Whats the point of Dark Ark!?

[ArmageddonAsh]

So i am playing Dark Elves and i am struggling to understand the Dark Ark. It can recruit units, but why? is it just to load with units to go somehwere hire a new lord and offload them onto the new lord?

What is the reason for having a Dark Ark?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

From my understanding.
Dark arks are forward bases.

You land them on enemy shore(useally ultean) and start building armies there.
It only reall advantage is that you dont need to travel as far to get new troops.
After all an unoffical resourses in stratagie games is turns/time.

[ArmageddonAsh]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

From my understanding.
Dark arks are forward bases.

You land them on enemy shore(useally ultean) and start building armies there.
It only reall advantage is that you dont need to travel as far to get new troops.
After all an unoffical resourses in stratagie games is turns/time.

Yeah thats what i was kinda thinking, Seems kinda weak to me. I dunno i was just kinda expecting more. Seems kinda meh :/

[yoda gaming]

Originally posted by ArmageddonAsh:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

From my understanding.
Dark arks are forward bases.

You land them on enemy shore(useally ultean) and start building armies there.
It only reall advantage is that you dont need to travel as far to get new troops.
After all an unoffical resourses in stratagie games is turns/time.

Yeah thats what i was kinda thinking, Seems kinda weak to me. I dunno i was just kinda expecting more. Seems kinda meh :/

it also gives you bombardments in battle

[Kalmakk]

Dark Elves cannot globally recruit or encamp. So the only way you can recuperate losses is to be in your own land, OR, within the sphere of influence of a Black Ark (the dotted circle surrounding them when you select one).
BlackArks also offer in-battle artillery support which costs no magic to use. Very powerful.
That, and once you load one up with good units (via upgrades), they are impossible to defeat at sea. You will be able to farm treasure islands with impunity and will control the oceans utterly.

Black Arks are pretty damn neato.

[Zane87]

First, DE have no global recruitment, so they have to rely on dark Arks to get fresh troops away from home.

One could argue that global recruitment would be better because all troop types and everywhere but Arktroops do cost neither double recruit costs not time, but you have to have one close.

Then, the Arks offer the ability to build an army in the go and then give this army to a new or old lord.
They are also unique in that they can recruit lords and agents in foreign territory. (Building new armies within enemy territory).

Finally, within their sphere of influence they can (slowly) replenish your troops and they can give you unique battle spells. Both will not turn the tide, but they do give you an edge.


On the con side, unmodded black Arks are quite vulnerable, so protecting them is important and, because of upkeep, costly.


They are situational.
For defensive players they won't offer much, but if you are playing a sacking and raiding playstile in enemy territory, they are invaluable.

[ArmageddonAsh]

Originally posted by Kalmakk:

Dark Elves cannot globally recruit or encamp. So the only way you can recuperate losses is to be in your own land, OR, within the sphere of influence of a Black Ark (the dotted circle surrounding them when you select one).
BlackArks also offer in-battle artillery support which costs no magic to use. Very powerful.
That, and once you load one up with good units (via upgrades), they are impossible to defeat at sea. You will be able to farm treasure islands with impunity and will control the oceans utterly.

Black Arks are pretty damn neato.

The problem with that is how long it takes to unlock them, the cost to buy them, then the time and cost to get it leveled up and have forces on. The bombardment skills are decent, IF you are attacking cost al areas. Thats it. I was expecting more for the time and effort you have to put in to get them and have the geared up and leveled enough to go into sea against all the other Black Arks about...

[Kalmakk]

Originally posted by ArmageddonAsh:

Originally posted by Kalmakk:

Dark Elves cannot globally recruit or encamp. So the only way you can recuperate losses is to be in your own land, OR, within the sphere of influence of a Black Ark (the dotted circle surrounding them when you select one).
BlackArks also offer in-battle artillery support which costs no magic to use. Very powerful.
That, and once you load one up with good units (via upgrades), they are impossible to defeat at sea. You will be able to farm treasure islands with impunity and will control the oceans utterly.

Black Arks are pretty damn neato.

The problem with that is how long it takes to unlock them, the cost to buy them, then the time and cost to get it leveled up and have forces on. The bombardment skills are decent, IF you are attacking cost al areas. Thats it. I was expecting more for the time and effort you have to put in to get them and have the geared up and leveled enough to go into sea against all the other Black Arks about...

I'll grant you; they take forever to be useful.

But you can also just park one in the bay of Naggarond and it will make your cities untakable.

Black Arks get way overvalued in autoresolves so you can just auto beat any attackers.

I had Tyrion raid my heartland while I was tied up in the south with Mazza, and my Black Ark let my besieged cities kill every single stack of HE Tyrion had. I lost the minor settlements but the ark didnt let him have a single city.

[mayrc]

Those are Essential Assets do Dark elfs.

1. Mobile Tropp-Repplenishment:

Darf elfs Economy is strongly based upon slaves and Raiding. Raiding your direct Neighbor is nonsese. Here you wana either Peace or Conquer. So you drive off for slaveraids. And far from home you would have trouble replenishing troops. Arks are the Solution.

2. Army recruitment:
Dont forget you can recruit Generals and full armys with a sufficiant high lvl ark. Adn Raising that Army right in front of enemy City has some..... charm.

3. Massive Artilery
Arks have Massive Magic support artilery that Helps ALOT in sieges and with trigering your Racial ability (Blodlust in Combat). As DE you need to inflict as much damage as possible in a VERY short time to trigger and fully benefit from your Rage. So here are Arks a BIG ASSET!

[burningmime]

To watch them get attacked twice in the same turn and sink along with all your high-level troops, while if you could manually control the battles you wouldn't have lost any at all.

That's been my experience every time I've recruited one.

[bkenny583]

Roll with a black arc that has a decent stack in it and one of your armies. Go anywhere along the map and sack undefended settlements. Get slaves and money from sacking. Move on to the next city. Makes your econ pretty crazy.

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA]

I didn't know dark arks were in this game.

I think black arks are pretty cool tho.

[Falaris]

Keep in mind that if you plan to use Black Arks, unlock the milestone techs first, they increase Black Arc growth. If you focus on it, you'll get to 1 pop/turn soon enough.

[Sarcastro]

Black Arts allow DE to go sea loot hunting without getting hit with a supply line penalty for an additional lord. Also can be used to kite enemy armies away from cities once you get a couple campaign bonuses from sea loot and can travel about 25% farther then anything else.

[ArmageddonAsh]

It kind of seems like its something you need to focus on getting as quick as possible. You need to focus on getting that growth from the tech trees and such before anything else.

It just doesnt seem as strong as it could have been, compared to say getting a full stack of Blessed monsters or getting a plague priest to poison everyone in an area. Both of those are better imo

as for the sea, i have had no issues going onto the sea as Skaven, Lizardmen or High elves. I just dont really see the whole point. you can sack ports and such with ease, its easy to grab sea islands and such.

[Barser]

They are great at collecting tresure without using a lord and increase upkeep. That is there main purpose imo.