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New player with old dark elves model


Vongolo

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Long story short, i had ammassed a small collection of models before End Times. I was a fan of fantasy before and that killed the game for me at the time. After finding out about Cities i said to myself "why not?". I'm not sure were to go with what i have, any advice to make a list using like a 60% of this models? Anvilgard isn't a must.

20x darkshards

20x dreadspears

30× corsairs

10x drakespawn knight

1x kharybdiss

Thank you in advance for the help.

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You can make most* of those units work well in any City. The Kharybdiss clearly works best as Anvilgard, since that's the only way to make it battleline and to get a Curse on it. I use Darkshards and Corsairs as a core of my Tempest Eye army. You definitely want the Fleetmaster with the Corsairs to buff them (he also buffs the Kharybdiss, so bonus points). Dreadspears aren't bad either, but they aren't the primo melee unit. There are ways to work those units into any of the cities, just a matter of how you want to expand out from there.

*Most was indeed a keyword there. The Drakespawn Knights are... Very very bad and there's not much you can do to help them out, unfortunately.

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So I actually love using darkshards and dreadpears as my battleline in my Living City list but TBH they are good cheap battleline for any city. So you definitely have a good set of units to start with.

With your models I would probably go with Tempest Eye for the run+shoot command ability as well as the Hawk Eyed command trait (+1 to wound on missile weapons within 12"). That would make your Corsairs and Darkshards particularly scary. I think you also get like a +5 to runs in your first turn. 

Anvil Guard is a bit more fluffy though, and you have a good start on the units you need for the Anvil Guard Battalion which is decent. 

I would make your first purchase definitely be a Sorceress (maybe even two!) Great cheap caster with some useful abilities. 

Next up I would buy some heavy melee hitters. Black Guard are solid and would be able to synergize well with a Sorceress. After that any Cities unit you like is fair game. Steam Tanks, Frost Phoenix, Evocators,etc are all popular choices. 

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Thanks for the suggestions! I comed up with a list, what do you think?

Tempest eye

Sorceress, general:hawk eyed, aura of glory 

Fleetmaster, adjutant, zephirite banner 

Hurricanum with mage

30x corsairs

20x dreadapears, retinue

20x darkshard

20x black guard

3x gyrocopters (anti horde)

2x gunhaulers (heavier targets)

Emerald lifeswarm

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39 minutes ago, Vongolo said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I comed up with a list, what do you think?

Tempest eye

Sorceress, general:hawk eyed, aura of glory 

Fleetmaster, adjutant, zephirite banner 

Hurricanum with mage

30x corsairs

20x dreadapears, retinue

20x darkshard

20x black guard

3x gyrocopters (anti horde)

2x gunhaulers (heavier targets)

Emerald lifeswarm

This list looks really decent! Really, really decent

Edited by JackStreicher
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6 hours ago, Vongolo said:

Long story short, i had ammassed a small collection of models before End Times. I was a fan of fantasy before and that killed the game for me at the time. After finding out about Cities i said to myself "why not?". I'm not sure were to go with what i have, any advice to make a list using like a 60% of this models? Anvilgard isn't a must.

20x darkshards

20x dreadspears

30× corsairs

10x drakespawn knight

1x kharybdiss

Thank you in advance for the help.

Lets go over those units one by one.

Darkshards are great.  20-60 of them are playable in basically any city, though they do work best in Tempest Eye because of "Hawk Eyed" giving a +1 to wound bubble.  Note that the Sorceress can give them run + shoot/charge as a command ability, they don't need to worry about city provided effects to get that.

Dreadspears are... ok.  Not great, but at 90 points per 10, well, you get what you pay for.  However, there are 2 things that they stand out for.  First, as a unit of 20, they can be a general's Retinue, which means that the general can shrug wounds off on to them.  Second, they are darkling coven, and relatively cheap, so you can sacrifice them pretty easily for the +2 to cast bonus, and you aren't losing overly much by doing so.  If I was running a Darkling Coven based force, I would definitely be looking to bring a brick of 20 of them for those 2 purposes, and it counts as battleline as well too.

Corsairs are terrible.  You either have them built with 2 weapons, with one wounding on a 5+ and the other on a 4+, and they only get 1 attack each.  Or you have one blade at a 5+ to wound and then a pathetic 5+/4+ ranged attack that you only get a 9" range on.  However, with the right support they can actually be interesting.  Notably, if you have them wholly within 12" of a fleet master, he can give them +1 attacks on their weapons, which if they are duel wielding is +2 attacks.  Additionally, if you are running tempest eye and you have a wizard wholly within 12" who casts Aura of Glory, they get another +1 attacks on each of their weapons.  Arguably, this is a waste of a command point and a spell, but if you like the models and want to experiment with them, giving a block of 30-40 of them (I would take 40 just because the last 10 only cost 40 points) unleashing with 6 attacks per model gives meaning to the phrase "Quantity has a quality all of its own".  No, you aren't getting all 40 in attacking, but on 25mm bases they can fight in 2 ranks and getting 20 of them in isn't too tough.  20 guys attacking with 3 attacks per weapon is still ~34 damage before saves.  If only there was an easy way to give them +1 to wound...

Drakespawn Knights are terrible.  I have argued that they are the worst warscroll in the book.  That being said, someone did manage to take a block of 15 and place at a tournament back in... March?  February?  Its been a bit and this whole corona virus thing is really throwing off my timing, but someone did do well with a block of them in their army.  About all that they are good for is running up and sitting on an objective and being relatively tough to move, because they certainly aren't dishing out the damage.  But, 10 wounds on a 3+ save with a 10" move is tough for some armies to move, making them a somewhat expensive but premier chaff unit.

Kharybdiss are... mediocre.  But you know, for 170 points they aren't that bad, as long as you don't mind them occupying a behemoth slot.  They also can get buffed by a fleetmaster (though it probably isn't worth the command point), but if you aren't worried about making a super competitive army, they can be fun.  Also, I totally want to make an Anvilguard force that runs a few Kharybdiss/Hydra's for battleline, and then some black dragons for command, and just laugh at the monster mash.  Would it be a terrible force?  Yes.  Would it be funny?  Heck yes.

Overall, you can get a few cities to work with what you have.  My top recommendations are for Tempest Eye and Hallowheart, but you could probably get something interesting to happen in the living city, hammerhall, or anvilguard as well.  What I would start out with:

Sorceress
    General
Sorceress
    Adjutant
Black Ark Fleetmaster

40 Corsairs
20 Darkshards
20 Darkshards
20 Dreadspears
    Honored Retinue

This gives you 1100 points and 3 battleline units, giving you a solid start to your army.  How you fill out the rest depends upon which city you choose.  If you want to go with Hallowheart, you are going to focus more on magic, and I would look to finish filling out your army with the following:

Knight-Incantor
Either Hurricanum or Luminark w/ mage (I lean more towards hurricanum, but luminark is a reasonable option)
5 Drakespawn Knights
5 Drakespawn Knights
Everblaze Comet
Emerald Lifeswarm
Burning Head

With this, you get the incantor + comet, and a large-wound wizard to use your command ability on to get +d6 to your casting rolls on, as well as the lifeswarm and burning head (optionally, swap those 2 for Soulscream Bridge).  With other shooters, I would recommend the bridge, but darkshards can actually hit your opponents if they deploy on the line with run+shoot if you feel that is worth it turn 1.  Because you are running Sorceress's and can get +2 to cast without the command ability, I don't particularly feel whitefire retinue is needed, saving you some points there.  Then you have some points left, so I decided to just throw your drakespawn knights in to hold objectives, leaving the rest of your force to move forward as a deathstar.

If you prefer to go for tempest eye, I would instead look to fill out the rest of your force with the following:

Hurricanum
20 Darkshards (fill out a unit to 40)
30 Black Guard

The key thing here is that you can spend a command point to let a unit of darkshards run + shoot, which is a range of 11+d6 movement turn 1 alongside a 16" crossbow range, giving you a threat range of 27+d6".  Going with that, a command point would let your black guard run+charge turn 1, which is 12+3d6 threat range turn 1.  Also, between Celestial Visions, Adjutant, and possibly the Seerstone Amulet (its either that or Zephyrite banner IMO) you will get 1-4 command points a turn.

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On 4/10/2020 at 4:15 PM, Vongolo said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I comed up with a list, what do you think?

Tempest eye

Sorceress, general:hawk eyed, aura of glory 

Fleetmaster, adjutant, zephirite banner 

Hurricanum with mage

30x corsairs

20x dreadapears, retinue

20x darkshard

20x black guard

3x gyrocopters (anti horde)

2x gunhaulers (heavier targets)

Emerald lifeswarm

Nice! I actually find Gyrocopters to be great but better in single units. If you are going to take Black Guard I would recommend you go ahead and bump it up to 30. They have 2" range and can really capitalize on larger units. A unit of 30 near the Sorceress is quite terrifying since that will be 61 attacks hitting on 2's. 

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On 4/10/2020 at 10:15 PM, Vongolo said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I comed up with a list, what do you think?

Tempest eye

Sorceress, general:hawk eyed, aura of glory 

Fleetmaster, adjutant, zephirite banner 

Hurricanum with mage

30x corsairs

20x dreadapears, retinue

20x darkshard

20x black guard

3x gyrocopters (anti horde)

2x gunhaulers (heavier targets)

Emerald lifeswarm

I... am... overcoming my pain of seeing the best warriors of the old world degraded to mere cannon fodder and chaff units. That brings us to the first point.

1. distinguish between chaff units and combat units (combat units are meant to do damage)

20 dreadspears, darkshards, corsairs whatsoever wont do you much good in terms of damage and stopping power.  A rule of thumb can be that units with 2'' reach should be played in the biggest unit size possible. Dreadspears and Blackguard can attack in 3 rows. This is were you generate damage. 

If you use chaff units, play them in 2x10. Looking at the darkshards or the 10 + 10 Dreadspears. Do not expect them do do damage. The 40 Corsair unit is very cheap and can be useful to hold objectives.

After talking about the footsloggers we come to the next point.

2. you lack speed!

Actually with this list it is very likely that your enemy will be faster than you and dictate were the engagements happen. That has never been good for the Druchii's kin. I recommend putting the Sorceress on a black dragon to give her some operational use (a Dragon can make use of the Hurricanum). Throw out the Emerald lifeswarm and get speedbuffs and chargebuffs in that army. Maxed out blobs of Dreadspears and Corsair can be suprisingly good objective holders.

we can do missions objectives now and talked about defensive.

3. Damage and Mortal Wounds

is something I really miss in your army. I only see some spare mortal wounds here and there. You might want to look into that again. I would like to recommend Executioners (pre Cities of sigmar book)... but now I cant. I have never tried them with their new warscrolls. You might find some other way to bring in some MW.

The only real damage dealers I see so far would be a maxed out unit of Black Guard fully supported by the Hurricanum, Magic users and Eternal spells. You need more units than that in my opinion.

If you want some more indepth damage calculations, you can look into the discussions of Darkling Covens and Scourge Privateers right in this forum.

4. Rend

when you dont bring MW dealing units and try to make the Black Guard work, we still have a general rend problem in this army. Will be hard do deal with that general weakness of the roster. I am just mentioning that as a last point.

Edited by Kaleun
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12 hours ago, Kaleun said:

1. distinguish between chaff units and combat units (combat units are meant to do damage)

20 dreadspears, darkshards, corsairs whatsoever wont do you much good in terms of damage and stopping power.  A rule of thumb can be that units with 2'' reach should be played in the biggest unit size possible. Dreadspears and Blackguard can attack in 3 rows. This is were you generate damage. 

If you use chaff units, play them in 2x10. Looking at the darkshards or the 10 + 10 Dreadspears. Do not expect them do do damage. The 40 Corsair unit is very cheap and can be useful to hold objectives.

I think that you may want to re-evaluate Darkshards.  Yes, they lack rend, but they always get 2 attacks and with Tempest Eye you can run Hawk Eyed to have them hitting on 3+/3+ without even adding in a hurricanum.  This will actually allow a unit of Darkshards to outdamage a similar number of Handgunners unless the handgunners get their General Buff - and importantly here, the darkshards can do this without being forced to sit still.  Combining this with the sorceress's command ability, and you get a reasonable offensive unit that can run forward turn 1 11+d6" and still shoot afterwards without its shooting being hindered (note, this is the only decent shooting unit in the cities that can say that, as all the others get bonus's for sitting still).

12 hours ago, Kaleun said:

2. you lack speed!

Actually with this list it is very likely that your enemy will be faster than you and dictate were the engagements happen. That has never been good for the Druchii's kin. I recommend putting the Sorceress on a black dragon to give her some operational use (a Dragon can make use of the Hurricanum). Throw out the Emerald lifeswarm and get speedbuffs and chargebuffs in that army. Maxed out blobs of Dreadspears and Corsair can be suprisingly good objective holders.

Once again, I think you might want to take a look at the warscrolls, the sorceress, and the city.  The sorceress lets any Darkling Coven unit run and still shoot/charge.  And the tempest eye city effect of giving +3" move on turn 1 (as well as always +1" to run rolls) gives the infantry heavy lists more mobility than you would expect.  This means that the infantry from this army can actually pull off a turn 1 charge (9" move + d6+2" run + 2d6+1" charge gives 12+3d6" threat range on turn 1), while the darkshards can shoot something turn 1 (9" move + d6+2" run + 16" range gives 27+d6" threat range on turn 1).  Nothing is saving those corsairs though (except their sculpts... they are pretty).

12 hours ago, Kaleun said:

3. Damage and Mortal Wounds

is something I really miss in your army. I only see some spare mortal wounds here and there. You might want to look into that again. I would like to recommend Executioners (pre Cities of sigmar book)... but now I cant. I have never tried them with their new warscrolls. You might find some other way to bring in some MW.

The only real damage dealers I see so far would be a maxed out unit of Black Guard fully supported by the Hurricanum, Magic users and Eternal spells. You need more units than that in my opinion.

Black guard actually don't really benefit well from the hurricanum.  They already get a +1 to hit if they are near a sorceress, which means they will have a 2+/3+ without the hurricanum around.  Which just means you can keep your hurricanum near something else.  Darkshards can also put out a surprisingly heafty weight of fire, though you are still going to wish you had irondrakes and 2 runelords if you run across Petrifex Elite bonereapers.  That being said, both of those units could use to have their numbers maxed out (ok, maybe use darkshards as 2 units of 20 instead of 1 unit of 40).

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If you want to theme things, you may want to look into the Daughters of Khaine Underworld Warband that comes out when quarantine ends.

It can easily give you two sorceresses (from hag queen and witch elf), and be the basis of your Hurricanum (the medusa lady becoming a statue), which is a brilliant model, but fits humans, high elves and dwarves better than dark elves and wood elves.

I would also look into your sprues. Maybe the Corsairs don't work well for you as is, but maybe they do when converted with spare Darkshard/Dreadspear/Bleakswords parts.

If you look at Anvilgard, it has the best spell of cities bar none: Vitriolic Spray.

That thing makes a unit of three Gyrocopters with steam outright delete a 40 blob unit of Petrifex Mortek Guard without save. Or any other unit without secondary saves.

It also really enhances your Darkshards.

Edited by zilberfrid
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@readercolin

alright lets evaluate the Darkshards.

A unit of 20 will dish out 17,4 wounds before saves. If they shoot a stormcast unit like liberators with a 4+ save they will create around 9 wounds (rounded up because of the guardmaster). With the hurricanum we do 22 wounds before save, so 5 Libies drop from one volley (their armor of 4+ saves them from 50% of the damage). This is fine when we get in range.

The speed is still lackluster. You will fight enemies who can grab an objective on the other side of the map in one movement phase! Holding objective with this army will be key and that goes against the tactic of keeping the sorceress close. 

Your sorceress can be removed on one round of shooting. The army is relying heavily on her if you describe it like that. 12'' arent a big bubble, especially if you start charging things and also try to hold your objectives. So the survivability and the speed of your general are issues you might want to look into.

The charge bonusses look good on paper, but often it will be hard to use them to full effect and really get the job done. I understand the cities army more as an reactive army. That means you will get charged and then punish the enemy for the attack with a counter attack. I do not think "getting fast into combat" will be a good goal.

The Corsairs can be a good obj. holding unit. 

The Black Guard might be in range of either the leader or the hurricanum.

 

 

Edited by Kaleun
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On 4/17/2020 at 3:07 PM, Kaleun said:

alright lets evaluate the Darkshards.

Time to defend the poor guys again, it seems ; )

Point per wound caused, only shooting unit more efficient than darkshards that we have are irondrakes (against saves 3+ or better darkshards start to rapidly lose their advantage, though. Before petrifex showed up they were much less risky than now). Irondrakes require soulscream bridge to shoot with full effectiveness in 1st round, darkshards don't. In fact, darkshards are only cities shooting infantry that can, with all certainty, shoot something round 1 without sacrificing any buffs. In Tempest's eye they get +1 to wound and extra +4 effective range, allowing for better choice of targets, in Anvilgard they are one of the best recipients for the spray. They also require surprisingly light support structure to achieve full effectiveness (sorceress, hurricanum, optional azyros (can be substituted with command point). Irondrakes require a hurricanum, longbeards and, for best performance, multiple runelords, while being more expensive themselves as well.

They might not be the most efficient choice, but they're certainly not bad, and come with additional advantage of blindsiding opponents expecting irondrake bridge lists.

Plus, (and I can't verify this, due to lockdown induced lack of updated tactical information ;)) as current broken opponent started switching from petrifex to tzeentch, it's possible that against light armour/million bodies horrors, darkshards turn out to be an optimal choice.

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I think its also important to note that Darkshards are relatively cheap, and are unconditional battleline. 

Personally I find that screening is one of the most critical tactics in competitive play, and so I am going to be taking cheap screens/objective campers in pretty much every army I ever field. So having a cheep screen that can also put out decent shooting while also filling a battleline slot? Sold!

 

 

 

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On 4/23/2020 at 7:39 PM, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Related question from a different person than the OP: If one wanted to do something like this with old Dark Elf models and keep a visual theme going, does anyone have any good ideas for Demigryph knight conversions?

You might want to combine the Demigryph mounts with Cold-one Knights for example. 

Additionally add spikes and armor bits that are Dark Elve related.

So sad those feather beasts have a better warscroll then Cold one beasts...

Edited by Kaleun
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6 hours ago, Kaleun said:

You might want to combine the Demigryph mounts with Cordone Knights for example. 

Additionally add spikes and armor bits that are Dark Elve related.

So sad those feather beasts have a better warscroll then Cold one beasts...

Yeah, I love the Drakespawn Knight models so much! Damn shame about the warscroll.

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On 4/24/2020 at 1:30 PM, Kaleun said:

So sad those feather beasts have a better warscroll then Cold one beasts...

Funny of you mentioning this. It made remember all the artwork and the Malus Darkblade book series. The drakespawn should definitely be bigger and more ferocious than what they are. Maybe not the size of Chocobos on regular basis, but I remember that Malus mentioning in the book that the breeding process resulted in different hatchling. His own... Scorn was its name ? ...or something like that, was a smaller breed when compared to other Cold Ones, but instead it was smarter and more cunning then its brood kin. Meanwhile his Lieutenant had one of the biggest Drakespawn in the company that towered over his own.

Regardless of the size a Raptor of such a size should be be able to pose quite considerable threat on their own and as such its a pity they are not up the task regarding their rules (buffing the to Wound to 3+ and adding a -1 Rend would make the Cold Ones, however even after the Seraphon update there has been no change to Cold Ones in general which is a shame).

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2 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

Funny of you mentioning this. It made remember all the artwork and the Malus Darkblade book series. The drakespawn should definitely be bigger and more ferocious than what they are. Maybe not the size of Chocobos on regular basis, but I remember that Malus mentioning in the book that the breeding process resulted in different hatchling. His own... Scorn was its name ? ...or something like that, was a smaller breed when compared to other Cold Ones, but instead it was smarter and more cunning then its brood kin. Meanwhile his Lieutenant had one of the biggest Drakespawn in the company that towered over his own.

Regardless of the size a Raptor of such a size should be be able to pose quite considerable threat on their own and as such its a pity they are not up the task regarding their rules (buffing the to Wound to 3+ and adding a -1 Rend would make the Cold Ones, however even after the Seraphon update there has been no change to Cold Ones in general which is a shame).

It was "Spite" 🙂

yeah. The books said alone the heads of a cold one could bite a man in half. 

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On 4/23/2020 at 7:39 PM, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Related question from a different person than the OP: If one wanted to do something like this with old Dark Elf models and keep a visual theme going, does anyone have any good ideas for Demigryph knight conversions?

If you want to go outside of GW:

http://www.gamezoneminiatures.com/tienda/en/dark-elves/2464-dark-knight-on-predator-iii.html

Dark Knight on Predator III

im pretty’s sure these are a tad bigger than the GW cold ones. Definitely bulkier. So that’s easily recognisable on the table as the more powerful of the two. 

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12 hours ago, Kramer said:

If you want to go outside of GW:

http://www.gamezoneminiatures.com/tienda/en/dark-elves/2464-dark-knight-on-predator-iii.html

Dark Knight on Predator III

im pretty’s sure these are a tad bigger than the GW cold ones. Definitely bulkier. So that’s easily recognisable on the table as the more powerful of the two. 

Either those or you can stick with GW and make use of the old metal Carnosaurus. I was inspired by a picture like:
Lord-rightsidefront2.jpg.de7890dc4b0340ef027457fef47eed65.jpg
 

As you asked I was thinking about making count-as models for the better Demigryph Warscroll and came to the Carnosaurus solution. What stopped me from getting started is that an army needs a bunch of those to get effective. 

I mean we need at least 3 big cold ones to proxy a squad of demigryph Knights. The problem of the metal model above is that the miniatures will have the same posture. Due to the metal if consists of conversions might be challenging.

In the picture a Malus Darkblade conversion sits on top. I would use the Cold one Knights. The legs of the models can be adjusted and therefore fit various mounts in my opinion. Slap some green stuff on the Carnosaurus to make him look more armored if that is wanted.

 

Another idea. Why play Demigryph knights anyway when other options like the Stormcast Dracolines might be more useful.
 

Check out this thread. The Dracolines might be good mounts for some Cold one knights and this warscroll is also intersting. Stormcast units can easily be brought in a cities of sigmar army without having to ally them.

e93397feef66f4413bb82715aacc78fa.jpg.a91deab9ddba20f6158335d29efeed91.jpg

This picture is for size comparison what a smaller (then a stormcast) model would look like on the dracoline.

Edited by Kaleun
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11 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Ooh, thanks for that! Looks like there are a few different poses as well!

Do make sure you check the sizes either with them or a comparison picture online. As i'm pretty sure they are a bit bigger... but not 100% and I don't want the blame if i;m wrong ;)

 

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6 hours ago, Kramer said:

Do make sure you check the sizes either with them or a comparison picture online. As i'm pretty sure they are a bit bigger... but not 100% and I don't want the blame if i;m wrong ;)

 

Yeah, I've been trying to get that figured out, with no luck so far. If I end up investing without being certain, though, I'll only blame myself if it doesn't work out. 😉

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