What are the Druchii's main Weaknesses?

[Prince fabulas]

What do you see as our main Weaknesses?

1) I find susceptibility to shooting.

2) Low toughness.

3) Magic defense can be a problem without the ring.

Or if they can kill the bearer or pull him/her away from the rest of the army (usually using hatred).

I found in magic heavy DE builds that magic defense was a problem even with DD and Null Talismans.

Because if a spell got through (e.g. D6/2D6 S3/S4/S5) it could cause
serious damage.

4) Difficulty in facing heavily armoured troops (e.g. chaos warriors, Empire/chaos Knights) for most of our infantry.

Your thoughts would be appreciated,

Thanks

[Red...]

Basically I agree with all of these. A few ameliorating hints though

1) I find susceptibility to shooting.

Bring low cost troops (e.g. warriors), take higher armour save troops (e.g. corsairs) take the cauldron (5+ ward saves) or ring of darkness (BS halved against unit).

2) Low toughness.

Yeah, its a bummer, but with the proliferation of ASF great weapons and S6 or S7 cavalry charges, even T4 is a bit lame these days, so we're not that much badly off than others.

3) Magic defense can be a problem without the ring.

Really? we have null talismans and the seal of ghrond (can be given to a non-magic user) as well as the traditional scrolls and staff of sorcery etc. Successful magic against T3 is always painful, no matter the army...

4) Difficulty in facing heavily armoured troops (e.g. chaos warriors, Empire/chaos Knights) for most of our infantry.

Cauldron and Banner of ASF work wonders, particularly for exectioners against this type of foe...



I'll add one more:

Lack of reliable heavy cavarly. Cold Ones are great, but move 7 and stupidity makes them veritably unreliable. Dark Riders are great, but not heavy cavarly. The sad truth is that to reliably get the charge with a unit of cold ones takes a lot more manoeuvring and good playing than is needed for say dragon princes...

[Mr_piechee]

I think that 1 and 2 are the same thing, and i don't agree with 3 and 4. however deathknight has added another good one, stupid hard hitters. Both chariots and CoK aren't reliable enough, however this is somewhat balanced out but hydra's (hydree?) and character mounts. Its not quite a replacement, since they require characters or are rare, but in most situations is ok.

I'm sure there are other weaknesses, but really its only the T3.

[Rork]

Low toughness? No. Average toughness? Yes.

While it can be a downside against armies with a lot of S4, you're far from having low toughness (Ask a zombie ).

[Venkh]

To be honest, I domt think we have any real flaws in our list. We are nasty to face in every phase.

I would list our weaknesses as follows:
Area effect damage - Burning alignment etc
Auto hit weapons - Organ guns, dropped rocks
Template weapons - stone throwers & breath attacks.

Not much to be honest.

[Minsc]

Average toughness? Yes.

T4 is almost the norm nowadays in wfb.
T3 is considered low due to the large abundance of S4+ out there, and T3 will always be "low" eventhough it's average.

I'd consider our weaknesses as just low T elves with bad save overall.

To be honest, I domt think we have any real flaws in our list. We are nasty to face in every phase.

Agreed - We move fast, shoot much, magic alot and hit hard.

[Rugi]

Low points wise survivability. Altough T3 is the avarage, almost all elven trops pay a high price for model with low survivability.
That goes for HE to but we can have a more diverse list with a lot of mobile shooting and anoying units to minimize our weaknesses through the game.


Mod Edit: double post removed.

[Hainzy]

Hey All!

For me T3 seems to be a real problem due to the fact that all elves not just darkies can begin to melt away with low strength attacks whether it be shooting, magic or HtH.

Also as much as a strength as it is, hatred can also be a real weakness. If you happen to be playing against an particularly wiley opponent they can expliot hatred to draw out stuff think the ROH and fracture your battle line.

Just my 2c....

Cheers!
H

[Kargan daemonclaw]

Dark Elf spearmen represent excellent value for what they are.

How is Dark Elf magic defence worse than any other army that doesn't have access to a ring of Hotek?

You can't expect to shut down a high magic army all game. Besides DE have excellent strategies for dealing with enemy wizards. Harpies for hunting low level wizards in units. Hero's on monsters or unkillable BSBs for dealing with wizards on monsters or of a higher rank.

Executioners with banner of murder should be quite acapble of dealing with enemy infantry or armoured cavalry if they get to charge them. S6 and armour piercing will make a mess of just about anyone.

I agree that many of the DE infantry and especially the ever popular ASF Black Guard with champion with RoH are not good against 2+ save units, but then why would you be fighting them anyway.

[Venkh]

Also as much as a strength as it is, hatred can also be a real weakness. If you happen to be playing against an particularly wiley opponent they can expliot hatred to draw out stuff think the ROH and fracture your battle line.

I thought this when the book was being discussed before release. I think its harder for opponents to pull off than i thought. I think its generally because we tend to hold the initiative and destroy the enemies fast/agile units early in the game

[Red...]

deathknight has added another good one, stupid hard hitters. Both chariots and CoK aren't reliable enough, however this is somewhat balanced out but hydra's (hydree?) and character mounts. Its not quite a replacement, since they require characters or are rare, but in most situations is ok.

Thanks

Yes, I tend to use my hydra as a centre-flank flanker, as its reliable movement and hard hitting nature mean its great to get in the rear or flank of the enemy, where it is less exposed to enemy heroes and SCR issues... Sort of funny that a large, braying monster forced into battle at the lash of a whip is more reliable than the creme elite of the druchii nobility :/

Also as much as a strength as it is, hatred can also be a real weakness. If you happen to be playing against an particularly wiley opponent they can expliot hatred to draw out stuff think the ROH and fracture your battle line.

Yes, my friends who play high elves are particularly good at this - lone shadow warrior in the flank = black guard spending the next 3 turns trying to get back to where they started But yes, Venkh is mostly right. Our army is flexible and fast enough that this is generally easy to avoid - its more of an issue for me when I forget about it!

Agreed - We move fast, shoot much, magic alot and hit hard.

Someone once said to me that thing to remember about all elf armies is that they can dominate one or more of any area of the game, but our high costs means we can't do it all. So when DE bring magic, we dominate there. When we bring hard hitting infantry armies, we dominate there. When we bring fast cavalry and flying armies, we dominate there. When we bring shooty armies, we dominate there. And so on. But you can't have it all. Maybe our weakness is better summed up in that we can be strong in any part of the game, but doing so means we have to be weak in another part.

[Linkinhearts666]

Someone once said to me that thing to remember about all elf armies is that they can dominate one or more of any area of the game, but our high costs means we can't do it all. So when DE bring magic, we dominate there. When we bring hard hitting infantry armies, we dominate there. When we bring fast cavalry and flying armies, we dominate there. When we bring shooty armies, we dominate there. And so on. But you can't have it all. Maybe our weakness is better summed up in that we can be strong in any part of the game, but doing so means we have to be weak in another part.

Totally agree. As somebody said somewhere... DE is very much a "rock, paper, scissors" army. But i guess thats cool, cos it allows for versatility for dif games and u can still go for the win. As opposed to WoC which is like "fast magic" or yeah... ur pretty much screwed.

[Linkinhearts666]

Someone once said to me that thing to remember about all elf armies is that they can dominate one or more of any area of the game, but our high costs means we can't do it all. So when DE bring magic, we dominate there. When we bring hard hitting infantry armies, we dominate there. When we bring fast cavalry and flying armies, we dominate there. When we bring shooty armies, we dominate there. And so on. But you can't have it all. Maybe our weakness is better summed up in that we can be strong in any part of the game, but doing so means we have to be weak in another part.

Totally agree. As somebody said somewhere... DE is very much a "rock, paper, scissors" army. But i guess thats cool, cos it allows for versatility for dif games and u can still go for the win. As opposed to WoC which is like "fast magic" or yeah... ur pretty much screwed.

[Minsc]

You don't need to "dominate" any of the phases in order to be effective in them, and DE can be effective in every phase if they want too.
(Ask a WoC player to bring some shooty units, a dwarfplayer to bring some fast units, etc etc.)

My standardlist has:

For moving: 5 DR's, 5 Harpies, a Hydra, a unit of CoK's and eventually a CoC. Not the fastest army out there but it's still faster than most armies and certainly fast enough.

For shooting: 20x RxB's, 6 Shades and 5 DR's. Not really "dominating", but it sure is effective vs most armies.
(occasionally a RBT or 2 but it's 'rare'.)

For magic: Well, I'm not a magic nut so I only bring 2 lvl 2's usually (or just a scroll caddie), but with darkstar cloak they tend to get 1 or 2 spells of vs most opponents. Sure, it's not a devastating magicphase but it works.

For close combat: CoK, Executioners, Black Guard (with armourpiercing), a Hydra and a very angry Dreadlord.
Ontop of this there's 25-50 spears with shields, acting as fodder.

I'd call it semi shooty, semi fast, semi magic-ish and pretty hardhittinc in closecombat. Not dominating in the areas but got power in all 4 fields.

[Red...]

Totally agree. As somebody said somewhere... DE is very much a "rock, paper, scissors" army. But i guess thats cool, cos it allows for versatility for dif games and u can still go for the win. As opposed to WoC which is like "fast magic" or yeah... ur pretty much screwed.

Yeah, that's one reason its so much fun for sure will I go for a magi-gunline army today or an infantry fighting one? Maybe a super fast outmaneouvering army or a Malus led Cold One Smash. So many possibilities, both for me to build army lists with and for my opponent to try to cater for

Minsc,

I agree that what you've put together is a very balanced army, although I think you end up in the category of being okay in everything, dominating in nothing. Sorry to critique it here, but as you've put it forward to support your post I've not got much other choice

For moving: 5 DR's, 5 Harpies, a Hydra, a unit of CoK's and eventually a CoC.

That's on the slim side a little, as you say. Dark Riders and harpies are quite easy to kill by missile fire or magic, while CoKs and CoC are slow for cavalry and unreliable. Hydra is awesome, but then that's nothing new.

For shooting: 20x RxB's, 6 Shades and 5 DR's. Not really "dominating", but it sure is effective vs most armies.
(occasionally a RBT or 2 but it's 'rare'.)

Against an average WoC or Dwarf army you would be killing next to nothing with this (unless the fickle dice gods smiled on you). Even against the asur or asrai you might struggle a little as you would be outranged for at least the first turn of the game.

For magic: Well, I'm not a magic nut so I only bring 2 lvl 2's usually (or just a scroll caddie), but with darkstar cloak they tend to get 1 or 2 spells of vs most opponents. Sure, it's not a devastating magicphase but it works.

Against a HE or Tzeentch magic army you wouldn't get anything off with these (unless you got IF). Most of the HE armies I play against bring at least 1 level 4 and 2 level 2s in a 2250 game, which along with their irksome other items (banner of sorcercy etc) and their +1 to dispels, make it very hard to be effective with just 2 lvl 2s (even with the cloak).

For close combat: CoK, Executioners, Black Guard (with armourpiercing), a Hydra and a very angry Dreadlord.
Ontop of this there's 25-50 spears with shields, acting as fodder.

Again, against a high toughness and armour save dwarf or WoC army of Chaos Knights, Chosen, Chaos Warriors and Dragon Ogres etc with a big chaos lord or similar, you could struggle here unless you pumped it up a notch (cauldron etc).

Of course, superior generalship that ensures you get the charge, align your missile troops so that you are quickly in range of good targets and achieve well executed magic phases etc mean you are probably very good with your army and its not my intent to suggest otherwise. But when imagining two players of near identical standard, I do think your list would run the risk of from participating in every phase, reliably winning in none.

[Minsc]

Against a HE or Tzeentch magic army you wouldn't get anything off with these (unless you got IF). Most of the HE armies I play against bring at least 1 level 4 and 2 level 2s in a 2250 game, which along with their irksome other items (banner of sorcercy etc) and their +1 to dispels, make it very hard to be effective with just 2 lvl 2s (even with the cloak).

Judging by this, I guess we play in different gamingenvironments.

Where I play, 99% of the lists are friendly and balanced. That said, I would never expect to see a 11-14 PD list.

Note that the list I put up is a balanced list, hence why it doesn't have 10+ PD, 50+ RxB's and double Hydras, and vs listd of the same "cheeze level", my list perform very well.

[Red...]

Note that the list I put up is a balanced list, hence why it doesn't have 10+ PD, 50+ RxB's and double Hydras, and vs listd of the same "cheeze level", my list perform very well.

I wasn't indicating that a DE should have any of those cheesy elements: it's not a case of one extreme or the other (average in all areas or crazy cheesy), you can have an army that plays well in one sphere without it being cheesy.

For example, to make your army a bit more dominating in magic, all you would need is a level 4 with cloak and level 2 with dagger - that would not be cheesy or broken - but wouldn't rely on level 2s getting spells off in a 2250 environment. Similarly, adding an extra unit of dark riders or two would give you true manoeuvrability - the kind that couldn't get derailed by a few lucky shots from ellyrian reavers on your flank.

Where I play, 99% of the lists are friendly and balanced.

I can't really comment on this because I have no idea what gaming environment you play in, but most of the armies I play against are very fair (we tend to self enforce fair play ideas like not taking two hydras and dragons). I'm not in favour of cheese or stacking at all, but I do think that building strong lists is a part of warhammer and too much dumbing down takes away from the fun and strategy of army building.

[Minsc]

all you would need is a level 4 with cloak and level 2 with dagger

This would be considered over the top at my club, since its 9 PD + Dagger, making it at least 10 PD. (9 PD is more or less 'max'.)
Even more so if the lvl 2 gets the cloak and the lvl 4 gets the dagger.

Come to think about it, 2 level 2's is actually what most people bring around here, Last week i met an OnG player with 2 goblin shamans (both level 2), a Skavenplayer with 2 warlockengineers and a Dwarf without anvil and only 5 DD.

[Lakissov]

I'll generalize our weakness: we are a glass cannon. The majority of our troops are very good at dishing out, but very bad at receiving (hydra is the only exceptions, and even it pales in comparisson to the tough choices of other armies).

What's the moral? We have to strike. If we receive the strike, then we die. If we strike, then, with our new and very strong book, we kill. Simple.

[Ehakir]

Luckily enough, we are quickly, killy and have some other tricks to make sure we can strike before the enemy can

[Saithis]

in the current edition i see mainly one point:
if you cannot break your opponent the turn you charged.

the point is quite obvious: hatred gives an enormous damage boost which is over at turn 2 of course. the high ini helps in the following rounds but darkelves are not made for longer battles. they are too expensive and cannot take many hits, have only a few units and so on.
many/most units have bad armour and only 1 attack which is not enough in the current edition without hatred.

thats why DE have problems vs daemons and vampires - you cannot break them at all, only make so much damage that they pop due to the CR.

other points like much shooting and magic can trouble you if you have the wrong list, but i think DE are capable of be efficient enough, even vs these armies.

[Dreadlordhauclir]

I'm still building up my DE army, so I haven't had the chance to gain much glory on the field...However two things do stand out to me.

1) Lack of reliable heavy cavalry, as Deathknight27 pointed out. The 7" move, I'm not too concerned about. Then again my opinion of that my change after a game or two. But the Stupidity rule is a real issue. Unless you have your general within 12", you've got a fair chance of your awesome, powerful, and expensive unit wandering around looking for the chicken/pheasant to chase and gobble up.

2) Ok, so we're not the toughest race in the world. T3 is a disadvantage given the high number of S4 ranged weapons out there. However, the low cost for spearmen regiments makes up somewhat for it. Jury is still out on the cost/gain of repeater crossbowmen for me right now.

I think Lakissov nailed the issue though, our troops are good at dishing out hate, pain, and discontentment...Just not so great at receiving it.

[Zenith]

As the post above mine, suggests. no reliable knights that goes for our chariots as well. Stupidity means we can never field a decent all cavalry list.

T3 even for our charackters is a murder. But hey we chose the army, so we knew what was coming.

Our warmachines are very very expensive for what they "can" do,

That goes for our sorceresses as well., well their point cost i mean because their possible magic output can be so damn good.

Toughness 3 coupled with the hard fact we are poorly armoured., well thats our true and well known weakness. We die even faster then skaven rats!

[Zenith]

The perfect DE list would focus only on our natural strengt. With natural i mean phases we dont have to invest more points compared to achieve a result a other race could do better without to.

Like adding an assassin to a regiment of spearmen to achieve the same kills a vanilla saurus unit could do.


We should focus on:

Magic
Cheap close combat units:

hydras
vanilla knight units.
Rpx crossbow warriors
basic warriors
harpies

too me, the rest is not cost effictive enough or dies too easily.

[Red...]

I realised another one last night

No decent bound item shooty spell.

How is it that lots of other armies have powerful magic missile bound items (e.g. banner of wrath for WoC, Nibbla's Itty Ring for O&G (and Skarsnik's prodder). Yet we, Dark Elves, masters of the dark arts and supremely powerful death magicians have.....hmmm....nothing.

Yes, I know we have the black staff which has power of darkness in it and cloak of shadows, but the lack of any decent magic missile bound item is quite a blow. They either eat up 1-2 dispel dice / scroll from your opponent, or do quite a decent amount of damage with no PD cost.

I'm tired of facing armies with 1 Lvl 2 sorceress and a unit with a bound item. It gives them effectively 2 offensive spell casters, something that I have to sacrifice two hero slots to do. Not cool