Hi,

I am starting Druchii, after some exploration of yours forum, specially Tactic and Army List. What I have seen is that the Battalion isn't worth to buy, because competitive list doesn't include the unit from the Battalion.

They include:
- Dark Rider
- Black Guard/Executionner/Witch Elves
- Harpies
- Hydra
- Repeater Bolt Thrower
- Repeater Crossbowmen (not the Spearmen)
- Shade

My main problem with that is that I must buy unit with full price, having not the Battalion Reduction Prize. (Yes I know Ebay and other net shop, that isn't my point).

A lot of view but no respond. No body have any comment?

The Crossbowmen and Spearmen are actually the same sprue, so that's not a problem there. Corsairs are a personal choice in many cases, some love them, some hate them. The Cold One Knights are not the worst thing to own, and the models *are* rather spectacular.

Everything else you list is metal, not plastic. You can convert it from plastic though, and the spearmen models with parts from the Cold One Knights can make spectacular looking Black Guard when a bit of work is put in.

Hi mate, Yeah I get what you're saying, the DE Battalion box isn't really an amazing purchase, especially when you compare it to, say the VC box... anyway if your going to start any new army, you'll be looking at around £250 British pounds for a 2250-2500 pt list, the dark elves are going to be quite metal heavy as corsairs and cold ones aren't a staple of many lists! (They are very useable though so please don''t rule them out!). 2 boxes of Warriors will make you 32 figures, 20 for a nice fully ranked spearmen unit and 10 for crossbowmen. you could save a bit of money by getting a box of glade riders and converting them rather than Dark Riders. Black Guard is pretty essential, at least 14. Try Ebay, always a good buy.

First off, I might say that you don't really pose a question, problem or anything, so it's not really that easy to respond to anything...

That being said I disagree. I believe most armies if tweaked correctly can be competitive. I also think it's an interesting point that GW should make an "ideal" army box so people can start up... it would make everything far to generic...

Now for the battalion box or playing competitively I think warriors play a great part once you understand to play a warhammer army and not just several warhammer units. Warriors can ad much needed SCR (static combat resolution), and are rather ideal for this. Knowing how to use your army for combining ACR (active combat resolution through kills) and SCR is vital to playing competitive imho. Therefor spear warriors are not useless. CoK are by far not and it surprises me that you don't mention them as being competitive (when you list entries such as RBTs, exes and witches). Corsairs are a so so option imho, but can be far more effective than witches with the SSS as they then have frenzy but also some armor. However they can easily be converted to spear warriors...

I agree with Xerasi mostly. CoK are really usefull! That they can go stupide is annoing but they are, exept for hydra and executeners (who have lover movement and amoursave), our only hard hitters. In my armie they are in every time and allway worth it.
Corsairs with SSS are defenitly not to be generally ruled out. If you like RxB or speermen better, both are usefull and often the backbone of an armie.
There are a bit to much core choices in the battalion IMO, but otherwise by no means useless,and for me the battalion was wort it.

No part of the Battalion is bad.

Those boxes are not meant to put a tournament level army in your hands. They're meant to give you a backbone of a nice army and save you money while doing so.

In the end:
12 Warriors
16 Crossbowmen
20 Corsairs
and
5 Knights

Is a really good start of an army.
Add one box of warriors to flesh out the warriors and crossbowmen into two 20s (and still have bits left) and you have a solid backbone for an army.

I got the batallion as a start with a few extras I picked up off craigslist, it was the perfect start. I am converting the rest of the things I need, but I'd have to agree with the others, CoK are useful and can actually fulfill a few different roles.

My favorite part about the batallion is that you end up with plenty of extra bits for conversions down the line (especially if you decide you don't want to use one of the units...so many bits)

Agreed totally. The only real problem with it is that it doesn't have the last couple of guys to make 20 warriors and 10 crossbowmen. Other than that, the contents are fine to make the basis of a competitive DE army.

Someone gave me a battalion box and I literally sighed. All I was thinking was, I guess I've got to make the most of these units which I didn't really need and now I've got to assemble them and paint them too. It worked out well though, and despite my corsairs being a bunch of gimps the warriors have done well for themselves.

I guess some people want the battalion sets to be a basis for a tournament level army.

Well they're not. They're supposed to promote new plastic models.
Hence why it's so Corsair (20!) heavy and has knights in it!
Warriors are there since funnily they are our only other plastics and something had to fill the gap (more corsairs or knights wouldn't look so good even if more knights would be more than welcome)

Totally agree with Dalamar and Tzelock, I started back with DEs with a batallion, and it was perfect start. That's what the boxes are designed to be, a starting point.

But not everything is a total dud in the box. CoKs are a viable but underplayed unit, if you con't like corsairs then use them as the basis for shades or buy some WE glade riders and you have all plastic dark riders, and spearmen are pretty much an auto-include in an army that has the Sacrificial Dagger.

I want you to look at the battalion boxes for all the other other armies. You might notice a pattern. They all include a boatload of core, and maybe a special choice. It should not be a surprise that ours includes corsairs, spears/crossbows, and knights.

Order some extra shields online and you can do 20 shielded RXB from the corsairs and 28 spears with the rest. Alternately put some of the corsair torsos on the CoK mounts (having bent the capes with a candle flame), and you can make your own DR on swift, non stupid CO. CoK torsos on Corsair legs with a GS skirt can be the basis for a BG conversion.