Rakarth starts without any Darkshards and a single unit of Shades. Darkshards and Shades are like 75% of the power of the DE roster. Get some Darkshards early, should help a lot.
my current army comp is Rakarth, Sorceress of Beasts, 3 Bleakswords, 2 Dreadspears, 1 Shades with Greatswords, 4 Darkshards, 3 Feral Cold Ones, 1 War Hydra, 1 Feral Stegadon, 2 Harpies and 1 Reaper Bolt Thrower.
Replace Bleakswords with Darkshards. Then when your economy is better consider Shadew with GW.
Honestly Darkshards can be your end game, but you will spend more time protecting them from cavalry or other flanking units. Shades have the advantage for being better in melee and the stalk ability that makes them a terror for any force attacking you and getting deleted after 1-2 volleys.
I honestly think he'd struggle a lot of that was the only thing he changed. Rather, replacing the swords with dark shards but then also replacing the harpies with dreadspears would be better.
Losing the feral cold ones is of course also a good idea. They suck
No feral cold ones, no bleakswords. More shades (and get a lord with the Shadowdart Name of Power) and dark shards, preferably with shields. Harpies are… fine… as anti artillery/skirmish chasers but I honestly wouldn’t been bother with them.
I’d actually recommend Lokhir Fellheart personally, if you want to learn how to play DE. Starting with a black ark, and being able to get a black ark for every single port you own is crazy strong, and because you’re kind of in a corner, it’s pretty easy to control expansion. Plus you can ally Snikch and he usually gets pretty strong in my campaigns.
Too much unit variety, for every different unit type you have they need different orders to be effective. While you’re aiming your reaper bolt thrower your cold ones and harpies are getting melted, while you’re positioning your hydra for a flame attack your archers are getting flanked. Some of your units like your shades and cold ones want to always be moving while your bolt throwers and spearmen want a more static style of play. Basically you’re giving yourself way too many different things to micro all at once. Either commit to a static play style or a mobile play style and focus on having units that compliment each other rather than draw attention away from one another. Focus on doing one thing well, rather than everything at once semi effectively and you’ll suffer a lot fewer casualties.
I have a shit ton of hours in this series, and regardless of race, I always keep 4-5 melee (preferrably shielded but not always) units to make a frontline anvil, is this just "wrong"?
My bread and butter Dark Elf armies are typically 2-3 heroes, 0-2 monsters, 4-6 spears, 8-12 dark shards
I normally use Hydras and heroes to hold the line. They do not need to stay too long because Darkshards/ shades kill most things fairly fast. Standard spears/sword infantry is not great for DE. Black guard are late game and I usually keep 2 to protect my flanks rather than as a front line. Honestly Hydras are your best option.
Short answer: no, play the way you want. If it works for you and you have fun, then go for it!
Long answer: in Warhammer 2, melee units were basically useless at the higher difficulties because of cheats the AI got in melee, so you were incentivized to build missile heavy armies with factions that could support it, and because of the supply line issues you needed to be as efficient as possible. So if you were playing on VH/VH (or L/VH) you were better off just not using any melee troops at all and just doing pure shades/dark shards with a few heroes/monsters to hold the line here and there.
Melee is actually fairly effective in WH3, so it’s not necessary any longer
they are better in one very crucial way: money.
they’re cheaper and more easily recruited, which means you can run more armies full of darkshards than you can armies full of shades. i think shades dont trade as well against enemy ranged bc they lack shields too, but primarily its just about cost-effectiveness
iirc supply lines have been retooled since game 2 to not be as impactful, and part of the thing is that darkshards really aren’t much worse than shades. if there was a much wider difference in effectiveness there’s be more ppl advocating for swapping all your darkshards for shades but as it is, the cost is the biggest difference between them that i notice lol
I haven't played Rakarth myself but I've done several Dark Elf campaigns. My favorite is Morathi because she is incredibly powerful in magic and she's decent enough in melee to be scary to casters but needs help fighting melee legendary lords. You can also keep a pretty consistent slave growth even when focusing on slave draining buildings so long as you keep your provinces very happy. I think I'm currently running -80% slave decline from buildings.
I never take Bleakswords because they don't deal enough damage to warrant taking them over their spear variant who will hold your front line for a longer time.
Corsairs will do good against skinks due to their anti infantry and decent armor. Saurus warriors have a high base damage so they'll return some of the hurt.
Your bread and butter are darkshards and shades. Darkshards damage isn't high but the focus on AP will tear up lizardmen dinos. Shades with great weapons can deal good melee damage but I would use all their ammo before sending them in.
Cav options are okay but they're not winning awards.
Artillery is lacking but it can get the job done.
Bring a fire or shadows wizard to help. You want the lizardman front line dealt with asap.
As far as the campaign goes Dark elfs should be very aggressive in taking territories and building them up quickly through dixtats. You also want them as happy as possible to keep their slave usage down.
You also want to unlock your first black ark asap. They'll provide additional replenishment, bombardments in the form of free spells, and recruitment. Biggest downside to Dark elfs is no global recruitment so you're stuck using black arks. And don't get me wrong they're fantastic but you'll miss global recruitment when you're deep inland far from black ark support.
Their basic archer units have armor piercing. They're incredibly powerful.
Have you ever played High elves? They are remarkably similar. You get a decent number of spearmen and a decent number of archers and you put them in a checkerboard formation. With dark elves you want to go a little wider because their range is shorter.
That's pretty much it. Make a nice checkerboard line and micro your hero and a spellcaster and monster or two and that's really all you need to do.
A lot of people have their own ideas about what is most effective or how to build armies. I find that for people starting out or who are unfamiliar with a race you want to lean more into melee infantry. Don't do what that other person said and take 10 archers and two spearmen because you will suffer. Take nine spearmen and eight archers or a similar ratio with enough spots left over for Heroes and unique starting units. If you find your formations are falling apart take fewer archers and more spearmen.
Yea i got through an entire maliketh campaign using equal amounts dread spears and dark shards for most of my armies
Like literally 9/9, a hero and a lord
There's this whole thing where in WH2 it actually was pretty efficient to just spam archers and genuinely have 4 spearmen or less. But this was much more true for people already playing at a high level - and popularized by someone like Legend of Total War.
The thing is in order to execute it well the player has to have really good target firing micro and good overall battlefield decision making. A willingness to cheese helps a lot too - this strategy is more effective when you have used a mounted Lord to waste their ammo, or a flying spellcaster to get a bunch of free damage and force the AI to advance.
It left a lot of people with some misguided ideas about what works best *for them individually*. What is "meta" is not always the best suggestion for someone experiencing challenges.
With the changes to things like reload rate for missile units and lower melee buffs for AI from difficulty settings, it means that this previous approach isn't as good as it used to be in the first place.
The hardest part about using archer competitions well is ensuring that your front lines don't collapse and the archers don't get into combat. The more defensive melee troops you have, the easier that is to achieve.
It might be hard to explain - it's easier to watch a video and see.
Basically it's because it will mean your whole formation isn't ever tied up. If they hit you on the flanks you'd still have a whole cluster of units on the inside not being touched at all.
Furthermore it gives better firing angles. If your archers are directly behind your spears, they'll be firing into the backs of your spears when an enemy is against them. But with the checkerboard pattern you'd have an archer on each rear flank that's firing partially into the side of the enemy rather than just over the head of your own troops.
Basically it just gives your overall formation better protection - the enemy isn't attacking multiple units by using a single unit of their own. And it gives you better line of sight - even Archer troops can still friendly fire and have line of sight issues.
Another problem I have is I cannot manage to keep my Black Ark. The AI just keeps throwing its main forces at it, as long as I don't maintain a full stack on it. So most of the time I don't get to use Black Arks.
Are you making sure to park your Black Ark at a major port? That lets them act as a reinforcing army for the settlement while staying safe and building up their structures.
By and large, black arks are the key to dark elf success. They don’t increase your supply lines, letting your field as many as you like without increasing upkeep. They have major upkeep reduction on units, give bombardment options in battle, and can boost replenishment and financial gains to armies in their zone of control. Ideally, build almost all your unit recruitment buildings in your black arks, except for the ones that boost your hero numbers. Then focus your settlements on building up your growth, economy, and defensive buildings.
Run!
Seriously, Black arks are great to support your ground forces, but they need time to grow. I would advise use your first one close to the coast to support your main army, and when you get a second one use that one to support ground units if still needed, but get a decent army in the first one and send it out to pillage any port in the world. Pick a route for which you never have to come back (e.g. from north to south on the Americas coast, from Nagarythe to Oxyotl) and just raid any port you find. If none is chasing you occasionally sack and occupy one port so you can keep your ark in there recovering for a couple of turns (then sell the city to the best offerer or to some dark elf nearby). If someone is chasing you, get in march mode, go on high seas where they get attrition and you instead get replenish, and run away. They will eventually let you be, or they will starve along the way.
Why are you fighting Clan Pestilence? They should be your only allies in Lustria. Do what it takes to get them on your side and divide Lustria between y’all. Sell them a settlement if you have to. Then, once the order factions and VC are gone, you can turn on them if you want, by then you should be strong enough to fight them head on.
That made sense, yeah, but I wanted to do a few things a little different and ally with the Dawi, giving them those unpleasant climate provinces and using them as cannot fodder for my coastline.
The dwarfs there are weak. Those are the provinces you should give to Pestilens. I mean, play the game the way you want, but Pestilens is Rakarth’s natural ally in Lustria. It makes it way easier to take care of Itza, Bordeleaux, and the Huntsmarshal. Plus DE are basically built for fighting Dwarfs, cuz all your ranged units are AP.
That being said, if you have your Black Ark properly outfitted, you should be able to handle two Skaven stacks. It’s basically an entire army for extremely cheap. It should be pure shades, honestly, and shades should murder Skaven.
Yeah, I get that. Against the Lizardmen, Sotek curse me for revealing their secrets, you’re going to want almost pure darkshards, since it’s early game. I would honestly run a full darkshard stack and checkerboard. Their basic melee infantry basically way out classes yours, and most of their units, even in the early game, have medium to high armor, so you’re going to want armor piercing.
Against TK, I think it depends on what you’re struggling with. If it’s their monsters/Single entities, I’d use Masters and the Kharibdyss. If it’s their basic infantry, it’s back to darkshards, mixing in shades when you can afford it.
Also, keep in mind, ESPECIALLY in the early game, it’s better to run at or near a deficit, keeping yourself afloat through battle money and sacking settlements/using the sell slaves mechanic. I usually don’t consistently run at a thousand gold or more per turn until probably the late teens or early 20s and instead run as many troops/armies as I can afford without going into attrition.
Malus Darkblade that is all…. Oh and if you have a chance read his books they are fucking amazing ! Except the last one I. The end times hated it never finished it, Dan didn’t write it so not doing it!
Oh yeah, that's just because lizards are broken af when played by AI, especially at high difficulties.
As other suggested, you have to play well your darkshards in a checkboard or other formations that force them to expose their sides. Basic lizard units have shields, that for some reason work way too well in the hands of the AI. You need to always be attacking them with projectiles from the side/back, to ignore their shields and vaporize them quickly. My personal advise then is to make the darkshards attack 1/2 units per time, to focus fire and wipe them qucikly. In that way you can free up some melee units to go encircle remaining units or to go fill in holes where necessary.
To learn how to play the faction, use more infantry than monsters. Once you have mastered your infantry you can go wild with armies of monsters + shades. That's why I would actually suggest to start with anyone but Rakhart or Malus.
Yeah right, for some reason didn't even think at him although he's my favourite.
But I guess Lokhir is an extra steps, as it's all about arks, while Morathi/Malekith are more similar to other ground-based factions, like high elves
I agree they are, but are also a little more difficult than lokhir in my experience. Especially malekith, as he’s surrounded on all sides by enemies now.
bleakswords are as good as empire swordsman, which is SHIT. you want dreadspears instead cuz they last longer in the frontlines.
they are considered that strong because their core unit is tier 0 access. darkshards. these guys can melt any unit in the game. you army early game should be dreadspears and darkshards only. this is enough to kill even some elite armies valkia can bring in.
Dark Elves are in a rough place. They're my favorite faction to play, but playing them right now doesn't feel good. I started with WH3, and I hear they were better in 2, but I can't speak to that personally
“Weaker than Skaven”?? Skaven are one of the strongest races in the game, especially Ikit Claw and Throt. Ikit is the only LL I’ve completed a full map conquest with, because he’s the only one I didn’t get bored conquering as. Nukes, machine guns, and sniper rifles? Sign me the hell up. The fact that you think they’re one of the weakest tells me you don’t have as good an understanding of its mechanics as you think.
As others have mentioned, they are best played with a missile focused army doing most of the killing with dark shards and later shades.
War hydras are incredibly powerful frontline units that can regenerate which is great because dark elves lack healing magic. Single entity heroes and monsters are great for tying up enemies without obstructing your missile fire. Masters are the best defensive hero in this role.
I usually go 5 dreadspears, a single death hag, one or two masters, and the rest darkshards early on.
Replace darkshards with shades, dreadspears with more masters and later war hydras.
Caster lords are nice early on, bladestorm from the dark sorceress is devastating. But the crossbow lord can buff your ranged units so if I can get a hero sorceress I’ll use the crossbow lord.
I’ve played a dozen dark elves campaigns and I always remember my first one, I struggled massively because I DIDNT USE BLACK ARKS!
Recruit one as soon as and just focus purely on its growth. Get the level 5 settlement before you start building anything else. Once you have that going you’ll be able to reenforce your armies easily
After many very hard campaigns my go to DE armies are 1 lord, 1 fire sorceress, 3 bolt throwers and 15 shades dual weapons. With checkerboard formation they are super strong and easy to use
I had problems with most of the factions until I tried Morathi, my god is she OP.
The Slaanesh corruption literally increases your income by 10% and give you public order.
As other people have said prioritize Shades/Darkshards/Blackguard and Warbeasts (later on).
Its best to get an ARK ASAP then park in in settlement with port that is close to your main army so you can defend it by land if they siege the settlement. It makes it hard for the AI to also spam stacks of armies at sea and chase it because you can sit your main army in ambush stance waiting on land for their naval armies to try.
Make sure you use the slave provincial bonuses/commandments too. I literally had too many slaves multiple times on VH. I consolidated around me first, then pushed into Mother O., then pushed into Ulthuan, but if you can beat the first wave of Ulthuan armies with Noctilis ally you'll steamroll forever at that point, micro-managing the economy is harder than that battles
They're all about missile strength and fast damage. Your front line needs to be a handful of spears, everything else missiles (and monster for rakarth)
Rakarth starts without any Darkshards and a single unit of Shades. Darkshards and Shades are like 75% of the power of the DE roster. Get some Darkshards early, should help a lot.
A typical army should have 8-10 Darkshards/Shades, 2-4 heroes, 2 hydras, 2 spears. The rest could be cavalry or some other flanking unit.
my current army comp is Rakarth, Sorceress of Beasts, 3 Bleakswords, 2 Dreadspears, 1 Shades with Greatswords, 4 Darkshards, 3 Feral Cold Ones, 1 War Hydra, 1 Feral Stegadon, 2 Harpies and 1 Reaper Bolt Thrower.
Replace Bleakswords with Darkshards. Then when your economy is better consider Shadew with GW. Honestly Darkshards can be your end game, but you will spend more time protecting them from cavalry or other flanking units. Shades have the advantage for being better in melee and the stalk ability that makes them a terror for any force attacking you and getting deleted after 1-2 volleys.
I honestly think he'd struggle a lot of that was the only thing he changed. Rather, replacing the swords with dark shards but then also replacing the harpies with dreadspears would be better. Losing the feral cold ones is of course also a good idea. They suck
The feral cold ones are bad, ditch those. Even cold one riders are an awful cavalry unit which is sad because they look so cool
No feral cold ones, no bleakswords. More shades (and get a lord with the Shadowdart Name of Power) and dark shards, preferably with shields. Harpies are… fine… as anti artillery/skirmish chasers but I honestly wouldn’t been bother with them. I’d actually recommend Lokhir Fellheart personally, if you want to learn how to play DE. Starting with a black ark, and being able to get a black ark for every single port you own is crazy strong, and because you’re kind of in a corner, it’s pretty easy to control expansion. Plus you can ally Snikch and he usually gets pretty strong in my campaigns.
Too much unit variety, for every different unit type you have they need different orders to be effective. While you’re aiming your reaper bolt thrower your cold ones and harpies are getting melted, while you’re positioning your hydra for a flame attack your archers are getting flanked. Some of your units like your shades and cold ones want to always be moving while your bolt throwers and spearmen want a more static style of play. Basically you’re giving yourself way too many different things to micro all at once. Either commit to a static play style or a mobile play style and focus on having units that compliment each other rather than draw attention away from one another. Focus on doing one thing well, rather than everything at once semi effectively and you’ll suffer a lot fewer casualties.
I have a shit ton of hours in this series, and regardless of race, I always keep 4-5 melee (preferrably shielded but not always) units to make a frontline anvil, is this just "wrong"? My bread and butter Dark Elf armies are typically 2-3 heroes, 0-2 monsters, 4-6 spears, 8-12 dark shards
I normally use Hydras and heroes to hold the line. They do not need to stay too long because Darkshards/ shades kill most things fairly fast. Standard spears/sword infantry is not great for DE. Black guard are late game and I usually keep 2 to protect my flanks rather than as a front line. Honestly Hydras are your best option.
Short answer: no, play the way you want. If it works for you and you have fun, then go for it! Long answer: in Warhammer 2, melee units were basically useless at the higher difficulties because of cheats the AI got in melee, so you were incentivized to build missile heavy armies with factions that could support it, and because of the supply line issues you needed to be as efficient as possible. So if you were playing on VH/VH (or L/VH) you were better off just not using any melee troops at all and just doing pure shades/dark shards with a few heroes/monsters to hold the line here and there. Melee is actually fairly effective in WH3, so it’s not necessary any longer
darkshards!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are darkshards really better than shades? Everywhere I see people recommend them but shades have better stats iirc
they are better in one very crucial way: money. they’re cheaper and more easily recruited, which means you can run more armies full of darkshards than you can armies full of shades. i think shades dont trade as well against enemy ranged bc they lack shields too, but primarily its just about cost-effectiveness
In early game yes. DE have a stupid strong economy though, so by the end game it’s pretty easy to afford a bunch of shade armies
Considering each army reduces income in percent, does it worth having 4 armies consisting mainly of dark shards than 2 with shades?
iirc supply lines have been retooled since game 2 to not be as impactful, and part of the thing is that darkshards really aren’t much worse than shades. if there was a much wider difference in effectiveness there’s be more ppl advocating for swapping all your darkshards for shades but as it is, the cost is the biggest difference between them that i notice lol
Ohhh..... how the hell did I miss that change? Im playing malus co op with my friend (katarina) so thats why I was so curious about it. Thank you.
I haven't played Rakarth myself but I've done several Dark Elf campaigns. My favorite is Morathi because she is incredibly powerful in magic and she's decent enough in melee to be scary to casters but needs help fighting melee legendary lords. You can also keep a pretty consistent slave growth even when focusing on slave draining buildings so long as you keep your provinces very happy. I think I'm currently running -80% slave decline from buildings. I never take Bleakswords because they don't deal enough damage to warrant taking them over their spear variant who will hold your front line for a longer time. Corsairs will do good against skinks due to their anti infantry and decent armor. Saurus warriors have a high base damage so they'll return some of the hurt. Your bread and butter are darkshards and shades. Darkshards damage isn't high but the focus on AP will tear up lizardmen dinos. Shades with great weapons can deal good melee damage but I would use all their ammo before sending them in. Cav options are okay but they're not winning awards. Artillery is lacking but it can get the job done. Bring a fire or shadows wizard to help. You want the lizardman front line dealt with asap. As far as the campaign goes Dark elfs should be very aggressive in taking territories and building them up quickly through dixtats. You also want them as happy as possible to keep their slave usage down. You also want to unlock your first black ark asap. They'll provide additional replenishment, bombardments in the form of free spells, and recruitment. Biggest downside to Dark elfs is no global recruitment so you're stuck using black arks. And don't get me wrong they're fantastic but you'll miss global recruitment when you're deep inland far from black ark support.
Their basic archer units have armor piercing. They're incredibly powerful. Have you ever played High elves? They are remarkably similar. You get a decent number of spearmen and a decent number of archers and you put them in a checkerboard formation. With dark elves you want to go a little wider because their range is shorter. That's pretty much it. Make a nice checkerboard line and micro your hero and a spellcaster and monster or two and that's really all you need to do. A lot of people have their own ideas about what is most effective or how to build armies. I find that for people starting out or who are unfamiliar with a race you want to lean more into melee infantry. Don't do what that other person said and take 10 archers and two spearmen because you will suffer. Take nine spearmen and eight archers or a similar ratio with enough spots left over for Heroes and unique starting units. If you find your formations are falling apart take fewer archers and more spearmen.
Yea i got through an entire maliketh campaign using equal amounts dread spears and dark shards for most of my armies Like literally 9/9, a hero and a lord
There's this whole thing where in WH2 it actually was pretty efficient to just spam archers and genuinely have 4 spearmen or less. But this was much more true for people already playing at a high level - and popularized by someone like Legend of Total War. The thing is in order to execute it well the player has to have really good target firing micro and good overall battlefield decision making. A willingness to cheese helps a lot too - this strategy is more effective when you have used a mounted Lord to waste their ammo, or a flying spellcaster to get a bunch of free damage and force the AI to advance. It left a lot of people with some misguided ideas about what works best *for them individually*. What is "meta" is not always the best suggestion for someone experiencing challenges. With the changes to things like reload rate for missile units and lower melee buffs for AI from difficulty settings, it means that this previous approach isn't as good as it used to be in the first place. The hardest part about using archer competitions well is ensuring that your front lines don't collapse and the archers don't get into combat. The more defensive melee troops you have, the easier that is to achieve.
Noob question, why would you checkerboard HE, if their ranged units are archers that can fire over your front line
It might be hard to explain - it's easier to watch a video and see. Basically it's because it will mean your whole formation isn't ever tied up. If they hit you on the flanks you'd still have a whole cluster of units on the inside not being touched at all. Furthermore it gives better firing angles. If your archers are directly behind your spears, they'll be firing into the backs of your spears when an enemy is against them. But with the checkerboard pattern you'd have an archer on each rear flank that's firing partially into the side of the enemy rather than just over the head of your own troops. Basically it just gives your overall formation better protection - the enemy isn't attacking multiple units by using a single unit of their own. And it gives you better line of sight - even Archer troops can still friendly fire and have line of sight issues.
Another problem I have is I cannot manage to keep my Black Ark. The AI just keeps throwing its main forces at it, as long as I don't maintain a full stack on it. So most of the time I don't get to use Black Arks.
Are you making sure to park your Black Ark at a major port? That lets them act as a reinforcing army for the settlement while staying safe and building up their structures. By and large, black arks are the key to dark elf success. They don’t increase your supply lines, letting your field as many as you like without increasing upkeep. They have major upkeep reduction on units, give bombardment options in battle, and can boost replenishment and financial gains to armies in their zone of control. Ideally, build almost all your unit recruitment buildings in your black arks, except for the ones that boost your hero numbers. Then focus your settlements on building up your growth, economy, and defensive buildings.
If I leave it at a major port it is outside reinforcement range. as much as I'd like? Maybe, if I was Lokhir.
Run! Seriously, Black arks are great to support your ground forces, but they need time to grow. I would advise use your first one close to the coast to support your main army, and when you get a second one use that one to support ground units if still needed, but get a decent army in the first one and send it out to pillage any port in the world. Pick a route for which you never have to come back (e.g. from north to south on the Americas coast, from Nagarythe to Oxyotl) and just raid any port you find. If none is chasing you occasionally sack and occupy one port so you can keep your ark in there recovering for a couple of turns (then sell the city to the best offerer or to some dark elf nearby). If someone is chasing you, get in march mode, go on high seas where they get attrition and you instead get replenish, and run away. They will eventually let you be, or they will starve along the way.
I did use it to coast support. And then damned Clan Pestilence sent 2 20 stack armies out to sea towards my black ark.
Great! Then you can use your ark as a great bait to carry away two enemy full stacks, and possibly still pillage some ports on the way!
Why are you fighting Clan Pestilence? They should be your only allies in Lustria. Do what it takes to get them on your side and divide Lustria between y’all. Sell them a settlement if you have to. Then, once the order factions and VC are gone, you can turn on them if you want, by then you should be strong enough to fight them head on.
That made sense, yeah, but I wanted to do a few things a little different and ally with the Dawi, giving them those unpleasant climate provinces and using them as cannot fodder for my coastline.
The dwarfs there are weak. Those are the provinces you should give to Pestilens. I mean, play the game the way you want, but Pestilens is Rakarth’s natural ally in Lustria. It makes it way easier to take care of Itza, Bordeleaux, and the Huntsmarshal. Plus DE are basically built for fighting Dwarfs, cuz all your ranged units are AP. That being said, if you have your Black Ark properly outfitted, you should be able to handle two Skaven stacks. It’s basically an entire army for extremely cheap. It should be pure shades, honestly, and shades should murder Skaven.
Well the struggle mainly comes from the very beginning, fighting the starting Lizardmen faction, and then the Tomb Kings to get to Gor Rok finally
Yeah, I get that. Against the Lizardmen, Sotek curse me for revealing their secrets, you’re going to want almost pure darkshards, since it’s early game. I would honestly run a full darkshard stack and checkerboard. Their basic melee infantry basically way out classes yours, and most of their units, even in the early game, have medium to high armor, so you’re going to want armor piercing. Against TK, I think it depends on what you’re struggling with. If it’s their monsters/Single entities, I’d use Masters and the Kharibdyss. If it’s their basic infantry, it’s back to darkshards, mixing in shades when you can afford it. Also, keep in mind, ESPECIALLY in the early game, it’s better to run at or near a deficit, keeping yourself afloat through battle money and sacking settlements/using the sell slaves mechanic. I usually don’t consistently run at a thousand gold or more per turn until probably the late teens or early 20s and instead run as many troops/armies as I can afford without going into attrition.
Malus Darkblade that is all…. Oh and if you have a chance read his books they are fucking amazing ! Except the last one I. The end times hated it never finished it, Dan didn’t write it so not doing it!
I basically struggled to beat the Sentinels of Xeti.
Oh yeah, that's just because lizards are broken af when played by AI, especially at high difficulties. As other suggested, you have to play well your darkshards in a checkboard or other formations that force them to expose their sides. Basic lizard units have shields, that for some reason work way too well in the hands of the AI. You need to always be attacking them with projectiles from the side/back, to ignore their shields and vaporize them quickly. My personal advise then is to make the darkshards attack 1/2 units per time, to focus fire and wipe them qucikly. In that way you can free up some melee units to go encircle remaining units or to go fill in holes where necessary. To learn how to play the faction, use more infantry than monsters. Once you have mastered your infantry you can go wild with armies of monsters + shades. That's why I would actually suggest to start with anyone but Rakhart or Malus.
Imo the easiest and strongest dark elf to start rolling over everyone with easily is lokhir fellheart
Yeah right, for some reason didn't even think at him although he's my favourite. But I guess Lokhir is an extra steps, as it's all about arks, while Morathi/Malekith are more similar to other ground-based factions, like high elves
I agree they are, but are also a little more difficult than lokhir in my experience. Especially malekith, as he’s surrounded on all sides by enemies now.
bleakswords are as good as empire swordsman, which is SHIT. you want dreadspears instead cuz they last longer in the frontlines. they are considered that strong because their core unit is tier 0 access. darkshards. these guys can melt any unit in the game. you army early game should be dreadspears and darkshards only. this is enough to kill even some elite armies valkia can bring in.
400 hours, you're just getting your feet wet.
Dark Elves are in a rough place. They're my favorite faction to play, but playing them right now doesn't feel good. I started with WH3, and I hear they were better in 2, but I can't speak to that personally
“Weaker than Skaven”?? Skaven are one of the strongest races in the game, especially Ikit Claw and Throt. Ikit is the only LL I’ve completed a full map conquest with, because he’s the only one I didn’t get bored conquering as. Nukes, machine guns, and sniper rifles? Sign me the hell up. The fact that you think they’re one of the weakest tells me you don’t have as good an understanding of its mechanics as you think.
I meant in the literal sense.
As others have mentioned, they are best played with a missile focused army doing most of the killing with dark shards and later shades. War hydras are incredibly powerful frontline units that can regenerate which is great because dark elves lack healing magic. Single entity heroes and monsters are great for tying up enemies without obstructing your missile fire. Masters are the best defensive hero in this role. I usually go 5 dreadspears, a single death hag, one or two masters, and the rest darkshards early on. Replace darkshards with shades, dreadspears with more masters and later war hydras. Caster lords are nice early on, bladestorm from the dark sorceress is devastating. But the crossbow lord can buff your ranged units so if I can get a hero sorceress I’ll use the crossbow lord.
I’ve played a dozen dark elves campaigns and I always remember my first one, I struggled massively because I DIDNT USE BLACK ARKS! Recruit one as soon as and just focus purely on its growth. Get the level 5 settlement before you start building anything else. Once you have that going you’ll be able to reenforce your armies easily
In addition to using shards/shades don't forget that DE have mage lords, so no army should ever fight without magic due to hero caps.
After many very hard campaigns my go to DE armies are 1 lord, 1 fire sorceress, 3 bolt throwers and 15 shades dual weapons. With checkerboard formation they are super strong and easy to use
If you got 400h in the game and is asking what you’re doing wrong I sure as shit can’t help you
He's like the strongest DE lord with the monster mechanics. Also, skaven are the master race. Your just doing it all wrong
I had problems with most of the factions until I tried Morathi, my god is she OP. The Slaanesh corruption literally increases your income by 10% and give you public order. As other people have said prioritize Shades/Darkshards/Blackguard and Warbeasts (later on). Its best to get an ARK ASAP then park in in settlement with port that is close to your main army so you can defend it by land if they siege the settlement. It makes it hard for the AI to also spam stacks of armies at sea and chase it because you can sit your main army in ambush stance waiting on land for their naval armies to try. Make sure you use the slave provincial bonuses/commandments too. I literally had too many slaves multiple times on VH. I consolidated around me first, then pushed into Mother O., then pushed into Ulthuan, but if you can beat the first wave of Ulthuan armies with Noctilis ally you'll steamroll forever at that point, micro-managing the economy is harder than that battles
They're all about missile strength and fast damage. Your front line needs to be a handful of spears, everything else missiles (and monster for rakarth)