Starting List Looking for Direction

[MetaphoricDragon]

So Thanks to YouTube randomly deciding to suggest some HeyWoah videos to me, I learned about the Cities of Sigmar faction and realized I could repurpose my old Dark Elves that have been buried in my closet for many a year.  Painting them would also make for a good quarantine times project.  

After reading up on things, combined with what I have/have painted, this is the starting 1000 point list I've come up with.  I was leaning Tempest's Eye but I'm certainly open to other city suggestions.  I'm looking for advice both on the current list, and to how I should be looking to grow the list out from here.

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
 - City: Tempest's Eye
LEADERS
Sorceress (90)
- General
- Command Trait: Hawk-eyed
- Lore of Eagles: Strike of Eagles
Sorceress (90)
- Artefact: Patrician's Helm
- Lore of Eagles: Aura of Glory
- City Role: General's Adjutant
UNITS
20 x Darkshards (200)
- City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)
20 x Dreadspears (180)
10 x Black Guard (130)
5 x Dark Riders (110)
1 x Scourgerunner Chariots (80)
ARTILLERY
Celestar Ballista (110) (Repurposed Reaper Bolt Thrower)

 

For what its worth, I currently also have 20-some Corsairs, a Black Ark Fleetmaster, another Chariot, 5 Drakespawn Knights, 10 Executioners, 10 Shades (to count as Shadow Warriors), another Reaper Bolt Thrower, an Assassin, and some models I can use as further sorceresses.  

Thank you,

[swarmofseals]

@MetaphoricDragon welcome! I think the biggest and most immediate question is what you your goals are. Do you want to be competitive, or are you just trying to come up with a workable configuration given what you have?

[MetaphoricDragon]

8 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

@MetaphoricDragon welcome! I think the biggest and most immediate question is what you your goals are. Do you want to be competitive, or are you just trying to come up with a workable configuration given what you have?

Thanks for the Welcome!  I have never been a tournament player, so I do not feel the need to push for absolute top tier competitive, however I don't want to be a doormat either so I do try to at least be effective.  My first goal is to figure out what is most effective out of what I have.  Once I've got that base I'd like to know how to best grow from there, since it seems 2000 pts is the average game, and I don't think I have anything coherent to reach that yet.   

[swarmofseals]

The game is something of a different animal at 2k than it is at 1k (meeting engagements), so your experiences at 1k may not really map to 2k exactly.

I can give a rundown of my impressions of the warscrolls if that would be helpful:

• Darkshards  can be pretty good really, particularly against light armor. They need to be buffed to get the most out of them. Their advantage over the other CoS shooting options is their mobility. They are among the few CoS shooting units that can move and still shoot at full effectiveness. Personally I like them in blocks of 30.
• Dreadspears/Bleakswords - I'm not a fan, really. I often take a unit of 10 as sac fodder for a Sorceress but wouldn't really take more than that.  That said in max sized units they can sit on objectives and out-body the opponent pretty well. They will just die in droves and won't do much damage. You'll definitely need a plan for making them immune to battleshock.
• Blackguard  can dish out damage pretty reasonably and their defensive efficiency is OK. At small unit sizes though they get dominated by the other elite infantry options as their 2" range isn't helping you. I'd take them in 30s or not at all.
• Dark Riders these guys are a pretty confused unit. They are fast but don't really do anything well. Personally I'd avoid them. Shadow Warriors are a much better way to spend 110.
• Scourgerunner Chariots are pretty solid, although best in units of 3 now.
• Sorceress is a great warscroll and I include it in tons of builds
• Celestar Ballista is just not a good choice in Cities, I think. You'd be better off proxying as a Hellstorm Rocket Battery or Hellblaster Volley Gun but both of those are pretty mediocre too. It relies too much on SCE allegiance abilities to function the way you would want it to.
• Corsairs + Fleetmaster are pretty niche, although I think they are a bit underrated. They can really blend soft targets and have reasonable defensive efficiency.
• Drakespawn Knights just don't hit hard enough to have a real role.
• Shadow Warriors are great. They don't do a ton of damage or anything but being able to put them down anywhere is great for the objective game and allows you to fix mistakes in your deployment.
• Assassins aren't really able to do what they are supposed to do and I can't really think of a situation where I'd include one.
• Executioners are an interesting unit. I had written them off mostly as inferior to Freeguild Greatswords but I could potentially see them used as a hammer in Tempest Eye. The fact that they can run and charge and get that 9" first turn move makes them a bit interesting. Again I'd err toward larger blocks though as they really need to completely kill whatever they hit.

Overall I think the two cities which lend themselves to a heavily Dark Elf force the best are Hallowheart and Tempest Eye (also the "best" two cities generally speaking, although I think Hammerhal and Living City are both decent). For Hallowheart you'll just need to pick up some more wizards. A luminark/hurricanum, a knight-incantor or two and a battlemage or two should suffice and then you can just fill out the rest however you want. For Tempest Eye you can build around lots of Darkshards and Executioners with some chariots in support.