Archive - Ogre Kingdoms Vs Dark Elves

Summary from the old forum:

- Velvet Jones


- Captain_Krunch


- Joey_Boy


- Cold_Faramir


- Lexy of the Ogrelix tribe


- Lexy of the Ogrelix tribe


- Hablier the Hunter


- Cold_Faramir


- rampagingpenguins

I have found that Dark Elf Armies tend to get shooty, especially with those repeater bolt throwers.

One tactic I found useful with this, was terrain. Because of the ogres long march, we can move from terrain to terrain, usually pretty easily (obviously depending on the situation) there fore negating thier attacks, or at least lowering the amount.

@Psykopig: the problem with Dark Elves is, that, they get shooty, and you still think it is okay.
I use typically two boltthrowers and 2x20 rxb warriors.
That is enough to stop anything, but doesn't look too hard.
 
Dark elves can have a very scary army:
2 manticores, 2 Cold one chariots and 2 units of cold one knights is my standard tournament army.

i play dark elves, one unit that might cause some havoc would be the witch elves. Try to get a charge on them before they do to you. Take advantage of their frenzy, but watch out, they also have poison attacks which will get rid of that useful T ogres have. Also if they have the Cauldron of Blood (i do!), that will make the witches so much more powerful and they will tear through your bulls like paper. Just get some leadbelchers and shoot 25% of their unit up and hopefully fail their leadership.

Also, make sure of hydras if they do take them, they can cause some trouble as they cause terror.

One thing Dark Elf generals will tend to do is hit and run with their shooting units usually dark riders with Repeater cross-bows. Dont fall for the trick, just ignore them because the str3 isnt that great to take out some bulls. 3+ to hit, 4/5+ to wound, and those tough guys have 3 wounds each! All he/she is trying to do is to keep you out of combat.

Dark Elves magic is tough, make sure if you have a gorger to deploy near the sorceress and kill her. Usually if the general is smart enough he might either put his sorceress on a mount, or in a unit so she can cast that +1 WS spell. If not, take her out asap, either with the gorger or even gnoblars!

About RBTs, take them out quick or they will do the same to you, use gorger tactic, or try to get into combat quickly so they cant shoot you.

Most of the units Dark Elves have are S3 T3 which is relativly (sp?) weak, so you might be able to take units out quickly if you get the charge. As the weakness of the dark elves are their S&T, they have high WS, so at all costs make sure you get your charge off, possibly if they fail leadership, overrun them, they do have good Leadership.

Thats my tips.

Or, screen with 2-4 regiments of 40 gnoblars

This is the part about the witch elves:
Could you edit that, because it isn't true.
Witch elves have the frenzy rule and will not flee due to 25% casualties, as long as they didn't lose a close combat fight.
Frenzy means, that they are also immune to psychology and thus don't have to make any panic tests

If the idiot takes a dark elf charcter on a monstorous mount, rip him off with bonecruncher or bangstick, and bonecruncher some damn cold one knights while your at it!

Don't leave home without trappers and a pair of gorgers.  The former screens in front of a single or pair of bolt throwers (if your lucky) while the gorger slip in the back door.

A lot of DE players rely heavily on shooting and magic to win - they seem to forget that this only really confers advantage for the first have of the game a maximum - and then they have nothing with which to stand up to our assault.

a highly mobile DE force then is nastiest as it can slip around your marches/charges

And what to do against dragon riders? Those black dragons are pretty darn scary, as are the lords on them if they are fully tooled up. A tyrant could probably handle a dragon if tooled up for the job, but no one in their right mind would ever let their dragon be caught by a tyrant.

tyrants can handle this - and if you can hold a dragon up with one unit and get your tyrant in the side, they can kiss their points bye-bye.

True, but that will never happen if you play a clever opponent. Dragons are so much faster then tyrants, he can keep his dragon away from your characters forever if he wants to. There are always some softer targets around for him to get VP's from.

Heheh, yeah right. Randomising, 1+ save and usually a 4+ ward save. Good luck shooting that. Bangstick will never work. Bonecruncher only if you're very lucky. Even if you succeed, you only shot a 100-200 points character, you still got the mount itself to take care of.

Yep, bonecruncher doesn't even work on a dragon.
And Ld 10 won't panic alot.

He'd probably be on the other side of the table where your bankstick is, so won't work.
The only thing that might work against a dragon ( which is very off balance in 2k games ) is probably a good unit of maneaters as anvil and a unit of Ironguts in the flank.

Well actually, most DE list I've seen don't have that much magic, despite of the +1 to cast.
And when magic is cast, the dark, shadow and death magic is very effective, because it affects your units in movement and that will cause you to get to their side with one or two units, which isn't enough.

With the most DE forces it's easy: form one front and protect your flanks.
When there are wholes in that plan ( because a unit panicking ) that's where your problem is.

My friend and I agreed to not play ogres vs dark elves too much in 2k games.
That is because my list has two manticores and almost all cavalry, but some units of crossbowmen and bolt throwers.
I'm too fast for him and what can get incombat is because I want it to be combat.

Yeah, a 1+ Save vs No armour save spell...Do it twice averaging 14 shots, 5 hits on the Rider, 2-3 Wounds and then A bangstick will do it. And a dragon isn't that scary, ironguts will tear it a new one. Of course tryingn to panic it wont work. Untill the rider is dead anyway, Dark Elves are weak in combat, carge bulls in, bash them up, even if you lose combat it doesn't matter, charge ironguts in next and they have less static res.

The 1+ save is against the bangstick ofcourse. Please refrain from such hollow arguments, as you knew perfectly well what I was saying. Besides, the average of 14 shots is discounting the fact that you will probably misfire one of those 4, so your average is false.

But that still leaves randomising and a 4+ ward save. A bangstick won't 'do it', even if the rider is down to 1 wound, because 9/10 times a bangstick will cause a grand total of 0 wounds on a dragon and its rider. Not to mention the fact that once you kill the rider, you probably still have the dragon to take care of.

And IG's won't be able to handle a dragon. Their low ws and combined with having only 3 attacks makes it nigh impossible for tthem to seriously injure a dragon.

Anyway, judging from your post I'd say you'r not experienced either with or against DE. They are much tougher then yuo think and they always have some unexpected tricks up their sleeve. To win from DE, you have to be smarter then them. On the other hand, when facing an incompetent DE player, you will probably massacre him no matter what you do.

Just target the character, not the dragon. That is what I found MOST useful. Maneaters excel at hodlding a dragon in it's proper place wich will the get ripped to shredz by a carefully placed countercharge.
When the character is dead, he has to roll on a random behavior chart for his precious mount, wich may just cause it to flee and honestly: DE characters are NOT hard to kill, no matter what anyone tells you.
A dragon is just a big bucket full of wasted points..I mean come on: 600+ points for something that is not so tough once you have it locked in place will just lose him more games than he can win if you set up and plan accordingly.

If the charachter dies, the mount must pass a Ld test BEFORE he takes monster reaction, and since Black Dragons have Ld8, you shouldn't be too sure about the dragon running away just because the charachter dies.


Depends, My Dragonlords usually has a 1+ AS and 4+ WS, and if you shoot at him, you have to randomize, and if you get close to him, you have his mount to deal with as well.

Yop, the Tyrant will be tough as nails, as well (buffed, hopefully ). And it really only takes 2 successful hits of the tenderizer and the General is history (most of the time). My argument is, that while the Dragon Lord is extremely powerful, it is also all points in one flying basket. After he is dead you probably won't have that much left to win you the game with.
And I would not shoot at him either, that is true ...

Cheers,

Alisasara

Hmm interesting.
Now we can be sure, that the lord on dragon will choose the fight, right?
(would be a dumb lord, if he was charged by an ogre unit)

Why wouldn't he just charge the other side of the unit, your tyrant is in and break you in one turn:
9 attacks hit on 3's is 6
6 hits wound on 2's is 5 wounds and a flank against your outnumber and a banner( maybe warbanner ) is 6 against 2 or 3 .
you'll have to get your breaktest on 5 or 6.
That is with out magic, because a smart dark elf general would remove any butcher's cast you have on your unit.

The biggest problem with a dragon is: he picks the fights and you can't as an ogre

Also, any smart Druchii general is going to cast Doom and Darkness over on top of you.  If your not runnin from Terror you will be runnin around with your minus 6ish LD after combat. 

How do you deal with a dragon?  If you can get the jump on em you can waste em but getting a jump on them is tough.  You have to play a chess match against the dragon general.  Use the fact that nothing causes terror if your in close combat to your advantage.  Only allow him charges at times when your going to win the combat due to you already having multiple units engaged.  Movement and disallowing opportunities is key against a dragon general.

I've had some recent experience with Dark Elves that might be reasonable to share.

Part of it is my general learning curve from 40k to fantasy part is just D/E specific

Watch out for Dark Riders!  As any fast Calvary they get out of LOS WAY to fast for a proper reaction from Ogres.

They are very effective I figured my bull unit could Possibly sustain a flank attack from them but they ended up winning combat by alot... and they can run you down like crazy..

I've learned also,  Reaper bolt throwers are hard core.  Distract them with trappers for 1 turn but other than that.. phew..  you just kind of have to take the beating and get into them with a bull unit or something quickly.  Last game I tookt hem out with yhettes which work out well being that they have super fast move and kill D/Es on 2+

What about a hunter with beastkiller big name for the big monsters?

It ain´t bad, but I think the tenderiser approach is better.

Harpies

Harpies on paper are a very useful unit.  However they have one glaring flaw the keeps them from being all they can be.  They have an extremely low leadership and cannot use the leadership of the general.  Therefore, their targets are generally limited to non fear causers.  Their ability to fly and having two attacks each allow them to excel at taking out many warmachines and fast cavalry.  Additionally they are good at march blocking and claiming table quarters.

Shades

Shades have the same stat line as a dark elf warrior but skirmish, can scout, and have Rxbs.  This makes them good at whittling down opponents and march blocking but are very weak in combat.  They are generally considered the alternative to harpies against armies that cause fear.

Cold One Knights

Cold One Knights are a very unique but expensive unit.  Their strengths are a 2+ armor save, a high weapon skill, a hero level leadership, ability to take a magic banner, cause fear, hitting at str5 on the charge and having str4 mounts.  Not too shabby, even if they are expensive.  However, their weaknesses are an expensive command group, below average movement for cavalry, and most importantly stupidity.  This takes their reliability right out of the picture.  You can see 3 varieties of this unit.  First, 5 plain COKs.  US10 fear causer with 2+ armor save for fairly cheap.  Secondly, 5-6 with full command and possible banner.  Something that has a mild chance of taking on a RnF unit from the enemy.  Their cost has increased without a strong guarantee of success.  Lastly you can see a unit of 8-10 with 1-2 characters in there.  This unit starts to push the range of 800 pts.  While it should be able to steam roll a majority of units, it can easily be whittled down and or taken out of the game.  COKs are generally used as a hammer unit.

Cold One Chariot

Cold One Chariots are becoming the new mainstay in the dark elf army.  The have a 2 for 1 special slot ability and their cost is not prohibitive.  Some of their strengths are a T5 and a 4+ AS gives them survivability.  Additionally, their scythed wheels are a nice addition to the d5 str5 impact hits along with 4 str 4 attacks on the charge.  Like all cold one units their stupidity is a problem with their normal elven leadership.  A popular option is adding a character into the chariot boosting the US to 5 allowing it to negate ranks.  Like all chariots their movement is slow and can lag behind the rest of the elven army advance, but they hit hard and that’s always a benefit for elves.  One of the better cheaper hammer units available to elves.

Executioners

Executioners are the currently seen in a similar light to corsairs.  However, you will most often see them in smaller MSU sized units (10-12).  Their heavy armor upgrade now gives them a moderate increase in survivability and these GW wielding elves can pack a punch.  Their ability to take a magic banner enables them to be fielded in the hopes of taking on other RnF units, but their expense does not match their ability for a fully ranked unit.  Their distinguishing feature is their killing blow ability and higher than average weapon skill.  However, attacking last with the great weapon and having only one attack mitigates the true effectiveness of this unit.  Most often used vs more heavily armored adversaries like knights or dwarves.

Witch Elves

Another unit similar to the corsairs and executioners.  These crazy frenzied witches can dish out a ton of attacks and unlike executioners the numerous attacks actually give them a chance for their special ability to kick in, poison.  They are good at taking on high toughness low armored units like giants or ogres.  The formations for witch elves are generally varied, but due to them being without armor they are easily whittled down, therefore in general you’ll see slightly larger witch elf units so they can get into combat and be effective.  Finally, be aware that their frenzy is both a blessing and a curse and take precautions accordingly to mitigate the downside.


Note:  As you can tell I’ve compared many dark elf units to each other.  This is one of the main complaints for the dark elf book.  They are highly specialized and have problems making a comer-take-all list. 

-   Corsairs middle of the road, survivable with low strength attacks. 
-   Executioners, hit hard, high strength good against heavily armored units
-   Witch elves, tons of low strength attacks with poison, good against high toughness or low armor opponents

Black Guard

Another unit that was updated to make it an actual viable unit.  They blend many of the abilities of the previous units into one.  First and most importantly they are stubborn.  This means they make an excellent anvil unit.  Secondly, they have the special ability Eternal hatred, giving them hatred every round of combat not just the first combined with their high weapon skill this ensures most of your attacks will hit.  Third, they have heavy armor so they have some survivability.  Last, they have halberds making them strength four and allowing them to use their nice elven initiative.  One might think that all these bonuses combined you would see them in every dark elf army, but unfortunately you will not.  Their cost is prohibitive at 16 points per model they simply cost too much to field in a unit big enough to overcome the possibility of being outnumbered by a fear causing unit.  Finally, their infantry based anvil approach is counter to the fluidity you’ll find in the dark elf army list.  For dark elves to succeed they need to stick and move, black guards end up just sticking.

Reaper Bolt Throwers

Not much to say about these, everyone knows about them, 1 str 6 no armor save d3 wounds shot or 6 str 4 -2 armor save shots.  Pretty simple, mathematics say that its almost always beneficial to shoot the 6 shots but that home run of a single bolt is very tempting.  For their points they are worth taking, even just one, but their stationary positioning make them tough to guard especially for a dark elf army that is reliant on out maneuvering their opponent. 

Hydra
TBD

Placeholder until written

Has anyone got any tactics against a very shooty Dark Elf Army? I cant get close to the dark elf opponent i play against because he uses so many dark elf crossbowmen. If i do get a unit to charge it gets destroyed because of their stand-and-shoot.

I haven't much experience against these guys... but Gorgers seem like a good idea, pop up behind their lines

My friend plays a very heavy DE Shooter and Magic army. I have found the best way to deal with this army is to field bigger units of ogres: 5-6 with frontage of four total (three plus character) with Ragbanners and Rune Maws. Put up a flank screen of Gnob Fighters (also good for Rune Maw redirect) and Move as fast as possible. If you can, stay behind terrain and lure the h2h units into your charge range. Gorgers are great, as well as Hunters. Use the Hunter with Mastondon armor (kitties are really optional if there are not a lot of wizards) and send him out in the open to distract Hvy Bolt Throwers and magic, and either shoot at them to disable, or lure h2h by shooting at them.

As long as you can make it to h2h with DE Shooty army and maintain a solid front rank, you've won. They cannot hold against us in combat. Hope this helps!

I have played quite a few games against a close combat DE army, with 4 units of Dark Riders and 2 COC.

First suggestion I might give is take 2 units of 2 leadbelchers, and deploy them so, that opponentäs dark riders couldn't come near. They are very good fast units, but with leadbelchers you will kill them, and get nice victory points. In that way you can protect flanks.

COK and COC have a chance to fail stupidity tests which might disrupt their ranks a little. So be ready to capitalize on that. It is best to try to avoid chariots, because they will really destroy any unit without S7. Or Bait them with a unit of 3 naked bulls.

Units of COK aren't that scary in my opinion, they are not very hard to take out, avoid or flank charge. Best units against them as far as I know are ironguts, bulls and yhetees.

Gnoblars can help you, either by guarding good zones for harpies to land, or engaging in close combat with warriors etc, with your general near.

It is easy to break black guards.

Use gorgers to come on board in a place, where opponent has out-manouvered you, and put them somewhere, so that opponent can't charge you and would lose time.

These are all only advices and from my experience, best is to learn yourself, because some of it might not alway work.

Has anyone got any tactics against a very shooty Dark Elf Army? I cant get close to the dark elf opponent i play against because he uses so many dark elf crossbowmen. If i do get a unit to charge it gets destroyed because of their stand-and-shoot.

1) A Gorger
2) Another Gorger
3) Keep the rest of your army way back.

Charging towards a gunline is playing your opponent's game. If he's gonna go all fortress on you, to hell with him. Keep your units well back, hold and contest table quarters, and send the Gorgers in from behind. Boring? Maybe - but who's fault is that?

That won't work at all. Dark Elf gunlines are fast, and have good range. Your opponent can easily close in on you and get the range needed to kill. You might be able to avoid fighting an Dwarf gunline, but a Dark Elf army can get close to you and shoot, and run away when neccessary. And a good Delf gunline will have plenty of repeater crossbow wielding Dark Riders, which you will most certainly not be able to catch.

So what IS the answer, then?

Skrag and his gorgers, a giant to draw fire (I know he is  an expensive pin cushion and he takes away from more gorgers, but most people will fire at him and he is tough), and several small units of bulls, ironguts, leadbelchers (two units of 2?), and maybe some trappers for a diversion?.  I'd offer up my bulls and giant as fodder and hope that skrag, the gorgers and guts could get through.  I'd probably line up a unit of guts by or behind the giant and try to get my opponent to concentrate his fire on one or the other.  I may put my trappers in this area too, if I could, to further distract and annoy my opponent.  The belchers would be there for flank protection.

Anyway this is how I would try it and if it didn't work I would take what did work well and refine from there.

By the way, I don't know if there is AN answer (at least not a single one).  A lot of this is going to depend on your play style and how you use terrain, set up your army, etc...  I know this sounds trite (and I don't mean it to be) but you will eventually find YOUR answer by taking some of the advice given here and creating your own style to combat the shooty DE's.

Thanks,
JC

I certainly don't know how to beat a Delf gunline, other than with loads of luck.

Actually a giant is a good idea, so is a gorger ( and that is also for the thread of a monster charging the rear)

Alot of naked bulls is an idea: they're probably not going to kill a unit in once and so they will not cause panic.
with a lot of units they have to make a choice: make units smaller or destroy units.
and a dark elves gunline will not have the ranks to hold a charge.
when you make sure that you don't have too many units panicking, then he'll be destroyed.

A friend of mine played with ogres against high elves magic and shooting with 3 thiefstones and the runemaw banner and crushed his lines ( he had the luck of first turn)
So it can be done.

With terrain set up go for woods and the hills. Woods will give you cover for deployment and if you have hills that one less he will put a unit of xbow DE on or a reaper bolt thrower. Also depending on the size of the hill it may block line of sight to your units after deployment.

Flanking hunter works really well with mastodon armour and 2 kittens. For me he will usually off his cats and go solo for usually the end of the game soaking up a lot of xbow fire and reaper bolts (30 de with xbows, 6 dark riders and 2 reapers in my friends army) He tends to lure out my friends noble from his body guard of executioners when he flanks the xbow units and pops up behind his line (If I take gorgers they pop up with the hunter and become really nasty) Then I have his xbow DE and the reapers doing a 180 to kill off the gorger/s and the hunter. If I still have the kittens with the hunter they can get of a flank/rear charge into some soft xbow men. The hunter also works well with long strider (3d6 pursue and 14 inch cruse range or grey back pelt (although you lose the ability to take yetis it will enable you hunter to cruse through terrain and pop up in great positions and bait and flee back through terrain.

 A hard nail tyrant works well as a bullet magnet he can hoof it off solo or sit in a unit and soak up fire. Going solo he is basically like the hunter with out the cats. Give him BHguns and he can have a lil shoot out with the DE pick off harpies, shades and dark riders.... basically anything. He is a monster in CC but will need some support. I have demon kill scars on my lil guy as when he gets within 6 enemy units take a terror test (like all elves DE have high ld but they don't always pass and if your lucky enough you can scare away the De gun line for a turn so the rest of your ogres get in to CC safer.


Giant is a big model so stands out has the potential to beat the crap out of units is scary (causes terror) Like the Tyrant with DKS has the chance to scare away near by enemy units and will attract COK and elite DE units.

Scrap launcher, hide it and take pot shots at the de xbow men and the reapers. Most xbow units are 10-15 and not too far apart and shoot for the center and hope you hit. You can cause a panic check from hitting one unit on the mark and can possibly panic away the near by units.

Maneaters with hguns 3 are very nasty can potentially drop 6 elves a turn including knights and elite CC buggers. Most of the time COK and dark riders are 6-7 strong so you can possibly wipe out either in one turn or take the charge and shoot em up. Great so send up the flank and nasty in combat. So maneaters nasty in combat and nasty at range= big bullet magnet can be taken out in one turn with reapers and some xbow shooting, but that’s ok if you are using them for that. Only down side of the maneaters in their pts cost.


Lead belcher’s march and keep marching until you get in range and let rip and hope you roll big.

Gorgers pop them up behind as a few have said above.

Yetis set up some terrain for them to deploy behind or to march over to in the 2nd turn and work them up the flank the fastest way possible and go for a flank charge or pop up on the open and attract some fire.

Skragg big mini nasty and fun. He is a tuff nut can regain his lost wounds causes terror and has T 6 5 W he has no save but you just pump out blood gruel. As he is the army gen you really don't want him to die but if he stay alive or dies and attracts fire while he is alive your bulls will get into combat either way.


That all I know about that... Well with my experience against shootie DE.
~piggles

Skragg big mini nasty and fun. He is a tuff nut can regain his lost wounds causes terror and has T 6 5 W he has no save but you just pump out blood gruel. As he is the army gen you really don't want him to die but if he stay alive or dies and attracts fire while he is alive your bulls will get into combat either way.


That all I know about that... Well with my experience against shootie DE.
~piggles

with toothcracker skragg can be T7 - and ignore all those pesky S3 attacks

what can you expect to see in a 1000 pts battle?

In 1000 points?
actually everything except highborns and dragons.

The best DE armies max out on Dark Riders. Dark Elf Sorceresses are skilled, but the Dark Lore is less effective against ogres. The general rule is charged DE die. Horribly. Leadbelchers to deal with the Dark Riders would be useful. Spearelves are reasonably priced, but unimpressive when it comes to killing things. The Elites are uncommon at small points games, and the only ones that ogres need fear are witch elves (3 attacks each and poison). However due to frenzy they are even easier to mislead then normal people.

Those little dark riders really annoy me. They used to drive me crazy with my OnG and VC armys wich had no shooting. I guess leadbleachers are the only ones who can shoot em up and also move into flanking positions.

Gun lines are just good againtst us beucase we are few but fast. Unfortunantely they can cansel the fastness factor easily with scots...

So the Dark Elves are getting a new book. From what I know most of the stuff is staying the same, a few points and rules changes. I think they all have hatred now, and eternal hatred against high elves (not that we really need to worry about dem other pointy ears). Their big bad Character, Malekith, can take any mount: chariot, cold one or dragon, just not the hoarse (not sure about the manticore).

It comes out in the next month or so, I'll know more about them then.

Against Shooty Armies get Regen and Toughness spells on the troops this will help get them across the table.

Maybe screen some of the shooty stuff with Trappers & gnoblar Fighters if possible.

Keep Leadbelchers undercover until you can pop out and fire a volley. Don't shoot leadbelchers at Skirmishers unless desperate.

Use magic Missiles & Panic on opposing low Leadership flankers and Skirmishers. Magic missiles on heavily Armoured troops Eg: Cold ones.

Bang stick on skirmishers or smaller units.

well. let's look at what they get:

1) hatred as a rule throughout the army - only a problem if they are charging you, and with ogres (and a bit of skilled moving about) that shouldn't be too much of a problem.  Most of the attcks are also only S3...

...but don't forget that the cold one knights, and their mounts will also benefit - as will the poisoned blades of the witch elves

2) assassins no longer take a character slot - meaning they can have as many as they have infnatry units!  And yes, with ASF and hatred as well as fancy gadgets this could get expensive and nasty

3) the hydra has a breath weapon equal in strength to the number of heads it has - meaning it starts with the ability to breath of chariots and auto-kill them!  Not good news for scrappies, but worse for the tomb kings!

4) ability to roll as many dice as they like to cast spells, and to generate more power dice too.  More chance of a miscast here, but also more chance of IF or simply forcing those scrolls out early - heavy magic could well be happening (like we don't have enough from VC already...)

Geberally they are still squishy (low toughness and little armour), but get it wrong now and you'll be in a world of hurt!

Most scary build:
high sorceress on a dragon! with the inversed ward save and a focus familiair:
good in combat due to the dragon, can still cast when in combat (even with spells the require line of sight), while most mages and shooters can't hurt you and even if you hit the model, the probability of surviving that is enormous.

banners for ASF and items for ItP will help the army too.
Actually I think it will be hard for a dark elves player to make a list an ogre can beat.

What is a focus familiar?

And the inversed ward save is very very good.

Take a point within 6 inch and cast your spells from there.
It works abit like the skink priest for the Slann

That's very good... Is it very expensive?

I might use my Halfling Hot Pots 100pts of Rare DOW nastiness. Perfect for those pesky T3 units.

Mind you without gorgers the Army will feel different.

Maybe use them in a Skrag list.

The Dark Elf Crossbows will make a mess of us at Range now with their Armour piercing.

would i be right in thinking bonecruncher/sharpstuff at the high sorceress on a dragon (single, large target) would sort her out?

Well let's see:

Warning: math hammer!

let's say 40 shots 20x2) hit on 4's
so 20 hits
out of those 20 hits 13 hit the dragon and don't wound
the 7 that hit the sorceress wound on 5's and do 2-3 wounds
before any wardsaves and other things.
That might work.

The problem is, that no dark elves player is going to put his dragon just outside 6" of your gnoblars on purpose.
They'll be within the terrortest taking range or outside your throwing range (including your move)

I've played against people who have more or less ignored my Gnoblars if they had a dragon.  Just have to keep the Tyrant in range for the Terror checks.

the crossbows haven't changed - but there is a new repeating handbow too - this one is the AP one and its range isn't as good.

I'm afraid you're mixing it Wildcard.

The Repeater Handbows are the one who don't have the AP rule.
Normal Repeater Crossbows have gained the Ap rule though, wich makes them so much better.
Repeater Handbows, on the other hand, plainly suck due to their short range and low strenght.

And the loss of attack in hand to hand.

went up against the new DE last night - they are much improved.  The simple addition of AP to the repeater crossbow makes a big difference to them.

one thing to watch out for is that the hydra with its beastmasters counts as a unit of skirmishers - and as such can move through terrain without suffering a movement penalty!  silly rule for something so big....

"hi, I'm a hydra - a "titanic beast" according to my fluff and a large target too.  If I was on my own like any other monster these woods would be slowing me down now - but look! I have to emo pansies with whips following me, and now I can glide through this forest like its just not there."

grrr.

but be careful about this.

Oi! don't call them emo pansies!

That Hydra is already good without the skirmishing rule, so I also don't understand, why it has the rule.

I played a game too, yesterday, with dark elves against wood elves

1. black guard with ASF are much better then you think.
I let him charge me with a smile and threw him away like a baby.

2. Hydra is so great, he can ravage through your units like crazy.

3. rerolls are great: any rerolls, you see that when you have a bad dice roll.

4. I had three units that are immune to psychology: black guard, corsairs and with elves
And if you want to, you can have a 4th one too ( any unit where you can have a none khainite character in or a champ with 25 points magical items.)

Ok i think the spell we all most decast is well all, but the Word of Death or Pain, brings all the units ws and bs to 1 and it says its 24 inches doesn't say need line of sight or anything like that. Also this strength 4 3d6 attacks ws4 is a killer too.

i always take a 8 strong trapper unit, but against dark elves i'd probably have to bump them up to 10-12. sharpstuff against t3 is nice (one way to deal with those pesky dark riders). also, something to possibly have a chance to claim a terrain piece your opponent may have wanted for his shades(which are 10x better now) is a good idea.

in fact. gnoblar meatshields would work great against dark elves. as would a scrapluancher as it would probably survive longer. i dont think dark elves have any S7.

I suppose they could have a Noble on a unbarded elven steed with Caledor's Bane. Doesn't it give 3+ to strength on the charge? Seems like a nice, cheap guided missile. Just like their higher cousins.

Yes, but their are other options, and with a normal lance he does the trick too.
unless you want to kill chariots.
And the guided missile is still over 100 points and doesn't have 360 degrees line of sight.
But if the dark elves player gives it the death mask then it might have two functions: kill one warmachine terror the next.

Yes, but their are other options, and with a normal lance he does the trick too.the next.

If you are going to make a noble like that (i.e. the missile kind), giving him chariot-busting options seems like a given.

Well its nice to see the DE with a boost I wouldn't say overpowered at this stage but I am yet to face them.

The Hydra I guess we need to deal with as we do Bloodthirsters and Dragons, Stubborn IG's may do the job?

I've played recently against them, and they are hard for us:

- General sorceress in a monster (dragon, dark pegasus...) with inverse ward save is really hard: he can skip the tyrant (and probably could tackle him), prevent our marches and fire magic constantly. Leadbelchers and maneaters with BOC (and magic) are our best shot at her, so I'd suggest to include some of our shooters.

- Hydra, what can be said. I fed it with gnoblars so it did not harm us too much. I tried to use a hunter against it, but it didn't work (he only managed to do a wound in 4 turns of shooting). Notice that the breath is not that bad for us: it only causes three hits at most in many units, since we do not have big blocks its quite bad, but could be worse. In CC is where it shines.

- Cold One knights: Really unstoppable for us when charging: flee from their charges! I was caught by this unit (after pursuing the hydra) without being able to flee and they destroyed a irongut unit with runemaw with the tyrant in it (it had the BSB in a cold one) scoring 8 wounds (while their champion was trashed by my tyrant). Then I kept fleeing and regrouping with another irongut unit, and after sacrifying a butcher to divert it I could get a shot with the guts, but they were distroyed by their magic the turn before the glorious charge.

- Their shooting really hurts us, specially the multishot repeaters. I lost a unit per turn to it.

- It is very hard to stop their magic. Hellheart is a must (their magic uses a lot of PD and they don't have any way to avoid miscasts) and a scroll caddie probably too. Notice also that their magic defense is relatively low taking into account the points they expend in magic, so three butchers would be my recommendation.

- Their charriots are average: they hurt even if we get to charge (due to their hate), but then they should be ours.

In a nutshell: really hard. If we stay still they crush us with crossbow fire and magic, but if we try to run towards them recklessly they will charge us with cold ones, chariots and the hydra with can easily turn over our battleline. Fine tunning and baits are necessary to tackle them.

Well the Dark Elf gun line I guess is on a par with a Skaven one, but the Elves do need LOS.

Try to close fast and charge as often as you can, especially war machines.

If using gorgers come on behind the crossbow units.

A Scrap launcher or 2 should be good on the Crossbows.

Magic will be useful (either T5 or Regen on the IGs).

Magic missiles (crossbows etc..,and Panic tests on the War machines).

Beware of stand and shoot and avoid if possible. I made this mistake on turn 6 of a game and it turned my win into a draw (inspite of the fact the unit had Regen on it).

Tyrant Bruiser Butcher with 3 bulls behind em.  Rest of the units should be MSU.  Need to get off troll guts on this unit asap, start them behind a unit of 3 bulls so they have some cover from shooty until they have TGs.  Equip the tyrant with tenderizer and beastkiller big name to deal with the 2 hydras your opponent will bring, equip your bruiser with BSB and whatever else you see fitting perhaps seige breaker or even warbanner perhaps.  Butcher equiped as you see fit.  2 Gorgers great for popping up and taking out their RBTs, I also used 2 units of gnoblar fighters and 1 unit of trappers.  Trappers deployed to hold up their cold one riders, fighters did some blocking as well.  May want to think about taking scrap launcher against them as it worked very well for me.  Killing 12 WE's in turn 1 and 9 BG in turn 2, miss turn 3, killed 14 fighters in turn 4, was very effective shaping the battle for me in conjunction with my belchers.

The best part of this is seeing your opponents face light up when he regens all but 1 wound, you roll a 5 for tenderizer and do 6 wounds dropping his hydra like a chump.

Sorry to say but your combo is illegal. Beastkiller only works if the character that has it is wielding a non-magical weapon.

but beatkiller does mean that a tyrant won't need to take a fear test as he will be immune to psychology

just a quick question; what would your suggestion be for an army that uses 4 assassins with manbane and rending stars, and just sends them out on their own. One of these is in a shades unit, and the other 3 are in crossbow units.

From turn 1, your ogres get 3 rending stars which hit on 2+ and wound on 2+ (this means S6 against all R&F and S7 against a tyrant/butcher - able to instakill a yhetee, bull, or irongut without trollguts), and if he groups them together, that's a total of 12 shots that hit AND wound on 2+  .

The only solution I can think of is bonecrunchers and sharp stuff.

just a quick question; what would your suggestion be for an army that uses 4 assassins with manbane and rending stars, and just sends them out on their own. One of these is in a shades unit, and the other 3 are in crossbow units.

From turn 1, your ogres get 3 rending stars which hit on 2+ and wound on 2+ (this means S6 against all R&F and S7 against a tyrant/butcher - able to instakill a yhetee, bull, or irongut without trollguts), and if he groups them together, that's a total of 12 shots that hit AND wound on 2+  .

The only solution I can think of is bonecrunchers and sharp stuff.

this would be a job for gnoblars   not to get stuck in, but to deploy as screens to the assassins in shade units and for trappers to jump on the ones in the crossbow units.

other than that, it might be a job for trollguts - at least we'd get some kind of save then

other than that - braces of handguns, not always anticipated by opponents, can stick it back to the asassins as well, or at least keep them in units where their LoS is lessened and the ability to panic the assassin away with the unit oges up.

Sorry to say but your combo is illegal. Beastkiller only works if the character that has it is wielding a non-magical weapon.

Yeah bummer I just saw that tonight before seeing this as I came back to fix it.  Oh well my greenness shows once again ;-)

3) the hydra has a breath weapon equal in strength to the number of heads it has - meaning it starts with the ability to breath of chariots and auto-kill them!  Not good news for scrappies, but worse for the tomb kings!

Hydra's breath weapon S equals to it's wounds and Hydra starts with 5 wounds (you might be confusing them with hydra's 7 attacks)

I love your last para Rotmaw, made me chuckle. Yes many armies have T4 core and always hit us on 3s. Point B = 

Just played a game against them couple days ago, with dark elves it depends on your list but very rock-paper-scizzors.

I played a big Deathstar that game, was hard to find anything to point it at but with Dark elves, just stop there darkness something spell that gives powerdice, move fast to keep out of range of thier fast cav and scouts, and make sure you deploy with the kind of set up you want because they usually outnumber us in units and can deploy how they like if you try to deploy to them.

And they usually spend way to much effort killing gnoblars and trappers then they should which is good for us (must be a T3 thing).

just be careful of combo charges from them and you should do fine, not fun game if they play cat and mouse for 6 turns though....

Like what Sparticus said be VERY carefull of combo charges.  Watch out for those beefed up cold ones nights,Pegasus lord and those annoying Hydras.  I've fought 4 before  .    Cauldrons can be irratating also if your opponent just waits for you to come at you while they beef the crap out of everything.

What works for me is Gorgers to Tie up Crossbows elves, at least horde or two of Gnoblars (30-40 is good),2x3 Lead Belchers units to kill those Harbies (herbies ) /Witches, Have like 8 Ironguts with Runemaw banner and or include your lord and prey that all your butches get there magic off.

Oh and watch out for Purple sun and Pit of shades!

So far in the past 2 weeks, i've played twice Dark Elf, both time using Death Magic against me. there's not much that can be done against Purple sun except, maybe, let everything pass but this spell... i've lost 12 bulls in a single pass, and 8 IG in another.

Small units can help reduce the high death tool of those spells, but i dont think anything under 6 Bulls/IG will stand much chance against DE. After all, your chance is in the 2nd round of combat, when their wounds inflicted start to go down.

If he does not go for Death, Shadow is even worst. MindRazor can reduce any unit to dust in a single round of combat. I'm personally an abuser of that spell when i play my Dark Elf, so believe me, it can beat any units without any problem. It's another spell very important to keep dispel scroll for (and of course, dispel dice).


Overall, i think our best defense against DE, is to maximize our magic phase, so they MUST try and dispel some of our buff in their round of magic. If they are forced to do that, you have much more chance to reduce their offensive spells. No DE want to fight Ogres with regen (well, except when an hydra breath is nearby, but that one only breath at Ini 2, and against that one unit with Fire banner).

Scraplauncher is a very nice way to reduce the usual lvl4 mage bunker (also known as Power Dice Pool). 2 for maximum chance of reducing it quickly.


that's pretty much what i've come to expect when facing DE.

Typical local DE build at 3000pts...
Lvl4 Shadow
Lvl2 Shadow
Cauldron
30-40ish Witches-sometimes 2 units
30 ASF Banner Black Guard (w/HagBSB)
40-50 Corsairs w/Frenzy Banner
Crossbows....lots of bleepin crossbows...

Have faced that twice. Each time it ended with my Heroes bravely thwacking away before the inevitable IF cast of Mindrazor on the Witches or Corsairs and its all over

Do you think the Thundermace is worth taking? I have mulled it over but the one hit roll is kinda scary...

Ok, I just got destroyed by the following list and have no idea how I would fight it.

Unkillable Lord (Pendent, Crown of Command) on Black Dragon
Hero on Manticore with Ring of Hotek
Level 2 with tome (extra spell) on Dark Pegasus

5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Dark Riders with XBows
5 Harpies
5 Harpies

5 Shades with Assassin (Rending Stars, Manbane)

War Hydra
War Hydra

This was literally my turn.

1. Reform Unit so Butcher/Slaughtermaster faces something
2. Try to panic and throw 2d6 Strength 2 shots at something

I killed one unit of harpies and one unit of dark riders.  He never killed my main unit becuse he never engaged it.  Killed everything else.  I even managed to maneuver so I got a charge on his general, but he just fled and rallied next turn.

That list used to be brutal back in 7th but now? Not so much.
I would love to take that on.
Tyrant with Flying Carpet, Mawseeker, Fencers Blades or ASF Sword, Pigeon Plucker's Amulet and a Charmed or Enchanted Shield if you can get it in (not sure on points total there)...would just paste those pansy little heroes :p. Go after the Sorceress first and then go to town on the Dark Riders. Highly doubtful that he would go near you with his Lord as even the Dragon would ned 4s to Hit and 4s to wound to which you would have a 4+ Ward. Unkillable Lord? Fine, kill his mount and he's pretty much screwed
Take a unit or 2 of Gnoblars to get some Rhinoxes and some units of 9-12 Bulls w/SM or Butchers and you should easily box him in. 
Sure there's a lot of shooting but it needs 5s to wound at base T. You aren't going to be taking that many casualties per turn
Its the huge high Init Infantry blocks that scare me.

That list used to be brutal back in 7th but now? Not so much.
I would love to take that on.
Tyrant with Flying Carpet, Mawseeker, Fencers Blades or ASF Sword, Pigeon Plucker's Amulet and a Charmed or Enchanted Shield if you can get it in (not sure on points total there)...would just paste those pansy little heroes :p. Go after the Sorceress first and then go to town on the Dark Riders. Highly doubtful that he would go near you with his Lord as even the Dragon would ned 4s to Hit and 4s to wound to which you would have a 4+ Ward. Unkillable Lord? Fine, kill his mount and he's pretty much screwed
Take a unit or 2 of Gnoblars to get some Rhinoxes and some units of 9-12 Bulls w/SM or Butchers and you should easily box him in. 
Sure there's a lot of shooting but it needs 5s to wound at base T. You aren't going to be taking that many casualties per turn
Its the huge high Init Infantry blocks that scare me.

Ok, I guess I should have specified.  How do you beat it with a typical tournament list?  Your typical tournament list won't be running a Tyrant on a Flying Carpet with Pigeon Plucker.  Besides, the dragon lord could probably easily take him down by himself anyway.  You have 6 strength 6 attacks with hatred from the dragon and 4 strength 6 attacks with hatred from the Lord.

Also, the sorceress was always hiding behind the dragon or the manticore.  I had two Scraplaunchers but one died first turn so it never got to fire when he did pit of shades on it (irresistible).  The other died to the assassin in two turns from shooting.  The one shot off it got from me missed.

At that point I had no shooting outside of gnoblar units with an 8" range.  I don't see how I could have boxed him in when the flying just jumps over my units to the backside or away from them, and dark riders with swift reform can move through your gaps single file and get behind you.

The only thing I can think of now that I've slept on it was to deploy in the corner with the scrap launchers behind and try to fire at him with those and the magic missile in the shooting phase.  Might have worked.  But tryiing to box him in is impossible due to his vastly superior movement.

S6 on the Lord? I take it he had other magic items then..
Against the Dragon and Manticore you would get 4+Ward thanks to PigeonPluckers Amulet. And you would still have a save vs the Lord even if he was S6. 
Just saying it could work but only against an army like this in a one off game. 
And I'm not thinking any Dark Elves in their right mind would take an army like that to a tourney...
There are way too many armies (HighElves, Chaos, Daemons, Dwarfs, most Empire builds) that would just thrash it.
If you're going to just a game night bring a couple lists. I generally like to make all-comer types and don't specifically gear armies to one specific build but if he wants to play that way teach him a lesson

He never killed my main unit becuse he never engaged it.  Killed everything else.

Let me guess, you were running an Ogre Deathstar? MMU might have served you better. Instead of one unit he can easily avoid and several smaller units he can easily kill, MMU with the right mix of characters means he can't just keep running.

This is one of the things I keep telling people they are going to run into if they keep playing strictly Deathstar. That appears to be what the army is designed to counter. It is probably even more brutal against armies with big infantry blocks. Then again those armies tend to have things like cannons(but I bet there is a High Elf crying somewhere after running into this).

He never killed my main unit becuse he never engaged it.  Killed everything else.

Let me guess, you were running an Ogre Deathstar? MMU might have served you better. Instead of one unit he can easily avoid and several smaller units he can easily kill, MMU with the right mix of characters means he can't just keep running.

This is one of the things I keep telling people they are going to run into if they keep playing strictly Deathstar. That appears to be what the army is designed to counter. It is probably even more brutal against armies with big infantry blocks. Then again those armies tend to have things like cannons(but I bet there is a High Elf crying somewhere after running into this).

I run a small deathstar.  No horde or anything.  10 Ironguts with 3 characters.

I also have another unit of 8 bulls with 1 character.

2 Scraplaunchers
Giant
30 Gnoblars
8 Trappers

After further analysis I think it would have been best to just stick everything in a corner.  He would have had trouble killing off anything entirely without getting into my charge range.  I could have kept the Scraplaunchers alive by putting them behind my units on a hill that was in the corner.  Instead I was trying to run around and box him in, which didn't work at all.

what point lvl?

i always consindered MMU being units of 9ish and having at least 3(multiple, not a couple).
the giant alone could free up the points.

what point lvl?

i always consindered MMU being units of 9ish and having at least 3(multiple, not a couple).
the giant alone could free up the points.

2500 points.

It was almost the same list I took here:

http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=19181.0

Except I took a Tenderizer Tyrant build.  I went 2-1 in the local tournament, only losing to the Dark Elf list.  But it was so lopsided I was a bit frustrated when I got home and posted here.  Now I'm hungry to play the list again because I think with different tactics I would have a decent chance.

That's the spirit!
I try to include at least 3 Bull units and Ironguts (you just have to have Ironguts)
Not bad on going 2-1 though. Grats on that

I believe that your best bet to defend against DE magic is to run a SM and a block of whatever you choose guts or bulls w/ the runemaw banner or use greatskull have them in two seperate units so that way if she targets either unit it can be deferred to the one with greatskull.  Lots of fun to watch a DE sorc blow herself up or the group of lil xbowmen she's sitting with. 

I am not sure that the Rune Maw works that way with the Greatdkull...

  The Rune Maw says this, "When a spell is successfully cast by an enemy spellcaster against the unit bearing the Rune Maw.  Roll a D6.  On roll of a 2+ the controlling player may  redirect the spell against another friendly unit within 6" of the unit with the Rune maw Standard."  Page 65 Ogre Book

The Great Helm says this, "Any spellcaster that targets the character with the Greatskull, or the unit he is with will miscast on any roll of..."  There was an errata on the roll portion.  page 63 Ogre book

IMO there is a difference between redirecting a spell that has been cast, and a spellcaster targeting a unit with an item in it.  in my opinion the difference is one can happen if the spell never even gets cast, and the other happens once if the spell is cast, and is then not dispelled, and is in range.

I do not think it is over powered, and I hope they make it so with the new book.

...

One thing to remember is that skirmisher are not the same as they were last ed, now how a unit changes formation is different, and there is that 1 inch rule. so a space of less than 3 inches means it is too tight as far as I have read.  You can change from single file to 5 wide all you want, but you have to get the middle of the unit through that space and an inch past it before you can reform it again.

Once again I think  it comes down to we almost have a requirement of Gorgers and Trappers so we can create an bad situations for super fast fragile stuff.

I personally think a mixture of bunkering up with a scrap or two firing each turn, and then rushing when they get too close is our best option with the tools we have atm.

Typical local DE build at 3000pts...
Lvl4 Shadow
Lvl2 Shadow
Cauldron
30-40ish Witches-sometimes 2 units
30 ASF Banner Black Guard (w/HagBSB)
40-50 Corsairs w/Frenzy Banner
Crossbows....lots of bleepin crossbows...

Have faced that twice. Each time it ended with my Heroes bravely thwacking away before the inevitable IF cast of Mindrazor on the Witches or Corsairs and its all over

Do you think the Thundermace is worth taking? I have mulled it over but the one hit roll is kinda scary...

@seabo76
there is a max of 20 on the blackguards, so not a legal list. Also why the hell the ASF banner on them as the Black guards have one of the highest Initiative RnF models can get and allready reroll all their attacks(to hit) due to their "elite" rule... apart from that it is not a bad list, where does he puts his sorceress? without them the only real threat are the cauldron and the witches IMHO. (So crush them and the cauldron, and avoid the witches) Corsairs are not that great on their own...

My bad. I actually meant the Executioners. They really benefit from the ASF Banner. I did figure my way around this list and can reliably deal with it.
I agree with the Deathstar of around 10 or so+Chars and some smaller units. Seems to work best.