What is a Good Dark Elf Army For Campaign?

[Aggris Abernathy]

I am just wondering what is a good economical army build and the upgraded version of that build.

[The Void Boy]

that's hard because the Dark Elf army is so versatile with lots of killing power its fun just to experiment with them. but at game start I find 3 reaver bolt throwers, 1 lord, 2 units of cav, 7 or 8 units of dreadspears, and 6 or 7 units of darkshards with shields to be the best army on the cheap for early game.

[Aggris Abernathy]

Thank for the advice!

[Drakenson]

If you want a balanced non-cheese army:

Darkshards w/ shields will always be good for the entire game. Always keep a back-line of them. Shades are OK, considering they have good melee stats, but they'll chew into your income more than your Darkshards. Your choice.

Dreadspears are decent frontline troops, but once you get Black Ark Corsairs, they make a good filler unit while Dreadspears can be used to defend the flanks and your Darkshards.

Dark Riders w/ Repeater Crossbows are hella good vs. most things besides missile infantry. Bring 1 or 2.

Once you get access to them, replace your Dreadspears with Black Guard of Naggarond and your Black Ark Corsairs with Har Ganeth Executioners.

Witch Elves are more of a utility unit than a frontline unit with their ability to apply Rampage on an enemy unit. Just bring 1 or 2. Or none at all if that's not your jam.

Cold Ones/Dread Knights, while having good stats, always seem to Rampage even with a little damage taken. Still good, just bring a few.

Hydras can be good frontline anchors, just watch those HE Archers. Black Dragon is quite good too, but since your Lord can usually mount 1 anyway, getting another one is personal preferance at that point.

Death Hags are boss with their Cauldron, so it's nice to embed one in your main armies. Assassins, while good duelists, have far better Campaign abilities. Keep a sorcerer in your army too, since you can't go wrong with some magic.

[MrMurLock]

My basic stack and their upgraded counterparts looks somewhat like this:
1 Lord
1 Death Hag (w/ Cauldron as soon as possible) OR 1 Sorceress (w/ Pegasi)
5 Darkspears >> Black Ark Corsairs >> Black Guard
4 Darkshards >> Darkshards w/ shields
2 Repeaters
2 Hydras
1 Witch Elves
2 Shades >> Shades w/ Great weapons
2 Dark Riders w/ shields >> Cold Ones >> Dread Knights

The Darkspears serve as your front line with the Hydras serving as a base.
The Darkshards and Repeaters are your main source of damage initially, able to deal with any type of unit.
The Shades are your flankers, able to deal great damage at range or in melee.
The Dark riders serve as shock cavalry, they're not meant for brawls so be sure to cycle charge them when you hammer/anvil. They're great for shattering routed elements and taking out isolated archers.
The Witch Elves serve as a support flanker. Wait for your frontline to be fully engaged before having them flank. They deal great damage and poison enemies, severely lowering enemy speed plus offensive and defensive abilities. They also cause rampage which could potentially allow you to snipe enemy lords and wizards very easily as they're unable to be controlled during this time.

[Aggris Abernathy]

Thank you guys!

[Darkaiser]

If you have a warlord, bring a mage. If you have a casting Lord, bring a fighter hero. Always have magic when it available.

As soon as I can run a second army, I do so and have it travel with the LL force. The LL takes the artillery and infantry, the other force is all fast stuff like cav or fliers. This is because the second force comes on as reinforcements and they might have a ways to travel.

Two cheaper armies (tier 1 and maybe a monster later) will auto-win most endadgements early on. When you take a city, your first tuen is for Sacking and then the next turn the support force can Raze or capture the building.

Early on, build 8 Dreadspears, 6 Darkshards with Shields, your Lord, one Hero (your choice) and (when you get access to them) 4 cav to chase down enemy missile infantry.

Replace cheap stuff with better stuff as it comes on-line.

[*! Akster !*]

My Malekith army for the entire game so far has been the same since the start, currently on turn 60 and have conquered everything up until the lizardmen, still working to confederatew with cult of pleasure, but once I wipe out the lizards Morathi will hopefully probably love me enough. NOTICE ME MOTHER :'(:

10 darkshards
2 Repeaters
1 blackguard
7 Dreadspears (want to swap them all for blackguards but havent had the time to get Malekith back to Naggaroth to recruit them yet)

Max bladestorm ASAP. You will be killing 90% of most armies by yourself beofre the enemy even reaches your army, and Im playing on very hard where enemy stacks are larger. Spells are broken/OP in the game. So ALWAYS have a sorceress with your other non magic using lords.

I dont understand why people rate shade so highly, whats the point of being able to do ranged and melle, you may as well just have a better ranged unit or a better melle unit. Spears/naggaroth guards are a better melle/frontline choice, and darkshards are a better backline ranged choice. Witch elves best flankers, and cold ones best archer chasers/defenders from vanguard attacking units.

Sure theyre a bit mroe diverse, but that only really matters if you compeltely mess up your formation and your bnackline gets attacked.

Just do not see the benefit sof them at all, althoughs ome people will swpa them for their darkshards. Looking at their stats they arent any beter than untis half the cost.

Corsaires look absolutely useless, all varients, on paper, dont see where they would fit in fpr any army either.

[pin]

i got a lord that gave -15% shades upkeep, +30 shades armor and +5% range.

rip whole map shades with great weapon with 80 armor and 160 range

[Gom]

Originally posted by *! Akster !*:

I dont understand why people rate shade so highly, whats the point of being able to do ranged and melle, you may as well just have a better ranged unit or a better melle unit. Spears/naggaroth guards are a better melle/frontline choice, and darkshards are a better backline ranged choice. Witch elves best flankers, and cold ones best archer chasers/defenders from vanguard attacking units.

Sure theyre a bit mroe diverse, but that only really matters if you compeltely mess up your formation and your bnackline gets attacked.

Just do not see the benefit sof them at all, althoughs ome people will swpa them for their darkshards. Looking at their stats they arent any beter than untis half the cost.

Shade's strength is their stealth and versatility. They can vanguard deploy, have stealth, can dish out powerful long range AP shots behind the enemy, and can melee to break morale/protect themselves.

You have to use them to flank. As back line ranged support, Darkshards are probably enough and much cheaper.

Their only weakness is cavalry so I use 2 Shades backed up by 1 Black Guard(Darkspear early on) as a team. You can also add in Witch Elves to tie the target down while your combo destroy them. Assassin can also replace Black Guard when using vanguard deployment.

[*! Akster !*]

Vanguard is a compeltely useless ability, just move the unit yourself when the fight starts, theres always a really biut distance between you and your enemy and time to move where you want. Does the damage of a flanking shade equal 2x darkshards? dont think so, if nto then 2x darkshards are better, and if your using maleketh you can get even more darkshards than that per shade.

And if your usign them to flank, witch elves are far superior as long as you dont ignore their ranged units firing at them. If the enemy can turn around their units to prevent the witch elves attackign from behind, youc learlyu dont have enough units ony oru frontline to distract them and you are better off getting more frontlien soldiers.

[Ingvar]

8-10 Darkshards with shields, 5 Blackguard, a hydra or two, your lord, a spell caster with lore of fire or a death hag( for the replenisment bonus). You may want a couple of Dark Riders for running down fleeing units and skirmishers. Cold ones can work but they go out of control way to easy so I don't like them. Basicly group your Darkshards into two lines of 4, cast flaming sword of rhuin and mow down enemy armies. Blackguard will hold the line it's what they do.

[Gom]

Originally posted by *! Akster !*:

Vanguard is a compeltely useless ability, just move the unit yourself when the fight starts, theres always a really biut distance between you and your enemy and time to move where you want. Does the damage of a flanking shade equal 2x darkshards? dont think so, if nto then 2x darkshards are better, and if your using maleketh you can get even more darkshards than that per shade.

And if your usign them to flank, witch elves are far superior as long as you dont ignore their ranged units firing at them. If the enemy can turn around their units to prevent the witch elves attackign from behind, youc learlyu dont have enough units ony oru frontline to distract them and you are better off getting more frontlien soldiers.

I disagree. Depending on the map vanguard makes a huge difference as you can deploy much further away from your frontline that is in position to flank the enemy. Walking there will waste so much more time and risk getting detected.

Also can you move 2 Darkshards behind enemy infantry line without getting detected and swiftly dealt with? I don't think so. Also Darkshards will get destroyed by even clan rats and light cavs whereas Shades can fight toe to toe with things like Withe Lions of Chrace and beat all the light cavs.

Witch elves can't attack from afar nor approach without getting detected, shot down, charged by cavs. You can still flank with them, but Shades do it much better. Witch Elves are more of a specialty unit than a flanker.

[Gamefever]

I've been playing quite a bit of Dark Elves,

Using Morathi and I still bring a Sorc along, Mora gets some great power reserves and over time you can easily have enough power to toss spells from two magic users.
Dont ignore the first starting spell and its upgraded version, these are really cheap on mana and quite effective spam spells.

Witch Elf hero, look for the speed/strider ability, this is very useful when stacked with speed skill and even items as well....When you get your mount for her its going to get around really fast.

The basic army is something like this,

5 Dreadspears to form a front line, 2 Dreadspears on each flank total 9 spears.
6 Darkshards with shields.
1 Bolt Throwers,
1 Hydra,
Thats pretty much the core of the army right there in about 17 units.
So take the LL, Sorc and Witch Elf hero for 20.

I like to use SHADES!
Infiltrate, hidden movement even in the open, armed with armor piercing missiles, oooooohhh ya baby....Just have them sneek right up on the engaged enemy army and let rip a horde of bolts that wont be hitting the shielded side of the unit. Also since your attacking the units flank or rear they route faster.
Just remember how annoying marauder horsemen are and now think about it these guys are far deadlier and you dont know they are there until its already too late to do anything about it.

Anyway for a primary army thats about the sum of it,
If you like use a couple more Bolt Throwers, with Lord points specced in those are pretty beast especailly for taking down Dinosuars.

For a second reinforment army, it pays to have it built up with Dark Riders and Dark Rider Crossbows, Lord on a horse as well. Dark Riders are surprisingly cheap too considering.

As far as what to upgrade an Army too bear in mind that you can get a Word of Power for your Lords at level 10, some of the options have significant effects on units in his/her army and can radically change how well certain units behave/perform in battle not to mention decrease their upkeep cost.