Facing Dark Elves

[Greggoman]

Hey guys I'm facing Dark Elves for the first time on friday and the guy is a very experianced player. I'm going to be using Dwarfs and I think its going to be 2500 points. I intend on using lots of longbeards, a few Ironbreakers, lots of thunderers, gyrocopter, flamecannon, cannons, runelord, master engineers, bolt thrower. I've not given an exact army list because my stuffs not with me at the moment, but I will make a list tommorrow.

I was hoping if you guys could give me some pointers

I know I'm going to use the Runelord and maybe a battle standard with a rune to lower down the their immense magic. Hopefully pick off as much as possible with the shooty things to whittle down large units, use the cannon to take out big things like a hydra or a manticore. The ironbreakers would ideally take out cavallry in hand to hand but I know he'll avoid it. Thats why I intend on having huge units of Longbeards to have as much +'s to combat resolution.

But apart fromt hat I haven't got a clue

Thanks in advance

Greggoman

[Visitor Q]

If you want to take out the Hydra I have found the bolt thrower to be immensly more useful than the cannon.

Rune of Penetration Master rune of Skewering and Rune of Burning and an engineer.

You will be hitting on 2+ at least once, wounding on 2+ and the Hydra won't get an armour save or a Regeneration (because of the Rune of Burning).

The bolt thrower also causes d3 wounds so it is no worse than the cannon for inflicting damage and you don't need to worry about misfires or guessing the range (admitedly the Master engineer will give the cannon d6 wounds but personally I think this is balanced by the accuracy of the Bolt Thrower) .

Dwarf armour is one of the plus points so watch out for Dark Elf magic that ignores it. I would save a rune of Spell Breaking for the 'Black Horror' spell as it is lethal.

If you can lay your hands on a Grudge Thrower I would definitly take it. A single rune of Penetration means anything under that template is wounded on a 2+ (baring large monsters).

If you are worried about Assassins then obviously Runes of Preservation are worth taking (ignore Killing Blow and Poision). I would also strongly consider taking a Rune of Cleaving for your characters as standard. St5 means a 2+ to wound roll against all dark elves which will be invaluable.

If you are planning to win via Combat Resolution rather than simply destroying the enemy (and it's no bad tactic) then I would strongly consider investing in the Master Rune of Fear and the Rune of Stoicisim. One of your units will fear and (probably) outnumber the enemy leading to autobreaks (baring insane courage). Bare in mind this is something of a points sink so you will want this unit to be getting stuck in.

The great thing with a unit like this is that the combat resolution is so high +1 for Battle Standard +1 for Unit Banner +1 for outnumber +3 for Ranks. for a hefty 6 add a Rune of Battle and you have a static combat resolution of 7!. Assuming the enemy has 3 ranks and a standard you are already winning by 3. This is why this combo works so well on Ironbreakers. Dark Elves will have a bit of a challenge (not impossble of course) in simply killing 3 ironbreakers in combat. And that assumes you kill none in return. As I say a points sink but also a potential battle winner.

Gyrocopters are very nice for baiting Witch Elves of course and without armour are also pretty good at killing them.

Thunderers are nice, if you can get them into a two storey building do so (re-read the rules on buildings to see why). Remember their +1 to hit. That said remember they are comparitivly weak in combat. Be sure that their breaking won't cause other eegiments to get outflanked.


A word on Dark Elf mounts. Often Dark Elf monsterous mounts are fairly weak on the defense. Their toughness isn't horrendously high, especially not if your Dwarf has a Great Weapon or so forth. They generally have little armour and average Ws.
The Dark Elf rider by comparison will probably have rediculous armour, a ward save and possibly a regeneration save. And that is to say nothing of his high Ws meaning you hit on 4+'s
All things considered then aiming for the monster rather than the Dark Elf is quite a good way of winning combat.
This also has the advantage of canceling out a Terror or Fear causing creature (also meaning the rider is now subject to fear see the note about trhe Master Rune of Fear above) and slowing the rider down to a mere 2d6 flee move.

Essentially the Dark Elves will come out with all kinds of dirty tricks, crazy items and so forth but remember that the longer the fight goes on, after they use up their dirty tricks and their hatred then they are ultimatly elves; weak, lightly armoured and liable to get an axe in the face.

[Gedderz]

The DE player will most likly have Black guard too (we all do), best thing against these guys is rifles shoot them down before they have chance to hit you and a very powerful unit will be blowen away.

[TheSaxon]

organ gun is probably a must imo. It rocks everyone, and if you add a Rune of Burning, it takes care of your regen worries too!

[King Ulrik Flamebeard]

organ gun is probably a must imo. It rocks everyone, and if you add a Rune of Burning, it takes care of your regen worries too!

You cannot add runes to organ guns. If you read the rules it specifically states that any war machine in the rare section (organ guns, flame cannons, gyrocopters) may not be given any runes.

That said, the organ gun is always a good choice. The armour modifiers are very handy against anyone with heavy armour and a shield. Also, it'll easily be wounding most things the dark elves can bring to bear against you.

Kuffy

[JJB]

So how did it go?:)