much better than the crystal, but in some way they complement each other. I use the crystal often to get rid of the semi-hard spells, like a D6 S5 MM for instance. I do not use it on a Vampire Lord to cancel out his Invocation, as he already has a 50% chance to pass the Ld-test with his Ld 10.
Against vampires, I would use it against a necromancer (ivocation, raise dead and vanhel's are all great spells to suck away, and often the necro's do have only one spell: vanhel's, against which the ring does not work very well) or a vampire. You have a high (83,8%) chance of him failing the test, and then you will suck up ivocation, raise dead, or one of the other irritating necromancy spells.
Another great use is against DoC: the 10-man horror units who aren't able to cast anymore...

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 11:31 pm
by Krystalice2020
I find that with these new dark elves I can either play completely without magic or totally magic heavy, never in between. I primarily go without magic with this list and others rather similar.

Dread Lord- heavy armour, SDC, Cold One, Lance, Hydra blade, Potion of strength, PoK (Inverse save)

5 CoK- full command with null talisman and warbanner

Master- Seal of Ghrond, HA, SDC, Shield, Sword of might

13 Black Guard- Full command, Dread Banner, ring of hotek.

20 warriors - Shield

20 Warriors - Shield

5 Harpies

5 Harpies

Assassin- 2 HW, Rune of Khaine, Manbane

5 Shades - great weapons

10 crossbowmen

War Hydra

War Hydra

That's all 2000.

The black guard, flanked by the warriors, form the battle line.
The harpies screen their advance and work to destroy any archers, warmachines, or characters on foot, then they block marches.
The Shades are joined by the assassin only if there are too many characters/machines/archers for the shades and harpies to take care of. Otherwise the assassin hides in some warriors.
The CoK with the Dreadlord, acconpanied by the hydras, charge down one flank and shatter about 2 units/turn for the rest of the battle.

Hammer and Anvil at its finest.

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:32 am
by Darthken
ive had good success with a non magic army

its my monster list, containing a dragon, manitcore and hydra.

dreadlord has 3 null talismans, sword of might and PoK
master on the manti has RoH and whip of agony.

the 3 monsters stay together to take advantage of the RoH

2 units of DR with xbows, xbowmen, bolt throwers, some shades with an assassin

the rest of the army just harrasses and annoyes while the big guys get stuck in.

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:44 pm
by Pops71408
I, like darthken have had great success with a monster army, though different from his. The only thing i have for magice defense is the RoH. this hasn't been too much of a problem even agains VC. I hit hard and fast. Last time I played VC with this list, I charged a unit of 20 skellies w/ his general on the second turn and wiped it out. I had won the game by turn 4. I hit to hard and fast and i target mages because i have no magic defense beyond that