8th Ed. Help against Dark Elves

As mentioned above, I have a battle tomorrow night against a DE player. I have never faced dark elves before and have never played against this guy before. Had a quick look last week and it seems his is based around combat.

I saw on the board -

2 x Hydra,
Some mage on a pegasus.
2 x 10 or 15 crossbowers.
1 x RBT ( i think)

and lots of dudes carrying axes.

My immediate thought is what the best way to kill Hydra's? I know they hit hard, can an ancient steg take them on? Do I take Lore of Fire???

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Hydras can be targeted by Solardon, or any fire based magic missiles to combat the regen in the magic phase. Fireleech bola Terradons followed by skink shooting in the shooting phase or a unit with banner of eternal flame in the combat phase...Beware its breath weapon though, you want to get wounds on him because every wounds reduces the str of his breath weapon. He is no slouch in combat either...

DE magic in their current book can be very strong, with the sacrificial dagger to generate additional power dice. My regular opponent tends toward shadow magic, dark magic and death magic in that order. shadow and death have the ini test spells LM so hates.

DE shooting is effective and with their 2 x multi-shot and AP they can hurt our lower toughness troops.

Combat will see you outclassed by most units as they have high ini, WS and hatred(re-roll failed to hit rolls).
They have various tools like banners / cauldrons to improve already strong combat capabilities like give ASF etc. you may also meet Chuck Norris...Pendant of Khaleth with 1+ Asv and reversed ward save.(the higher the str of attack the better his ward save gets).

Its not all doom and gloom though, salamanders with decimate any Elven troops (T3) just do not offer them up to charges or shooting to easily.

HM slann will be good against them eg Fiery convo, HoG, Soul quench etc, swapping out for death or Metal signature means you may have a good tool to deal with Chuck norris as those spells do not have a str value so the pendant is useless.

Cripple their lines with magic / shooting as much as you can before the fight, else you will see saurus and dinos die very easily.

 

Slaan with high magic is good, unforging not only puts a wound on that unkillable guy (1+ armor, super ward save), but also starts to strip his gear.
Salamanders are golden. Dark elves have very few units that can take a S4 temples.
Steggadons can Rumble with hydras. The T6 does a lot to slow down the hydras.
Engine of the Gods is pretty good too; dark elves are pretty good with chaff, and the Burning Alignment can do some decent damage.
The Solardon's laser is really good vs the hydra. If it goes off, you have a very good chance at crippling or killing the hydra.

For core:
Point for point, Skink Skirmishers hold up to the shooting the best, followed by saurus, followed by cohorts, with krox in cohorts, and cohorts with poison being the worst.
In combat, point for point Saurus do better than anything else you've got.
I'd run saurus as my core; maybe screen with skirmishers if you're worried about his shooting.

Special mention should go to Skink Chief on razordon. This guys got a good chance at putting the hurt out on the Cauldon of blood. I'd take two and send them both cauldron hunting (give them both 2+ armor).

-Matt

 

This is one of the few times I'd recommend the blade of realities. No wards = dead elf cauldron and characters. Arcane Unforging would do it better.

 

Well I took High magic and lore mastery, 3 channels and chanelling rod, tetto eko and a priest with the hope of dominating the magic phase, didnt channel once, he kept stabbing people and gain silly dice, I rolled poorly (only got 2 spells off in 4 turns) and he tabled me by turn 4 and I killed nothing!!!!

I have now played 3 games with the new LM book and I am struggling to find anything that can kill anything, I have played, HE, DE and Vampires and lost all 3.

I just cannot see what we have that can kill anything.

Saurus - tarpit so not really designed to kill much.

I run a bunkered Slann with 26 TG, they couldnt kill much.

2 x slamanders - he targetted these and shot them off the table turn 1.

Ancient steg had a tussle with 2 x chariots, lost and died.

Bastadon got nuked off by magic.

I know I am a new player and have only played 3 games with the new book (13 in total with the old book) but what do we actually have that can dish out pain?? My terradons did ok on their first blot toad enrage crazy carnage, they did 10 wounds on some crossbow men but then were useless for the rest of the game.

Everything I come up against has some sort of killing ability, what do we as LM have??

Sorry I know this is a rant, I love LM they look ace but I cannot get them to work

 

Try Wandering Deliberations. I finally did last night and I loved it. In any given magic phase I felt like I had at least 4 spells that would be great to cast, and most of the time they'd be cheap too unless I wanted boosted versions.

You get tools for any situation that might arise. Long range? Check. Anti-armour? Check. Fire? Check. Close combat buffs? Check. Healing? Check. Hexes? Check.

Also, remember your Salamanders are Skirmishers and so -1 to hit. Try to get them in cover for another -1 and DE will have a very hard time killing them with shooting.

Learning to play with Lizardmen, and Skinks in particular, can be a steep learning curve. Skinks need to operate close to the enemy while not exposing themselves to an unwanted charge. This will take some practice to get right. Essentially you want to make sure that your Skinks are placed so that they can shoot, and so that if the enemy charges them, they can flee (or shoot and die) in a way that pulls the enemy unit out of position where you can charge it with a combat unit in your turn. Knowing when to risk/sacrifice the Skinks is the key.

As for the Sacrificial Dagger, it's pretty rough and spells are going to get through. Small bit of hope here is Dark Elf units are rarely huge so if you can put some damage on them, knifing your own bodyguard won't seem such a good idea anymore. If you play Wandering Deliberations, Fireball is great here as you can easily have them in range in turn 1 with a boosted version.

Saurus units are hardly tarpits (I have Night Goblins, those are tarpits). They will put wounds on any Dark Elf unit so what you need to do is reduce the amount the Elves do to them as it tends to be quite a lot if it's an elite unit. Miasma and Blizzard will do this at a very low casting cost. And of course, Wyssan's Wildform is awesome if a bit harder to cast.

 

Chameleons make an awesome screen.
The salamanders would be -3 to be shot (hard cover and skirmisher) and the chameleons would be -2 to be shot (skirmish and chameleon skin).

With Dark Elf shooting having long range, movement and multiple shot penalties, it means that you've effectively neutered his shooting. Just stay outside of 12", making him move to fire at shot.
When BS5 shades are single shot firing on a 6 to hit, you're doing it right.

-Matt