# DE troops



## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

What are peoples views on DE core troops?

do any stand out as a clear winner? Corsairs seem cool, with the 2 handweapons and dragon cloaks with so cool xtra rules for the slavers. 

warriors are really cheap for a pretty reasonable stat line. Really cheap.

Darkriders are probably the best fast cav in the game and are core. 

Harpies may not count towards your min choices, but there so cheap and useful it would be rude not too

So in a typical 2000pt game what amounts of troops do you have? Lots of cheap bodies for combat res? loads of shots from x bow men? fast and manauvreable cav?


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

I actually think they are about right. They are wicked cheap for what you get, but that's balanced out all the specials and casters that can get expensive very fast. Repeater bows are nice, but the 2x shots means that they lose effectiveness twice as fast as any other shooting unit when targeted by magic and/or range. Corsairs are a cheap version of a CC specialist, however low str and low saves in combat make them more frail than most every other CC unit in the game. Dark riders are by consensus one of the best values in the game, I love that with repeaters they pretty much turn into a stronger version of a pistolier, but as core. Only prob is riders are a pretty expensive unit to use as a marchblocker, good thing you have harpies. Core flyers is nice, but they really lack the punch to do much damage even to lightly armored range and warmachine crews. 

I focus on the negatives mainly because most of the talk I hear is how overpowered DE core is. On the whole though I think they hit the theme of the army, strong enough so that you want to take one unit of them, but with enough weaknesses that you're not really going to horde out any of them (except maybe warriors, which is fine.) 

Only played against one DE, but he had 2x warrior blocks, 1x xbow men, 1x corsairs, and 5 dark riders with no harpies.


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## Green Knight (Feb 25, 2008)

I think Corsairs are the best by far, they look so ace


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

I used to be a very big fan of corsairs but since warriors have had a price cut I've ben thinking about fielding them for cheap static combat res to use as bunkers for mages and possibly the occasional assassin.

There's nothing that I can say for the other choices other than agree with Othiem's assessment. Harpies could be looked at as similar to eagles although they fare badly in almost any combat.


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## loser for sale (Jun 12, 2008)

Personally, assuming I'm not going all out Dark Riders, I'd take at least one assassin - I quite like the Rune of Khaine/Manbane combo, which for 146pts is pretty good - 5-7 attacks, wounding on mimimum 3+s, plus Eternal Hatred. That said, I have only had the Dark Elf book 2 days and haven't had any proper battles with them, so I'm not a particuarly good judge.

Dark Riders are great, if expensive, and it's probably worth having at least one unit.

Corsairs are decent - try taking a small unit with 2 repeater handbows each, and an assassin. Due to the small size of the unit, and (hopefully) other threats, the opponent will ignore this unit with his shooting. It is at the front of your battleline, so he charges in... and the assassin gets busy carving.

Spearmen are dirt cheap, yet excellent soldiers. Compare a unit of 15 of them, equipped with sheilds, with a 30 man unit of Night Goblin spearmen. The Dark Elves are cheaper, but even ignoring them causing Fear I'm pretty certain that they'll win.

Harpies - flying is great - I'd use them for removing war machines that could potentially endanger your fragile army, although be careful - certain crews would fight off the attack, e.g. Dwarfs, particuarly with Master Engineers.


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## jax40kplyr (Sep 15, 2008)

Best DE guy I played had 1 block of 30 spearmen (housing his LvL 4 Supreme Sorceress), 2 units of 10 crossbowmen, 2 units of 5 of dark riders and 1 unit of harpies. These were just his core choices. 
End result (playing as demons without my flamers) - harpies flew over me and march blocked, dark riders circled me and kept on shooting, crossbowmen continue to pepper me and spearmen provided valuable casting dice for the sacrificial dagger.
An even nastier part was when he rear charged my unit of bloodletters & herald with the harpies (when they were preparing to flank charge a unit of Black Guard). Even though the bloodletters easily won the combat, they had to pursue towards their rear because of hatred. Cheap harpies effectively took my Bloods out of the game for 4 turns and saved their BG. 
Assassins - decision is still out on them. I'm not totally convinced they are worth their points - although in certain circumstances (pass toughness on 2d6 or die weapon against a dragon) I'm sure they're great. Some folks though seem to think that they can take on anything.
My decision - add 2 units of 6 of Flamers :ireful2:


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## loser for sale (Jun 12, 2008)

Personally, I'm not too keen on the venom sword (2D6 T or die), because, after all, you still need to wound. 4 Attacks, hitting on 3+s, wounding on 6+s, reducing the scaly scin to 4+... the assassin will die long before the dragon.


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

\interesting thoughts guys. \i think finding that balance and still keeping points for specials and rares is where the skill will come in with \de list writing. \afterall its easy to spend out on some of those expensive units in elven armies


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