Dark elves Pirates of the Caribbean

[Simon]

Here is another army i alway wanted to do.


Dread lord (Captain Jack sparrow)
shield
Heavy armor
Sea Dragon cloak
black amulet
Lifetaker
Great weapon

Sorcerer (Elizabeth Swann)
level 2
Seal of Ghrond

Sorcerer (mist witch)
level 2
2 scrolls

assassin (Will Turner)
manbane
rune of khaine
addition HW

20 Corsairs (sea pirates)
FC
warbanner

10 Repeater Crossbowmen w/shields
10 Repeater Crossbowmen w/shields

5 Harpies (sea ghosts)
5 Harpies (sea ghosts)

7 Shades w/GW (sea rangers)
7 Shades w/GW (sea rangers)
7 Shades (sea rangers)

15 Black Guards (Royal Council)
Champion
null Talisman
Standard
Standard of Hag Graef


Reaper Bolt Thrower

Hydra (gigantic octopus)

general on foot, suck in CC
no BSB
6 PD, no bound.
5 DD
No cheesy magic items
consairs
no cold one knights
no cold one chariot
1 bolt thrower

[Josh]

And 85 armour piercing shots a turn.  Great theme, but the Hydra, nasty Black Guard and all those shades make me nervous. It wouldn't get +1 from me, but it's close.

[Antony]

general on foot, suck in CC
no BSB
6 PD, no bound.
5 DD
No cheesy magic items
consairs
no cold one knights
no cold one chariot
1 bolt thrower

Can I have some of what you are smoking if you think that CoK and CoC are cheese?

Drop the ASF banner and swap the hydra for a giant and you may start getting + marks. As it stands you have made some concessions, but stll have alot of the red flags that people will be looking out for.

If you are really serious about going for comp gold:
Drop all of the RXB and go for Corsairs with handbows (pistols)
Swap the BG for more Corsairs
You can have a BSB with ASF if you are mad keen
Drop the number of Shades to 2 units max

[nik_]

Corsairs and a slightly toned down lord is nice to see, as well as the lack of some standard magic item combos, but damn that shooting is awesome.
I agree that 3 shades is too many!! They could single-handedly tear apart my WE army in 2 turns!
I also disagree with some of your claims: Only 6 PD? Shouldn't you include Power of darkness.... and I don't think the lord sucks in CC when he has 4 attacks, S6, ASF and hatred!

[Glenn Patel]

How DO you count Power of Darkness? It can snowball 'I have two dice left over into 'big spells', but in terms of overcoming their basic magic stopping power, it does nothing.

Power of Darkness is just not a reliable source of power dice. I suppose you can just try to cast it on one die and hope for the best... but that's still pretty darn unlikely to work out.

[Fujin]

Huh... I thought the idea was to open the phase with a 2-dice casting of Powr of Darkness. Your opponent either tries to dispel it (probably using three dice - win for the Dark Elves) or lets it go off. Worst case scenario you get your 2 dice back. Best case you get them with interest. Two L2 casters in a Dark Elf army makes for an awesome and highly effective magic phase.

Pretty powerful stuff from where I'm sitting.


In terms of the list I reckon Josh, Nick and Antony are all spot on. Tough list for most armies to face.

[Simon]

Can I have some of what you are smoking if you think that CoK and CoC are cheese?

didn't say they r cheese... I just mentioned it, becuase i didn't take them..

Drop the ASF banner and swap the hydra for a giant and you may start getting + marks.

can drop the ASF banner, but not the hydra... becuase it's going to be my gigantic octopus!

I also disagree with some of your claims: Only 6 PD? Shouldn't you include Power of darkness.... and I don't think the lord sucks in CC when he has 4 attacks, S6, ASF and hatred!

lol.. forgot about power of darkness.. i included 2 sorceresses becuase i want to generate 5 DDs..

[Glenn Patel]

Power of Darkness is a *spell*.

Counting it towards power dice is...

It's a 4+ to cast spell with a good effect, yes... but it does not give you extra power dice /for the purposes of overcoming their magic defense/. If they can dispel three spells cast on two dice, they have stopped your magic phase dead.

And, of course, if they can stop TWO spells cast on two dice, all they have to fear is a Chillwind sneaking through - making it functionally equivalent to have the ability to cast Chillwind three times in one magic phase.

Two level two DE spellcasters is only better than 'casting Chillwind on 2 dice three times' if they opponent cannot dispel Power of Darkness twice. Frankly, odds are they can. With 5 DD or 4+2 scrolls, it really isn't that hard. (with 2 scrolls you just let the first PoD resolve and if they can cast a big spell, scroll it then...)

Power of Darkness makes magic dominance spiral out of control, but it gets worse the less magic you have. It does admittedly get better if the opponent screws up defending against your magic phase.

Still... 6 dice of DE magic is comparable to 6 dice of OK, VC or Khemri magic (the other three races notable for 'good bang for their casting value' spells). (And Wood Elves with tree-singing spam, too).

Heck, it's hardly more effective than 6 dice of ANY magic phase... if you have two mages, and one of them has two spells they can cast on two dice, you've duplicated the level of difficulty to dispel.

Chillwind is admittedly one of the better 5+ spells to resolve... against shooty armies. Otherwise, it's just another fireball.

PoD is a slight upside. 6 dice with two PoD's is still less powerful than a raw 8 dice. Arguably less good than a raw 7.


...I'm sorry, but the attitude that two level two's from DE is somehow this dominating magical force... it's essentially 6 power dice plus a bound spell of Chillwind, except easier to dispel and more prone to miscasting.

(PoD on average adds 1 PD, so casting it twice on two dice balloons you up to 6 dice. Of course, the correct play is to dispel PoD rather than wait for it to become more dice...)

Oh, and lest we forget, bad rolls on spell selection can leave one of the Sorceresses with a situationally non-threatening Power of Darkness (out of range for Doombolt, for example).

[Fujin]

@ Simon - definitely do NOT drop that Hydra. The giant Octupus idea is just too great. If you wanted 5DD you could just make them level 1 

@ Glenn - statistically speaking, would you agree that if an opponent fails or declines to stop PoD then on average the caster will gain one extra power dice? (D3+1 = probably 3 dice back?).

If so, and the DE player is not a twit, then he/she is planning to overwhelm your magic defence with a game-winning spell (Black Horror, Word of Pain, Soulstealer on my poor bloody Swordsmen...). Looking at the many options DE have for mage assassination I'd say that if their big play came into effect in turn 3 or 4 (potentially you have a mage alive but may have already burned a scroll) then you are royally screwed. That's how I see it always playing out anyway. It allows the DE player to inflict (much like TK do) an overwhelming magical assault exactly when they need it to win the game (or smashify an important unit).

And with 2 x L2s you get 4 spells. With both of them also getting PoD by default you have a VERY good chance of rolling up something awesome (granted, most of the DE Dark Magic spells are awesome anyway).

Could be me speaking from experience or it could be the result of spending the weekend with Reid who placed 2nd with DE and used them (2 x L2s) to awesome effect at NatCon. His take on it is that 2 x L2s is an outstanding magic phase and rarely can an opponent stop the magic short of burning a precious scroll (win for the Darkies if they can keep their casters alive - turn out Reid managed this nicely). Of course, I might be too easily influenced by the opinion of one of the best players in the country (who doesn't actually have DE army and just borrowed one a week before the tournament).

[Glenn Patel]

Well, if they don't defend against it correctly, and can't hunt the DE mages in return, it certainly gets better... but there's only one Dark Magic spell that isn't, essentially, artillery.

I mean, spell by spell:

Chillwind is excellent if forced through early against shooting heavy armies with sizable missile units. Otherwise it's your standard issue fireball.

Word of Pain is a potential game-winner, as it can totally invert the expected outcome of a given combat.

Soulstealer has a 12" range, but can kill a third of a unit.

If they roll Word of Pain or Soulstealer, however, that particular mage is much less threatening early, so it's easier to conserve scrolls. (Sure, Word of Pain is good against large units of missile troops... thing is, if all the DE magic phase does in a turn is nullify one round of shooting for one unit, well, that should not be a gamebreaker and can be allowed. Plus some armies don't RUN shooting)

Arnzipal's Black Horror has proper range AND a dominating effect, which helps it a lot.

Doombolt is pretty good, but doesn't actually benefit from the wizard using PoD.


If you play a moderate magic defense right, you should be able to contain a two Sorceress Dark Magic magic phase without having your gameplan impacted too badly.

Well, you may kill less stuff with shooting than you hoped. Consider it the DE equivalent of having cheaper troops or more toughness/armour.


Thus concludes Defense Against The Dark Arts, OWL.