Tactica: Dark Elves in 8th edition

[Eumerin]

Did the TK player bring his SSC? Did he bring a Casket?

The SSC is practically required these days due to the usefulness of its fire damage against certain very popular Regenerating creatures (like Hydras...). And with True Line of Sight, it'll be somewhat more difficult to avoid looking at the Casket (and iirc, the Hydra doesn't have a great leadership value...).

Also, it sounds as if you at least got lucky against the Ushabti. A quick mental tally of the numbers (though not a careful one) suggests to me that the Ushabti should have taken the Hydra down.

Aside from that, it's not really a surprise. Tomb Kings have problems with things like the Hydra. Nor, it should be added, are they a particularly good match-up for Witch Elves, which will chop them up into tiny itty-bitty bone chips (29 poisoned attacks, rerolling misses? Oh how did you know it was my birthday!?). You might want to try testing him out against a few other armies first before you decide to shelve him.

[TheDarkDaff]

So... Today i realized how totally wrong the hydra can be. I played a game vs tk (alowing all his incantations to go off for free since we all know they need something) My hydra literally killed everything in his army except for two skeletons. Second round slaughtered a unit of chariots, got flanked charged by 3 ushtabi and killed them all, continued with a flank attack on archers due to stupid CoKs, killed them to a man and over ran into 4 deep spearetons and killed them to a man, then charged his tombking/skeleton unit slaughtering them to a man... intotal lost three wounds. Thunderstomp and no partials made it so much more Overpowered then people complained about last edition i might stow it for awhile.

Sounds a bit odd. You only get to use the breath weapon once per game if my understanding is correct so it shouldn't be eating through units quite so quickly.

[Arselskjut]

I havn't played fantasy for ages, and certainly not dark elves. Building up my army right now. I got 40 Corsairs, 20 additional handweapons, and I'm thinking of making 20 with handbows.

But is there a use for corsairs with handbows?

I was thinking this tactics:

Deploy two units with 10 in each, no reaver. Equip with handbows and a formation of 5 wide.

Tactic, a flank/shield unit that I push towards my enemies and if they intend to charge I flee and let my blackguards/witches/executioners countercharge next turn.

Or are handbows better deployed in a big group, 20guys with a Heroe / Assassin.
Aiming to punish my enemies with shots untill They charge and I unleash some punishment with my character? Banner of Murder in the unit ofc, full command.


Or should i just make all corsairs dual handweapons?

I'll be facing:
Lizardmen, Dwarfs, Empire and VC.

[Tyrannus]

Did the TK player bring his SSC? Did he bring a Casket?

The SSC is practically required these days due to the usefulness of its fire damage against certain very popular Regenerating creatures (like Hydras...). And with True Line of Sight, it'll be somewhat more difficult to avoid looking at the Casket (and iirc, the Hydra doesn't have a great leadership value...).

Also, it sounds as if you at least got lucky against the Ushabti. A quick mental tally of the numbers (though not a careful one) suggests to me that the Ushabti should have taken the Hydra down.

Aside from that, it's not really a surprise. Tomb Kings have problems with things like the Hydra. Nor, it should be added, are they a particularly good match-up for Witch Elves, which will chop them up into tiny itty-bitty bone chips (29 poisoned attacks, rerolling misses? Oh how did you know it was my birthday!?). You might want to try testing him out against a few other armies first before you decide to shelve him.

The game was only 1500 points so no Casket, he was putting a lord with DoE in, im not sure what that costs but i assume its pricey, Not saying it was an amazingly constructed army but my hydra literally did all the damage besides two skeletons. I also used it against a vampire **** army the first i played it tore the hell out of them also, killing 19 with it BW before killing two ranked units alone.

Sounds a bit odd. You only get to use the breath weapon once per game if my understanding is correct so it shouldn't be eating through units quite so quickly.

Only get one BW which i dont use in Hth anyway since youll mostly get more hits out of it with the template. But with 7 str 5, 6 str 3, and d6 auto str5 st the end it usually did more then enough damage to cause the rest of the unit to crumble. Add to the the two rounds i got okkams mindrazor off on it for 7+d6 str 6 and 6 str8 hts pretty much kills anything.

At least i never run more then one.

[Eumerin]

The game was only 1500 points so no Casket, he was putting a lord with DoE in, im not sure what that costs but i assume its pricey, Not saying it was an amazingly constructed army but my hydra literally did all the damage besides two skeletons. I also used it against a vampire **** army the first i played it tore the hell out of them also, killing 19 with it BW before killing two ranked units alone.

There's the single biggest problem - Tomb Kings should never be played at anything less than 2000 points.

[enygma7]

I also used it against a vampire **** army the first i played it tore the hell out of them also

Spotting this amusingly auto-censored spelling error brightened up by evening

[Tyrannus]

Woah, woops, that was supposed to be cOunts glad i could help though

[L1qw1d]

(snickering @ the VC thing)

I do like Corsairs with handbows once in a while- mainly fluff games. I had a 15/ 15 set up with 5*3 marching AHW, and 2*7 shooting (w an odd man in the back because people would just charge the be-jeezus out of those guys for some reason). I actually play mainly fundamental units and CoK as I am still growing my Hammer base up. I usually force pull w/ DK, CoK flank, and screen w/ Harps. In my area? for some reason that was hard to beat. I only used the handbows once or twice mainly because of the "you can't move and shoot" thing I mean it flooded guys with a MESS of bolts in Shooting if I didn't move (in addition to Cors, I ran 14 RxBs as a back line 7*2, and 1 RBT doing the 6 Volley).

I don't look at nerfed and not nerfed for any game (even WoW). You can play anything, you just have to say "here is the Strong point, here is the Weak point- how can it be Optimised to my Play Style?" so I'm just looking forward to the experimentation of the new rules. (Mind you, I've only played a whopping 2 Tournament games lol)

[Archangelion]

The nice thing about the Corsairs with handbows now is that you, from the sounds of it, get two ranks of fire, meaning that a 5 man wide unit gets a whooping 20 shots off for stand and shoot! Not only that, but against alot of enemies, they will strike first with their high initiative. Even without dual hand weapons the unit would still get 15 attacks with the frenzy banner (hag grief). A unit with the dual hand weapons gets 20 in that scenerio. I would much rather dish out 20 shots and then 15 attacks than just 20 attacks any day. If you hoard them, it just turns nutso with the three ranks attacking, and you would get 40 handbow shots!!!

[Eumerin]

The nice thing about the Corsairs with handbows now is that you, from the sounds of it, get two ranks of fire, meaning that a 5 man wide unit gets a whooping 20 shots off for stand and shoot! Not only that, but against alot of enemies, they will strike first with their high initiative. Even without dual hand weapons the unit would still get 15 attacks with the frenzy banner (hag grief). A unit with the dual hand weapons gets 20 in that scenerio. I would much rather dish out 20 shots and then 15 attacks than just 20 attacks any day. If you hoard them, it just turns nutso with the three ranks attacking, and you would get 40 handbow shots!!!

You'd best double-check and make sure that they can actually perform a 'Stand and Shoot' reaction if they've got the Sea Serpent Banner in 8th. In 7th edition, the only charge reaction that frenzied units can perform is 'Stand'.

Oh, and Hag Grief is the ASF banner.

[Falkman]

Oh, and Hag Grief is the ASF banner.

Nope, Hag Grief is a made up name, Standard of Hag Graef is the ASF banner.

[Archangelion]

Oops, my bad! Wrong banner name. I do wonder about that stand and shoot bit! I looked up the hatred rule, to my happyness, but didn't read the frenzy rule, to my self loathingness! arg!

[Eumerin]

Nope, Hag Grief is a made up name, Standard of Hag Graef is the ASF banner.

/rasberry

[Archangelion]

I was driving home one day from work and someone was selling rasbarries! lmao!

I also got the hydra banner wrong, it isn't d3 attacks like the rune of khaine, it is just 1 attack on the first round of combat, sigh, oh well. that kind of banner would be a bit over the top though!

[ftayl5]

Hey guys, I was having a though about Corsairs and was thinking that Repeater Handbows are probably more viable now.
They'd be able to shoot in 2 ranks, meaning twice as many shots as in 7th and then in combat they'd still have a lot of attacks due to supporting attacks.
So in a unit of 10; 20 shots and 10 attacks or just 15 attacks.
For the same cost, I think handbows could be very useful now.

And with pre measuring, you can easily see if you're in range or not and if charging would be better etc... (which is what I dislike about pre-measuring - makes everything too easy)

[Deathpepper]

So how do 2ccw units with frenzy work now? Like witch elves gain the "additional attack" ability for having a second hand weapon, they also gain "additional attack" for having frenzy. Do those extra attacks stack? If not, that's a massive nerf for them...

[ftayl5]

Of course they stack, I see no reason why they wouldn't still get 3 attacks. If not that'd just be silly

[oldschoolmonk]

I fail to see the versatility granted by Corsairs with Handbows. Compared to RXB troops with Shields you lose range, armor piercing, a superior combat save... With RXB you're gaurenteed the stand and shoot by premeasuring, and might be able to do it outside their charge range on a bad roll. You've traded very slight horde bonuses for huge bonuses against heavy armored/armed troops.

[ftayl5]

true, but I wasn't meaning that they can replace Xbows, not at all. Simply pointing out that what used to be a completely useless choice, now might not be. Corsairs with handbows can make an effective, cheap unit flank guarder, completely different role to xbowmen

[Scythe]

true, but I wasn't meaning that they can replace Xbows, not at all. Simply pointing out that what used to be a completely useless choice, now might not be. Corsairs with handbows can make an effective, cheap unit flank guarder, completely different role to xbowmen

The question remains why not use xbowmen as flank guarders? The pts difference is minimal. For 110 pts instead of 100, you get 10 xbowmen with shields instead of 10 corsairs with handbows. The xbowmen get all the advantages of xbows, including a vastly superior range and armour piercing, plus a 6+ ward from parry in close combat. The corsairs get a 4+ instead of a 5+ against shooting.

For me, the advantages the xbowmen have seem to be worth the small extra expense, unless I am missing something.