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I'll begin this post by stating that I'm quite fond of “Death Stars*,” I love the all-your-eggs-in-1-basket approach, it suites my play style very well. Shades are now one of the best all-around unit types in the game with an amazingly powerful shooting and combat skill, so naturally they drew my attention and I began theorizing about army builds to include them as a primary combat unit.
*NOTE: a “Death Star” refers to any unit that is so massive and expensive and powerful that it takes damned near the entire enemy army to defeat it, if it is possible to defeat at all. Typically this unit includes most if not all the army’s characters and a very large (more than double standard size) number of models.
I've chosen to build an army around one large block of 50 warriors who will attempt to become nearly impervious to all attacks. Of course making a unit (especially dark elves) indestructible is impossible, but I'm trying my best to minimize the dangers posed by the most common units.
I begin with a selection of 45 Shades that will be the basis for the force; they will carry Great Weapons and light armor and a champion. They are capable of unloading a deadly volley in all directions each turn and are extremely accurate even while moving and at long range and using multi-shot! One big unit means that they can be very close together to minimize the enemy's ability to draw them off and they can still fire with every shot being skirmishers.
I then add in characters to complete the formula. The biggest threat will be charges from armored warriors who can quickly destroy my shades before I have a chance to strike back, so I take a BSB with the ASF banner. This means that all characters and shades that can align to the enemy will strike first in nearly every situation. With great weapons that'll be a huge threat to any potential chargers.
Next I need psychological protection/offense. With such an expensive force the last thing I want to happen is see my warriors flee from a Terror-causer or break from combat because they lost by 1 point to a outnumbering fear-causing unit! I'd also hate to barely win by a point or two in a crucial combat and not be able to break my enemy due to lack of static CR. So my 2nd character is a master with Pearl of Blackness and Gem of Nightmares.
Third I need magic defense. 2nd Gen Slaan and Vampire hordes are a huge threat. Dark Elf sorceresses with their nearly limitless PD and Tzeentch caster hordes can all cause massive damage to light troops like these, so I add in my final two characters. A Dread Lord with 3 Null Talismans & a Master with Ring of Hotek. Together they make the Shades nearly impervious to magic as low level spells are likely to bounce off harmlessly from MR(3) and higher level spells will quite possibly miscast. In addition this will worry casters who try to cast at nearby support units or to cast spells once I close with the enemy. 3/4 of my army is immune to magic or darned close and I can even prevent them from casting spells upon their own soldiers for fear of losing their expensive wizards. It's a major win against heavy magic.
Against shooting I would really like to be able to use a rink of Darkness and if the ruling on Null Talismans goes the way I hope then I will be able to add the ring of darkness to my Lord in addition to the Null's, but for now I'll forgo the shooting defense and just hope my skirmish ability and range will prevent excessive casualties.
ASF troops will be a danger, but not to me; with the new ruling that all ASF goes in initiative order no matter charging or great weapons. With this change my characters with their ridiculously high initiative values will strike with strength 6 before the enemy and slaughter them before they can draw their weapons.
Monsters and chariots are handled well by the assassin with his rending stars and Manbane he can easily destroy chariots with s7 or slaughter dragons with stand and shoot reactions and then quick work from his 4 attacks at s6!
Ethereal and forest spirit units are immune to mundane attacks, but my use of 2-3 high strength weapons with ASF will prevent these enemies from gaining any advantage. Their charge will be met by 7 s6 attacks with re-rolls resulting in few if any survivors to attack my non-magical warriors.
50 shades with double shot are around 100 shots per volley. These fellas can annihilate whole units in one volley and if the enemy is nice enough I'll get a free round of shooting in their turn as they charge me and allow me a stand-and-shoot reaction! (I doubt the enemy will try this more than once though).
My support is no joke either. Hydras can add an element of fear to the army as they are tough to deal with requiring dedication to kill that would normally be focused on the Shade-star. Harpies have what it takes to remove those really annoying enemy artillery pieces and non-ballistic skill missile units. Dark riders can quickly divert and kill enemy support units.
The army has performed very well with approximately 70% wins. Though with only 1 tournament under my belt my tactics haven't been perfected to the point where I have won any awards.
So now that the army has a proper explanation of its uses here is the list.
Code: Select all
Sylvan Stalkers
A Dark Elves Army By Aaron Chapman
240 Pts “Malaruil” War Lord (Dreadlord)
General; Repeater Crossbow
Soulrender; Armour of Darkness; Pearl of Infinite Bleakness; Guiding Eye
164 Pts “Casavan” Herald of the Forest (Master)
Great Weapon; Repeater Crossbow; Heavy Armour; Sea Dragon Cloak; Shield
Battle Standard; Banner of Hag Graef
149 Pts “Firyr” Bringer of Darkness (Master)
Great Weapon; Repeater Crossbow; Heavy Armour; Sea Dragon Cloak; Shield
Null Talismans (x3)
150 Pts “Rahlian” Beast Master (Master)
Repeater Crossbow; Heavy Armour; Sea Dragon Cloak; Shield
Whip of Agony; Ring of Hotek
151 Pts “Karail” Dragon Stalker (Dark Elf Assassin)
2nd Hand Weapon; Manbane; Rending Stars
738 Pts 40 Sylvan Knights (Shades)
“Ferarahd” Sylvan Seneschal (Bloodshade)
Great Weapon; Repeater Crossbow
117 Pts 5 Horned Ones Riders (Dark Riders)
Spear; Repeater Crossbow; Light Armour; Musician
117 Pts 5 Horned Ones Riders (Dark Riders)
Spear; Repeater Crossbow; Light Armour; Musician
117 Pts 5 Horned Ones Riders (Dark Riders)
Spear; Repeater Crossbow; Light Armour; Musician
66 Pts 6 Birds of Paradise (Harpies)
66 Pts 6 Birds of Paradise (Harpies)
175 Pts Salamander Pack (War Hydra)
2 Beastmasters; Beastmaster's Scourge
Casting Pool: 2 || Dispel Pool: 2 || Models in Army: 75 || Total Army Cost: 2250
Hero: 31% || Core: 21% || Special: 39% || Rare: 7% || Magic Items: 12%
This most recent list is lacking in missile defense as it only has long range, cover and skirmish negative modifiers available. I've had to give up the option for Ring of Darkness. But against the vast majority of armies this is not an issue as I'm usually able to kill enemy missile units with a single volly or take them out will support troops.
Now the biggest worry I have is of the template weaponry, these weapons be they guess range or breath can hit several of my warriors at once no matter my missile defense and I'd expect to suffer heavy losses. Of course I can easily deploy in a max spread to limit the warriors killed by these, but this also limits my range and angle of fire and charge due to spreading too far. This will be a constant battle for me, but hopefully I'll be able to perform the right maneuvers and create the right formations as the need arises.
I'm also concerned, but not fearful of magic-spam or indirect magic. I won't be shutting down Vampire magic, but i should be able to destroy an entire unit per turn allowing me to gain a decent advantage early game in reducing the enemy's overall strength. Area of Effect spells will totally slaughter me and I'm without any defense for these. Howler Wind has ruined one of my games as it protected the entire enemy army and prevented a stand and shoot reaction agaist a large number of charging units that would normally be destroyed with my shooting. I've pretty much accepted that without a complete revision these types of spells require a change in my typical game strategy and will force me to hang back much longer until the magic fails and I've got an opening.
I'm also in trouble if playing an anvil-dwarf army where I have limited options for protecting myself from their runic-warfare. I'll likely need to try my best to hit the anvil early with light troops and hope to hold it still for a full turn until my shades can close with the enemy for a deadly volley/combat.
As for play style I have two obvious options...
#1: I can move slowly forward shooting to the best of my ability destroying expensive troops at range then moving in turn 5 or 6 for the final kill as the enemy gets desperate to gain some points.
or
#2: I could surge forward forgoing shooting in an attempt to close with the enemy by turn 2 or 3 and then annihilate them in close combat spending the remaining turns cleaning up the surrounding enemy units with either combat or shooting.
Both ways work well and so far shooting them and forcing them to charge me works the best as it gives me the largest number of rounds of shooting and combat, playing into my strengths! I mean if every time you were charged by the enemy it essentially meant you got a free round of shooting for the whole army (S-&-S) and a free charge on them (due to ASF) wouldn't you think their charges were something wonderful!? In a moment of weakness and desperation the enemy might give up a potential draw in hopes that a hasty charge could win the game, which would never happen without divine intervention of the dice gods.
However most battles require a combination of play styles or a threat to do one or the other and then change when the enemy reacts to my style. Starting with turn 1-2 shooting and making minimal moves gets them frustrated. they will either hide or rush forward or do a little of both in order to prevent the worst of my shooting from hurting their best units. this means that I'll usually have to decide if turns 3-4 are going to be combat or shooting. If they send small pieces of their army towards me I'll go for combat as it is very decisive. but if several units rush forwards I'll just back up and give a few more vollies from my crossbows. The end game is very important as I must make sure that I don't get drug into unwinnable combats with unbreakable or uber-fighters. If these guys move towards me I'll slink back into the woods and try to weaken them with missile fire. It's a deadly cat-&-mouse game that must be played and i must make sure I've got options for moving into combat with, shooting and avoiding the enemy. If I don't have multiple options a good opponent will box me in and take me down with multiple charges from strong units.
This has been my first Dark Elf Army and it's quite fun, but very difficult to use effectively when faced with experienced opponents. I'm fallen flat onmy face a few times and have completely crushed my opponents a few times. So I'm slowly learnignthe details of the army and avoiding the traps. My first GT was Jan-2009 and I'll be adding to my tactical knowlege until the beginning of 2010 when I'll bring these babies back out for some GT destruction. Hopefully they'll be perfected by then and I'll bring news of glorious victories!
? 1 turn of rerolling those 5+ dice or even those 6+ dice against a large skirmishing unit? If you are shooting a large tough unit (dwarf warrior/hammerers for example) this will be a LARGE boost for only 25 pts...