Blade of darting steel: use a lance or a great weapon, that blade is horribly expensive and not worth it if you use it with anything different than armour of the gods (which gives you +1 to strength). People have made calculations and you kill as much with a GW than with those extra attacks.
That's not what the item does. You would be referring to the blade of leaping gold (+3 attacks), which is 15 points more than the item in question. Since I can't take that item on anything less than a lord (since it is over 50 points), it's not really relevant to the discussion.
Dragon armour: it's absolutely worthless unless in a unit of dragon princes, get heavy armour instead.
It's a point filler. What will I do with those 6 points otherwise? Likely nothing. Since I am planning on changing the list soon and implementing the suggestions of a couple of previous posters (who, I'll take the time to say, have been quite insightful and I thank you all for that), I will be dropping the dragon armor on the 2 unmounted commanders. The swordmaster to crystal swap also loses my free great weapon, so I need 4 points to pay for a halberd. Again, they fill points and I can lose them as necessary.
Think about a commander as banner standard bearer with the battle banner (for 80 pts you get +1D6 to combat resolution)...
Taking a BSB with the battle banner would cost more than taking a 4th hero, something you said was "too expensive". I also am limited to only ld8 then, since with 2 mages and 1 commander who is the BSB, if I roll 4, 5, or 6 on my I@C roll and get to choose my general, I can't choose the commander since he's BSB. Only rolling his designated number will make him the general, but since I usually don't rely on rolling 6+ saves, I won't rely on having him be my general (since they have an equal chance of happening).
Archers: drop them!!! they will never be worth their points, even less in tournaments.
More spears, 20, 24 work well with the kind of army you are trying.
Use more units of silver helms they are one of the best units we have, you could get a hammer with 10 s.helms, and a pair of small units of 5 or 6 silver helms to negate ranks.
Archers have to stay; I'm not trying to cheese out my list to make it indestructible (though I do want to be competitive). Though the majority of HE players tell me they suck, I have proven this wrong to myself again and again on the battlefield. They usually save me, since everyone has such a low opinion of them and gets careless with their fast cav/ scouts/ skirmishers/ etc. and ends up losing them. Even if people did give them the respect they deserve, they still make sure my flanks are safe from fast units with low armor. As with any elven unit, use it right and it's well worth the cost (excpt LSG!
). The second two suggestions you gave were both completely antithesis to MSU, which this list is a synthesis of. Though not pure MSU by any stretch, the synthesis comes in with having lots of small units and flankers at the expense of other things, like huge units. No unit is larger than 16 and that's for spearmen, which some people (apparently you included) count as being quite small.
Special:
drop the bows of the reavers, they are good, but too high cost for what they do.
SMasters: they are better charging the flanks of the enemy, so 15 or 12 with a champion and perhaps a musician could be good. No standard.
Think about tiranoc chariots, they are not the best chariots, but you haven't got much options either.
Think also about dragon princes.
Reavers with bows and spears cost just as much as DRs with the same equipment, yet few people say they're too high cost for that... I'm not using my reavers as a flanking unit in the majority of situations, unless I really need to. In that case, missile weapons would befit them for the majority of the game, since they won't be in combat with much more than WM crews.
Swordmasters are unlike other GW units. Though I fully agree that execs, greatswords, and all those units who use GWs are best in units of 10 or 12, swordmasters are the exception. Why? Because they strike in I order, which means they usually go first unless charging. They're easily a powerful combat unit on their own, which is something I'm in need of as I only have the spearmen otherwise.
I did think about chariots and DPs, but referring back to one of your earlier comments, I like to keep it cheap. SHs are the poor man's DP and they do their job just as well, except in certain specal circumstances when you absolutely need that +1M or extra WS/I. Generally I don't, since elves (all types) are probably the fastest race in the game. 26 ppm also would require some serious removal of units, as opposed to any of the suggestions you gave which would all cost more points.
I'll stay away from a.org, thanks. These boards are better in terms of the race they're dedicated to and HE are more than close enough to DE that the same tactics apply. People don't realize how similar they are in terms of cost and ability; HE archers are supposedly crap, yet for 1 point less you get 6" shorter range on DE archers, who supposedly don't. Now, multishot and LA kind of make up for this, but it puts them on about equal footing. All cav armies and shooty/ magic armies do tend to do best, that's for certain. I never said I wanted any of the above, though. I'm not out to win every GT I can find (though it would be nice to win 1 or 2
), and I'm not out to do it with a cliche cav list.
**EDIT**
Well, I know dragon prince hasn't been polite, but... in fact... it's a rather pityful list as far as I'm concerned. Even more if you try to use it in tournaments.
Just thought I should address this too; it's not that I'm closed to criticism or negative replies. In fact, yours was relatively critical and negative in terms of the list, which I'm fine with. However, you didn't end your post with just that quote, whereas DP would have. It's not a matter of politeness of correctness, but rather what you suggest. I don't mind answering to negative reviews of my list (after all, I can't expect to please everyone), but the fact that you gave a rhyme and reason as well as alternate suggestions is enough for me. It's just the 2 sentence "this list sucks. change it" posts that really annoy me.
"We are the most civilized race in the world. We have more exquisite ways to kill than any other." -Lord Vraneth the Cruel, master of Har Ganeth
«The wonder has a name: pmpn8ez.»
). Any comments or criticisms are always appreciated.
