Total War Warhammer 2 Dark Elves Guide
THE DARK ELVESThe Dark Elves are voracious raiders who ply their bloody trade across the length and breadth of the world. They take whatever they want and will gladly risk their lives for the promise of glory, power and riches.
Dark Elves are one of the playable factions in Total War: Warhammer II. Dark Elves represent all that is foul and depraved in the Elven soul. Led from the obsidian wastes of Naggaroth by the Witch King Malekith and his sadistic mother Morathi, the Dark Elves are hell-bent on the humiliation.
All Elves are taller than humans and of a slender but strong build. They are long-limbed and graceful, with slim, adept fingers. Their eyes are large and oval, containing a disturbing, otherworldly wisdom that unnerves other creatures. For the Dark Elves, a cold beauty masks the natural attractiveness of their race and a scowl or sneer often mars the pale skin of their elegant faces.
They are, for the most part, dark-haired and sinister, and their bleak stares convey nothing but contempt.LEGENDARY LORDSPlayers choosing the Dark Elves will be able to select from the following Legendary Lords with which to lead their Grand Campaign.MALEKITHMalekith is the son of Morathi and Aenarion. He grew to be a mighty warrior, a great sorcerer and a brilliant general, but was shunned by his folk when Aenarion was slain. Wehn Bel-Shanaar was chosen to rule in his stead and Malekith began a long campaign that has lasted for five thousand years.Now reigning over his dispossessed people as the Witch King of Naggaroth, Malekith is a fearsome warrior and mighty sorcerer. With both spell and blade he destroys all that oppose him.
His burnt and scarred body is bound within the magical plates of the Armour of Midnight, and few face the wrath of the Witch King and survive.MORATHIAfter the Witch King himself, Morathi is the single most powerful Dark Elf in all of Naggaroth. Born to scheming and politics, and a talented sorceress, Morathi has spent five thousand years teaching her son all she knows of statecraft and magic, and works to maintain his grip on the throne of Naggaroth. Morathi is totally dedicated to her son, as he is to her. Between them they rule Naggaroth with an iron grip and bloodied sword.Morathi has always had the taint of Chaos about her – She met with Malekith’s father, Aenarion, when the Elven lord rescued her from a Chaos attack. Many believe that it was during her time as a captive that the insidious claws of the Dark Gods first crept in her soul. It was Morathi who founded the Cult of Pleasure on Ulthuan, which eventually led to bloody civil war and the cataclysm of the Sundering. Morathi was the first to perfect the Dark Art, opening up gateways to the realms of Chaos to steal vast and unimaginable powers.
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You're here because you're having trouble so the first question is: Do you have enough Darkshards?If you answered yes, you are two things. Wrong, and in the right place.The long and short of the dark elf strategy guide is that darkshards are boarderline overpowered and while the sun is shining, we may as well make some hay.Expect their AP damage to be drastically reduced in the coming weeks as the five people who actually play multiplayer complain about balance enough to get them nerfed.Until then, understand this - the solution to every problem you encounter is 'kill it with darkshards'.The Dark Elf army plays surprisingly defensively. While you certainly CAN go on the offensive with it, its a lot of effort and expense for less effect.The strategy then, start to finish, is similar to dwarves but a lot more murderous and a lot less durable: Get as many darkshards with shields (so they'll win or at least tie any ranged duels they undertake) as you can fesibly protect, stick a line of meatshields in front of them, put everyone on guard and laugh loudly as the oncoming army melts into so many scattered corpses.
A widely cited complaint about total war is that missile units have no brain. Rather than every man turning slightly to his right when firing, the entire regiment wheels to be almost exactly square with their target (wasting precious shooting time), clips through the spear wall protecting them and gets pulled into a melee where they don't fire and get slaughtered before you can force them to pull back out again.So that's the first thing to address because proper employment of your Darkshards is key to victory and if you use them wrong you'll wonder what the hell everyone is talking about.The proper formation of a druchii darkshard battery is NOT a long thin line. It is two ranks, closely positioned behind one another, of units deployed five or six men deep and no fewer.When setting control groups go back to front so each control group is two darkshards. Four at the most.Do not go left to right down your firing line.
These are not melee troops. DreadspearsYou begin life with dreadspears. And you'll be stuck with them for quite some time so get familiar. Not.not that familiar. None of them will live to see tomorrow, but that's okay.These are.competant meatshields. Their melee defense is quite respectable and high Druchii leadership means they'll usually keep fighting until they're almost completely wiped out, which is all we can really ask from them. Charge defense against large means they're better at holding back line-breakers like cavalry and chariots that'd flatten other infantry and the bonus vs large means they might actually annoy these elite units a bit on their way to the grave.On the downside their armor is poor (30 is nothing to write home about.) and they hit like wet noodles.
Still, they're a superior choice to bleakswords for a number of reasons.First, their job is to hold the line and die so that Darkshards don't. In pursuit of that goal, the higher melee defense is worth far more tha the modest improvement in melee attack.
Bleakswords over Dreadspears will not win you a battle, Darkshards safely firing away behind your melee line will.Second, the thing bleakswords are supposed to do (trade a bit of defense for a bit of attack) is something done better by literally every other melee infantry unit on the dark elf roster, which brings us to. CorsairsCorsairs are an odd duck. Their lack of shields and relatively high movement speed (for infantry) makes them appear like offensive units and to some degree they are, but only in the sense that they are actually capable of killing things under their own power.A superior statline, better damage and a very respectable 80 armor makes these an obvious improvement over your more basic infantry.
Except for two things.First, they have no special tools for dealing with large creatures employed as linebreakers. Their sole task in the battle is to keep the enemy OFF our Darkshards and they'll fall like dominos before a cavalry or chariot charge.Second, no shield. While their armor is more than compensation in most cases, against fellow Druchii who typically field large number of darkshards of their own, this is worthless.
They might as well wear tissue paper draped off of dental floss.Speaking of Witch (see what I did there?). Witch ElvesWitch Elves are an odd duck of a unit and lend themselves more to the high micro playstyle that simply isn't worth the effort as things stand.Dodge provides flat resistance to physical damage that meets or exceeds about 30 points of armor in almost all cases. The break point is the lack of a shield. A 55% chance to ignore missile damage is substantial.
They're expensive, slow to train and more fragile than Corsairs in most situations.The second factor which disqualifies them from meat-shield duty is their poison. Alongside a tasty debuff is rampage - a new effect CA is very proud of and loves slapping on every unit it can possibly get away with.There are micro-intensive ways to use rampage - losing control over a unit and having it kited away by a regiment of faster troops while its shot to pieces in the back by darkshards can theoretically neutralise and slaughter some very dangerous enemies.The problem is that pulling that off exposes the witch elves to being isolated themselves and is difficult to pull off once the enemy has actually engaged. They're too slow to be used effectively as flankers so you can't even pull that nonense on their own darkshard lines and use the rampage effect to keep them from trying to get away.As with any poison its not a bad idea to get it applied to a scary unit - especially a high morale one that isn't likely to break before doomsday ANYWAY, but they've no place in the line of battle. Blackguard of NaggarothHalberdiers on steroids. And Halberdiers were mean to start with.
Its hard to dislike Blackguard - their leadership is like iron, which can actually get them into trouble but they will do what you ask of them unfailingly. Their stat line is quite solid, they've got armor out the wazoo so they'll last in the brawl, they have the desirable charge defense and bonus vs large to stop linebreaking dead and the armor piercing damage on top is just gravy.There're two reasons NOT to use Blackguard as your main meatshields.
Cost, and the lack of a shield. If those doesn't matter, roll on the blackguard. If they do, consider whether the money is better spent on another lord with more darkshards.As discussed, armor is pretty much worthless against other Druchii. Darkshards will shred it. To a lesser extent, so is their AP damage. If its got enough armor to matter, shoot it with Darkshards. If it doesn't have armor, shoot it with darkshards anyway.
In any situation where massed darkshards are an issue, you're better off with a shield than all the armor that Vaul ever made.Their superior statline WILL keep them alive a bit longer than dreadspears, and they'll get in a good few kills themselves but given the high training reqs and upkeep you won't be fielding a lot of these until late in the game anyway, by which time you'll hopefully be done explaining to all the other dark elf factions that you ARE the witch-king they keep threatening you with. Druchii wouldn't be Druchii without some fun monsters. After all, thats why you're not playing Empire.These units are almost pure gravy. The bulk of the battle will be won or lost based on whether or not your Darkshards emptied their crossbows into the enemy, or died with 75% of their ammunition unspent.That is frustrating because the menagerie of other units is quite enjoyable. This is quite good because Darkshards require relatively little minding. Note any priority targets during the 'marching ino range' stage of the battle and ensure they're assigned and then let them do their thing.Which leaves you free to play with your other toys.
Dark RidersYour first cavalry and your first major disappointment. Dark Riders are just bad. They'll always be bad and they should feel bad about that. They won't though, because they're spiteful Druchii. They're as bad as Darkshards are good.They're fast, which is nice.
But they've got tissue paper armor, a poor stat line, literally no mass so their charge stops dead the instant they detect collision. They will lose every fight they ever get in. Their only conceivable function is to run down routing units and frankly giving up army slots to that job is just not worth it - auto-resolve the follow up attack if you really don't want to spend another 15 running down the rag-tag survivors of the first massacre.Odds are you'll gun down the routing units with your darkshards before they can escape anyway.
Dark Riders with CrossbowsThese are substantially better. Everything regular dark riders (with or without shields) can do (which isn't much.) these guys can do better. The ability to put a lot of armor piercing projectiles somewhere on the battlefield very quickly and get them out again is very useful in concept and early on when you have literally no other options for high speed units these can do the job.Note that while possessing a decent range and AP missile damage, they cannot fire in 360' degrees. That cuts down their kiting abilities substantially and you get a lot less shots out of a regiment of these than you do dark shards but they can be used to peel off high value units and aren't a complete waste of a slot if they're ignored/chased. HarpiesA very niche unit.
Think of them like fellbats on roids. Vargheists they are not. Tankier than they are killy, they're probably more valuable in seige battles (if they don't get shot out of the sky by dark shards.) than anywhere else as they can get onto the walls and wreck low tier units there. They'll even give mid-tier units like Corsairs a run for their money but are likely to come off the worse end of it.They could be used to hit up artillery but artillery is neither that scary nor vulnerable enough to strike in melee until its past mattering. Or to chase down irritating units like norse cavalry that out-run everything else that gets close to them while shooting the whole time. But they'll take a lot of damage in the process and do you know what doesn't trigger skirmish retreat and always outranges missile cav?Darkshards.
Cold One RidersYour basic shock cavalry. Demigryphs these ain't. They don't even compare that well to reiksguard - cavalry charges are anemic in the current patch and while im sure that'll be one of the first mods out and probably an early patch, they're rather lacking in punch.But they've got good armor, anti-armor themselves and bonus vs large. Which is nice.I like to say there're two ways to counter shock cavalry of other armies - the hard way, or the expensive way.The hard way is to play a game of footsie with your spearmen/black guard, constantly shortening and adjusting your flank and turning darkshards onto it to whittle them down while daring them to impale themselves on your spear points or die in a hail of bolts and indecision.The expensive way is to throw some cold ones at them and have done with it. The Cold Ones will likely lose - Chaos Knights chew them up and spit them out - but they'll do a hell of a lot of damage on their way down and whatever emerges the other side is a much reduced threat.Cold Ones rampage at low leadership. This is good for your 'expensive solution to shock cav' because they will keep chewing on their enemies until they're wiped out. And bad for your budget because they will keep chewing on their enemies until they're wiped out.Given that you aren't lacking for damage tools to apply to the battle line and cavalry isn't anything to write home about in this game so far, they're a fire and forget missile.
If they survive the battle, be pleasantly surprised. War HydraNow we're talking.
Welcome to flavour country. War Hydras are just great. Terror inducing, regenerating, fire spitting engines of destruction. They're kinda slow though, they get stuck on terrain (especially trees) a lot and their fire breath will bug out because of some intervening object or detonate uselessly on a half inch rise you didn't notice because your face wasn't mashed into the grass to check the elevation.But they're lots of fun.
Smash them into the battle line and watch the leadership melt. Just make sure you put your troops on guard so they don't get pulled out of position - your Darkshards thank you for the opportunity to shoot their enemies in their unarmored backs.You won't regret taking one.
Black DragonsDo you like hydras? Do you like microing their very underwhelming breath weapon? Do you enjoy how you can spend five minutes clicking while they do a dance around some imagined obstacle the game engine has decided is a problem?
Do you like chasing down a unit you should be able to catch and eat but by the time you finally engage them they've stripped off half your health from shooting, and then you get two bites in before its back to Benny Hill?Then you'll like dragons! All these problems, amplified!If they actually engage, they're very good. They'll massacre low tier units and their high armor can be a real problem for an enemy that lacks the means to counter it - knights getting you down? AP anti large coming to ruin your fun? Fly away.They melt before Darkshards though.
Big target, easy to hit, AP damage. Dead dragon in under a minute or your money back.They're a great lord mount. But a terrible unit. Auto-resolve loves them but otherwise leave them at home.
Total War Warhammer 2 Dark Elves Units
Bring a hydra or a high level dreadlord instead. Reaper Bolt ThrowerDo you know whats great about Darkshards? I get a frame-rating destroying torrent of AP bolts that literally blocks out the sun every few seconds at a useful range.Do you know what Reaper Bolt Throwers do?
They take away either the 'torrent' bit or the 'AP bit' and give you some bonus range instead.They really ought to be better. They're pretty damned accurate, so that's in their favor. They will normally hit what you're aiming at even at extreme range.Their two modes gives them fiexibility but they both kinda suck. The big bolt is intended for monster hunting - its AP, its got bonus vs large. It fires four of them in a volley.
And for what its worth it performs as advertised but do you know whats better than eight volleys of four shots? Darkshards.The scatter fire is a bit more practical but the damage is aenemic.
At best, the Bolt Thrower can snipe out other artillery crews but it has a shorter range than a hell canon and dark riders with crossbows are faster. The one thing your Darkshards are less than amazing at is killing individual, small heroes. Once they start riding dragons, or sitting on giant portable thrones, or hoverboards, they're no problem.
That's a big hitbox and your Darkshards will do you proud.But before then its less than ideal. Its not that they won't do it - its just that they're better at almost everything else and in the inevitable blob other people's heads keep getting in the bolts' way.Meanwhile their hero is crashing your your thin, emo line. Since nothing on a Druchii battlefield is more important than keeping the Darkshards firing that cannot stand.Heroes are your go-to solution for stopping that nonsense before it starts. Dreadlord with Sword and CrossbowLooks great on paper. Look at that damage!
Five or six shots and you can snipe that enemy lord right out of the battle!Sucks in reality. The interval between shots is quite long, the accuracy is not good so its probably a wasted effort and while you're nancing about with your crossbow, THEIR hero is getting stuck in and slaughtering your troops en masse with their aoe Sauron Maces.Your dreadlord should be with the troops, providing a leadership bolster, and intercepting enemy heroes so they can't waste your melee line.
Not flapping about failing to make an impact with their pop gun. He doesn't even buff nearby artillery. Dreadlord with Sword and ShieldBetter. Basic melee lord. Not a lot to write home about. Obviously the first thing you want is to buff your Darkshards so your primary murder unit is every more murdery. Then grab Lightning Strike so you can pull apart clusters of doomstacks as needed (they show up earlier than you'd like thanks to rituals).
Put them on a horse as soon as you can because on foot they're good to no-one. And upgrade to a cold one right away to get that sweet, sweet AP damage. Now they're able to KILL other heroes, instead of just being a buffer against them.Dragons are the next big step up. You may want to delay getting an evil pegasus until level 17 so you can grab the dragon right after. Terror is great and you should have some. SorceressAll three lores are good - there're no traps to be had here but some are better than others.Fire is tried and tested but with few regenerating enemies and no ethereal units to be seen or heard of the lore loses a lot of its buffs. The direct damage stuff is still as solid as it ever was but its the weakest of the three.Shadow is very nice for prolonging the life of your melee line.
Reducing enemy melee attack means less damage taken means more time they can be held at bay and slaughtered by Dark Shards. The big win over Dark in this regard is that the over-channeled version has an area effect which can be very useful in the blob.Dark however emerges as the clear winner.
If you have no STRONG feelings one way or the other, take the Dark Elves' signature lore of magic. You won't be sorry.Chill Wind is some kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t. Its hilariously easy to use, especially with the defensive playstyle of the Dark Elves. With a decent range (it also has a minimum range but its not far) you can direct the wind (hold left and drag to turn it) and lay down a column of damage that tears through the engaged enemy and leaves you nicely ordered melee line completely unharmed. And its absurdly cheap with a short cooldown.Power of Darkness will keep you casting all damn day.
It deals some damage to a friendly unit with a reasonable range. Early on I recommend a darkshard in the back rank. They can afford to lose some health - it won't kill any of them - and it keeps you rolling in power long after other wizards are dry.Soul Stealer is a direct damage spell that heals you. Combine with Power of Darkness to keep yourself alive and swimming in magic if you can't find someone else to suffer the cost for you (what kind of Dark Elf are you?!).Blade Wind is very acceptable if you can get it off in a big mass of units. It doesn't fling everyone clear of its damage radius like other vortexes have been known to do so it does actually do some damage but the long delay between casting and it beginning, combined with its unpredictable direction makes it too 'dicey' for me for its cost. Id rather use two or three chill winds.The homing bolt is very 'meh'.
It does about as much damage to the things you'd use it on as a single single volley of darkshards. That doesn't seem worth the mana.The debuff is nice but single unit only. Its a good tool to have, never know when you might need to neuter some chosen or white lions in a pinch. But if you're looking for more control and less blasting use shadow.Obviously Sorceresses should not be in fights. They have no armor and poor stats. Put them on a horse, and then a pegasus, as soon as you can. Cold ones are too slow - id rather outrun shock cavalry than do a little bit of damage to them before dying.
Death HagsDeath Hags are great choices in the campaign. Improved replenishment will help you treat punishing damage to your melee line as a barely noticable speed bump and she's a deadly melee fighter able to go toe to toe with early lords and rip up regiments. She encourages other units too, freeing up your lord to do other things.The downside is that she lacks a mount except the cauldron of blood.
Foot heroes as we all know are at a distinct disadvantage. The lack of mass means she's stuck in whatever blob she winds up in, she can't catch anyone but other infantry and will be sent flying by even the weediest horse.The Cauldron of Blood itself is very eh. You're giving up a substantial amount of fighting power for a very large hitbox that doesn't do much. The special ability can put one of your regiments into a roid rage but as discussed our melee units aren't what kill things and losing control of our 'fun stuff' units defeats the point of the object.
She can crash through the ranks to get at what she wants now, but she's bad at fighting when she gets there.If you like chariots, then she is one. Give her the Witches' Brew to help make up for her weakened fighting stats and micro her to your hearts content.
Or until you run out of brews.The main reason to take it is that it inflicts terrord has the mass to crash through ranks. If you're hard up for slots that preclude taking a war hydra as well, or your lord isn't on a dragon yet but still want the hag's passive replenishment bonuses and leadership bubble in your army then stick her on the cauldron and make sure to grab the damage reduction traits to help her survive. AssassinsAnother 'good on paper, bad in reality' choice. Foot heroes are bad duellists. Can't reach their foe, can't chase their foe, end up flat on their back a lot.
The bow should help but its too inaccurate to matter. Two 400 damage shots would be brutal if they actually hit but he fires so slowly, even buffed, and hits so rarely, that you will regret bringing him along.Amazing in the campaign though. Assault all the things. There's no 'succeeded in a mission so do nothing for two rounds' or 'failed at a mission, they're basically immune now for four god damn turns' so just spam it. Right away send Malekith to reclaim the rest of Naggarond, recruiting darkshards and dreadspears as you go. 6 spears and eight shards is the desired figure, that leaves Malekith, the cold ones, his blackguard and space for a hag when you can get one.
Add another dread spear regiment in the mean time.Take slaves at every opportunity. You'll replace all these units so the XP is meaningless and you can get plenty of money by looting. You need replenishment to keep your armies moving and slaves to bolster your economy and fuel your rituals.Make friends with Hag Gref to your south and Har Ganeth to the east. They'll like you to start with anyway but give them both a small gifts and establish non-aggression, trade and alliances as quickly as possible as you'll want to confederate them later. They're likely to end up squabbling with other minor factions so their growth will be limited and easy to gobble up.Right after securing Naggarond province raise another lord and begin filling up his stack with dreadspears and dark shards. 6 spears 8 shards minimum.Send Malekith to grab the Grand Arena - Har Ganeth may make a play for it to so don't waste time treasure hunting and have it stolen out from underneath you. If they do take it, don't lose sleep.
Its annoying but it won't matter in the long run. Then go past Ghrond itself to the northern settlement. Ideally, the large stack in Ghrond will leave the city to try and intercept you but its unlikely. Ideally you've now two of the three settlements.Ghrond likely (still) has a large stack on top of its garrison. Fighting them on their walls is suicide and you can't afford to bring your second army in to help because the Mung and Skaven will savage your unprotected flank.So instead, lure them out. Move to attack the city and begin seiging. The AI thinks it has a substantial advantage and will sally out to meet you.
Kill them, take the city. You may sustain heavy casualties but your darkshards will carry you through and with Ghrond eradicated you can replenish your forces.While this is going on, press the Skaven to your west with your second army. Take the altar first as its walls will stall any skaven counter-attacks.
Again use the seige to lure their stack off the walls if its present. Once taken watch their armies as they like to move between settlements. Quickly snatch up the relatively undefended one and then attack their stack when it moves to try and take back the altar.That's three complete provinces and the skaven should be eradicated. Build growth chains then craft houses.
You don't have enough slaves to justify pens yet.Public order can suffer, don't worry about controlling it. Rebellions are a good thing right now - its free XP for your generals and money for you.Walls are pointless. The only time you'll want them is to defend against ritual spawn stacks and they'll roll right over them the turn they attack and raze it anyway. Go for the cash and you'll be well positioned to rebuild.Raise a new lord. Same mix of units.
We're going after the Mung.Send the recovered Malekith to the Mung Encampment north of Har Ganeth. He's closer anyway. The other two lords will strike the two settlements that're nested closely together just north of your new holdings at the Altar.Every time, loot and occupy. The corruption is so high you'll be in huge negative public order anyway so lets get it over with. When they spawn let the rebellions build a little bit to bring public order back up and increase the yield of cash and slaves you'll get for destroying them.With these three taken you only need bear island to eradicate the Mung entirely. Its a moderately long way west so you're going to send the better stacked of your two armies at Ironfrost itself in raid stance (to negate the corruption attrition) west to Bear Island.
They'll be begging you for peace. Don't take it.The worse off of the two will hang around to crush rebellions spawning near Ironfrost, Malekith hangs out in the Mung Encampment to deal with things on that side.Take Bear Island. Mung eradicated.
Four full provinces and secure boarders.Don't be afraid to use your war coordination with your allies to keep their armies from becoming too strong. Send them after their enemies so that the war's don't go cold with troop build up. Especially an enemy stronger than then. This will lower their relative strength and make them more amenable to confederation which can give an early boost.Those who refuse to kneel regardless, will die. Provinces do only one thing.
Fuel your war machine. In a word - no.In assessing the value of a unit, we're not interested in what it could theoretically do on paper. Any idiot with eyes can see that shades have a better stat profile than darkshards across the board.What we're interested in is how efficiently it is performing the task we ask of it.Shades come at a markedly higher price than darkshards and requires an entire extra building chain which does not provide the much needed dreadspears. And stacks of Blackguard and Shades are even more expensive.Despite Shades superior stat-line, their primary job is still to shoot things to death. Any situation where they're not firing is sub-optimal.
While they possess a markedly better reloading speed (the source of their higher damage output - the actual damage per bolt is exactly the same as darkshards) it is quite a modest improvement in firepower for the cost.Most of what we're paying for is their mediocre melee abilities. Any situation where shades are using those stats is one we wish to avoid at all costs.Its important then to establish just what they'll be using them against.The kinds of units that can circumvent or crash straight through the melee line into our back ranks are elite troops - they're chariots, shock cavalry and flying monsters. All of these units have excellent fighting stats and high armor values.When this happens you'll want to move a unit of melee troops in to pin down the linebreaking unit and withdraw the shades so they can resume firing - the thing they're best at. This is no different from how you'd employ darkshards. Leaving your shades in combat with units whose entire function on the battlefield is wreak havock in the back line is just a good way to get your very expensive shades killed, and is accomplishing the opponents goal of preventing them from firing.Whats more, they lack shields and have no better armor than darkshards do. So they come off substantially worse in archery duels than their much cheaper cousins.So to recap, Shades;.Are staggeringly more expensive, reducing the number of armies you can field.Provide only a modest improvement in their actual battlefield role.Will not want make use of their enhanced secondary capabilities in any event.Get chewed up by high elf archers who can't believe you threw your shields awayIf you like shades, use them.
But are they cost-effective? Malekith can also use Bladewind to great effect here if he's grown that powerful. Otherwise just Chill Wind the crap out of anything that makes it into your lines. He can do a good job tying them up in melee too if he's on foot (his fighting stats take a hit while mounted, and if he's tanking then you want him with as high a defense as possible)Failing that, out produce them. The sinews of war are infinite money.
Raise another dreadlord, recruit some more Darkshards and attack with reinforcements. Corsairs are more expensive than your troops anyway so you're winning the war of attrition. Hi Rook.The short answer is the same as the long one really - you need more Darkshards. Corsairs are marginally better fighters than your other lower tier infantry (Executioners and Blackguard make short work of them but you'd expect that from T4 vs T2 units) but where they really get their power from is their ludicrously high armor values, which protect them from a LOT of punishment and ensure they really stick around in a slog fest against not AP units.But they lack shields. And Darkshards ignore armor.Corsairs are best dealt with by focusing your fire to crush their morale and start routs. A unit vanishing in the space of a few seconds is a HUGE morale hit to the nearby units.
Kill two or three units this way in a short space of time and you'll see more routs - as soon as a unit starts fleeing, redirect fire onto the nearest unbroken unit to it. You'll see chain routs that will keep the bulk of their corsairs off your front line and you'll be able to mow them all down.
Bit late to the game on this one, but thanks for the hard work. This really helped me with my DE capaign.One question though: I seem to be stalling out around turn 40 with 3-4 provinces. My army usually has malekith, hag, 6 dreadspears, 8 darkshards, the blackguard and artillery that comes with him for 18 units, leaving me 2 spaces for whatever - usually a harpie or damage-dealing unit. But I seem to keep having trouble with the corsairs and dual-wielding units fielded by the other DE armies I'm fighting by that time. I'll win, but they're hard-fought battles and I take a lot of losses.
Any tips on how to re-comp the army for mid-game? In all three cases, these units rely on their high armor to protect them and you cannot afford to let their fighting prowess be degraded by exhaustion caused by climbing ladders. If you're fighting dark elves especially, their armor is worthless against enemy darkshards - so those siege towers are essential to ensuring you still have an army when you get there.Most of the time the AI only runs around with one or two doomstacks per faction anyway. If they're hold up in their castle, then starve them out. They can't do anything but die each turn until they leave the protection of their walls to fight anyway.
And as soon as they're in the open killing fields.