Been away a long time, getting back to my Druchii roots...

[Archamedius]

Hey guys, long time no see. I used to play back in the days of Storm of Chaos before having a kid and needing a long break. The kid is old enough to play now and I am able to get back into the game (Both 40k and Fantasy). So I unpacked my Druchii but after some perusal I noticed that my army which was setup as Cult of Slaanesh can't be played that way anymore. So anyone have any suggestions for a returning COS player?

I really enjoyed the play style of Cult of Slaanesh with devoted and mauraders tying up units and my bad ass Druchii Annointed on a Steed of Slaanesh character hunting or flanking units and mowing things down. But as I understand it, that entire army list is illegal these days. I was kinda thinking of rekitting my army with a couple hydras (I was always sad panda that you could not have hydras in a COS list), dropping the Bolt Throwers and adding a fat block of Corsairs with the Sea Serpent Standard. Maybe a Cauldron too.

I liked the play style of devoted, and lots of magic with a good character to go toe to toe with other massive beatsticks. He was able to use magic to heal himself too which I always loved.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to go now?

[Jvh792]

Well I didn't play back then... What kind of models do you have? Maybe you can post a link to some pictures of them? The best advice I can offer short of that would be to use them as "converted" or proxied units.
Corsairs are cool, and the new models are amazing. They don't do so great against high toughness or heavily armored troops without support from cauldron (killing blow) or magic. Shadow magic works well with them. Mind razor chews through high armor save troops and withering goes through low armor high toughness troops.
If you're looking to completely retool your army, I would say pick a theme that you really like and go from there. Read some battle reports to see what works and what doesn't.
A cool theme if you wanted to stick with the corsairs could be a mobile raiding party using corsairs, crossbowmen, dark riders, shades, bolt throwers, hydras, harpies and any other fluffy type of stuff you enjoy.
But if you prefer winning to fluff, our spearmen are some of the best core troops for the points out there. Can't go wrong with a ton of those.
But ya, post some pics so we can see what we can salvage from your old army.

[Saintofm]

Always good to have another old school player in our midst.

Welcolm to the party.

[Archamedius]

I have the following:

1 Half Metal Half Plastic Dragon assembled (Currently missing the rider, he's just not turned up yet)

1 Assassin

2 Sorceresses on foot

A Battle Standard Bearer (Male, heavy armor)

Approximately 20 or so spearmen (Plastic)

20 RXB elves (Plastic)

38 or so corsairs (the last metal models they made)

8 or 10 cold one knights

10 executioners

30ish Witch Elves (Devoted)

12 Shades

2x Cold One Chariots, (one is pretty busted up, would require some serious work to fix, was considering just scrapping it for bits)

1x Hydra and beast masters

2x Repeater Bolt Throwers

12 Marauders

6 Daemonettes on Steeds of Slaanesh

1 Druchii Annointed on Steed of Slaanesh

The only unit I am not impressed with that I have is the unit of Executioners. Elves crumple so easily they need to go first to do their damage. I read somewhere about using them with a BSB and the Banner that gives them "Always strikes first" but I also read you needed to give them an initiative boost in conjunction with that, or they would still be sub par infantry. Is initiative 5 not good enough to take down other elite troops? (Chosen, Black Orcs, Savage Orcs, etc.) Do you still run from those squads with elves? If I do use a BSB with the ASF Banner, do I have to use a Hag? What are her advantages over a Noble with Great Weapon, heavy armor, and Sea Dragon Cloak? He's Initiative 7, WS 6 Str 6 2 W 3 attacks, that's not bad for 152 points right? He lines up strength wise with the unit and can help them do their jobs (can openers)

I am tempted to look into some Black Guard, but I am not sure they are worth it. I understand they are supposed to be an anvil unit, but their save is just abysmal for an anvil unit. That said, do we even have an anvil unit? I understand they are virtually unbreakable but it still seems like they are going to fall over to a unit that can dish out damage, and corsairs actually seem like they would fair better against shooting than black guard.

Thanks for the help folks!

[Calisson]

1 Dragon => dragonlord is nice

1 Assassin => nice with star/manbane

2 Sorceresses on foot => nice, 1 lvl4 + 1 lvl2

A Battle Standard Bearer (heavy armor) => not that useful, too squishy

20 or so spearmen => Better increase over 25

20 RXB elves => Either 1 or 2 units

38 or so corsairs => nice, esp with COB and/or Shadows

8 or 10 cold one knights => nice

10 executioners => no use whatsoever, you'd need to increase to 30 and get a COB

30ish Witch Elves => nice (esp. in slaaneshi variant )

12 Shades => 2 units of 6 nice

2x Cold One Chariots => nice

1x Hydra => nice

2x Repeater Bolt Throwers => usable, depends on your list

12 Marauders => could make unit fillers for spearmen

6 Daemonettes on Steeds of Slaanesh => could proxy DR

1 Druchii Annointed on Steed of Slaanesh => would be nice if proxied pegasus master

The only unit I am not impressed with that I have is the unit of Executioners. ... If I do use a BSB with the ASF Banner, do I have to use a Hag?
=> yes, only Khainite can join khainite units.

Black Guard => nice, but need 20 of them

[Setomidor]

Welcome back Archamedius!

Your list of models is actually quite perfect for today's meta game, and it should be easy to use your Steeds of Slaanesh as Dark Riders and your Anointed as a Pegasus rider. Pegasi are really great in this edition, since they give you fly, 3 Wounds, +1AS and T4 for a mere 50 points.

Executioners are actually quite good - if you bring enough of them. 30 - 40 of them (360 - 480 points) will be able to suffer quite some casualties and still kill a lot despite striking last. The Hag is the only character that can join Executioners (due to the Khainite rule), so she has to carry the ASF banner if you want them to strike at I5. Personally I think the Execs are resilient enough with WS5 and 5++ from the CoB and I rather put the extra points on more Executioners than a BSB with the ASF banner (you get 10 more execs for the same price). However, opinions vary and some people prefer bringing fewer but with ASF-support.

You're dead on about the Black Guard, on paper they make good anvils but their costs and low resilience makes them very expensive for this role. Many use Spearmen instead: 20 BG (which is the maximum size ) will set you back around 300 points, and for the same amount of points you get 50 Spearmen. Spearmen are also Stubborn as long as they have more ranks than the enemy (and 10 ranks is quite many), and can be reformed into decent fighting units as well. If you want to use Black Guard they make a very good Hammer unit when combined with Shadow magic; probably even THE best unit in the game when boosted with Occam's Mindrazor (Shadow spell #6). In fact, this combination is border-lining broken and if you attend tournaments you will probably see it restricted in one way or another.

[Archamedius]

So General on Pegasus is good now? Do you do Noble or Dread Lord?

Mind razor: So I've heard a LOT about it lately, and the attitude up at my FLGS is that it's Beardy-broken in a dark elf army. I generally try to go against the grain a bit with my armies, I would prefer to setup a list that is outside the box but still competitive. How bad is Mind Razor, is it really that broken, and does the community as a whole look at it with this same light (that it's beardy-broken) or does my FLGS just have an extra butt-hurt view of the spell in conjunction with witch elves or corsairs.

[Setomidor]

Either is good, it depends on your pointslevel. For 2400 pts it's hard to fit both a Lvl4 mage and a Dreadlord on Pegasus inside 600 pts, but it can be done at 2500 pts since you then can spend 625pts on Lords. A Lvl4 mage is more or less mandatory if you want to be reasonably competitive, the only alternative is a Dragon list where you can try to jump his Lvl4 mage early on to even the field.

As you probably know Mindrazor lets you use your LD instead of Strenght in close combat, which in our case means most units strike with S8-10. (A recent FAQ answer even let you use your generals LD-value). 14 Witch Elves (about 150 pts) deployed 7 wide will output 28 S8-10, I6, WS4 attacks with Hatred and Poison during the first turn of combat. Needless to say, anything standing in the way of that will die. What makes Occam's so great with Dark Elves is partly that our troops have good number of Attacks, high Initiative, and Hatred, but the primary reason is that Dark Elves are allowed to use unlimited amount of dice when casting spells. The above mentioned Witch Elf unit will probably struggle beating any decent combat unit if the spell doesn't go through, making the casting of Occam's make or break for that unit. However, being able to chuck 8+ dice at a single spell usually makes sure it happens.

Played straight out of the rulebook I'd probably say Dark Elves and Shadow magic are natively broken. If Dark Elves were limited to a maximum of six dice per spell, then it would be a really strong combo, but not broken. In many tournaments, a maximum of five dice can be used to cast spells (and this also includes Dark Elves), and under these conditions it's a decent choice for competitive play, but you're probably down to about 50-50% at best to get the spell through when considering a) meeting the casting value, b) not having it dispelled, and c) not having it removed by a Dispel Scroll when it really matters. Even more extreme, some rules (like the commonly used ETC restrictions) only allow four dice to be used for Shadow, and then relying on this combination is no longer a viable tactic.

[Archamedius]

So can you game competitively outside Mind Razor?

I am not familiar with the other shadow spells, is it still a good lore outside mind razor? I recall there being some other spells that buff units. Should I be concerned about buffing my units? Or should I focus on a school like death and/or Dark?

[Trax]

Shadow is still more than useful with Miasma, Enfeebling and Withering for debuffs and Pit of Shades for damage (steed and pendulum are kinda useless mostly, though) Buffing you're units won't be too easy though, since the "evil" spell lores lack buffing spells. I'd really love to use life, heaven and beasts sometimes, but oh well. The "buffiest" lore there is for us is the lore of metal, which is kinda nice since it counters the thing most DE units struggle with: High AS targets (even more so if you don't want to use Mindrazor)

[Setomidor]

Shadow is great once you reach combat, the biggest drawback is that most of the spells are combat buffs so you might struggle to force your opponent into using his Dispel scroll early on, which in turn makes your combat buffs easier to avoid once you hit combat. Death is great at sniping characters and can easily force your opponent to use his scroll early on, but once things reach combat it is less potent and have few spells that help you win combat. Neither of the Lores contain any Magic missiles, which can also be a problem since they are very useful to remove selected enemy units.

What I would recommend as a starting point is a Lvl4 Death/Shadow and a Lvl2 Metal sidekick. I have found that to be a good mix of ranged damage and combat buffs, while Pit of Shades/Purple Sun are great at dealing with Low Initiative stuff such as Ogres or Nurgle Daemons.

The bottom line with 8th ed Magic is that your opponent usually can stop one spell, so you need at least two really good spells to threaten him during any phase of the game. Occam's + Withering/Enfeeble foe for combat. Searing Doom/Spirit Leech, Curse of Laniph for range, and so on.

[Omnichron]

The reason mindrazor is viewed as game breaking is that the horde/death star strategies suddenly gets crushed just because of one spell... in those regards, yes the mindrazor is broken. It IS way too good for us as we have high LD, plenty of attacks and hatred, however if our opponents played less 1+ armor lists, it wouldn't be such a big problem...

What good is witch elves with mindrazor against a skink list or other shooty armies? Or against MSU lists that can strike fast and hard in their rounds? Or something that takes care of our casters within the first two rounds of the battle?

To be brutally honest, I think that those who whine about how mindrazor is overpowered, should rethink lists/strategies a bit. I'd take on a mindrazor list with all my DE/VC lists any day.

The reason shadow is a great lore is the other spells... Those few times I've been at unrestricted shadow, I've used the miasma, withering, pit and mindrazor (in that order) the most, with a little hint of enfeebling foe (Which is great to have sometimes!).

[Cobra]

A cauldron of blood might be a good investment it works really well with witches and corsairs.

killing blow for high as units

extra attack if you are going for that nail in the coffin mind razor

ward save for their squshyness

it really works well with most DE troops though IMO really a staple in my army and alot of other DE players

[Jvh792]

Black guard and harpies. My two favorite units. Death and dark magic are also great. Fire for toughness 3 opponents. Also good. Metal for bretonians and chaos.

[Trax]

it really works well with most DE troops though IMO really a staple in my army and alot of other DE players

"Staple" is a little bit of an exaggeration since you do need some troops worthwhile of its blessing, but yeah, you should definitely own a Cauldron if you do want to build some diverse

[Cobra]

I dont usually leave home without it really good value imo some people like it less then me I guess.

[Trax]

I didn't want to downplay its value, it's just a buff unit in nature and if you don't have troops to back it up it's kinda useless so I only add it to my army lists after I put some decent buff targets in it. If you want to tiptoe around your opponent 90% of the game you will most likely not get your points out of it (even more so since hero allocation tends to be a little full with each peg hero and sorceress clocking in at about 200p).

[Cobra]

Yeah I would agree that its not worth it in a avoidance list.