As the title suggests, I've decided to succumb to the 'new army syndrome' and collect Dark Elves! And here's a shocking revelation: I plan to have them fully painted as well!

*Pauses while everyone closes their mouths*

I know. It's shocking. Me wanting a fully-painted army. And before you ask, I'm not on any medication and I haven't found god; I'd just like to have an army with paint on the models and all of their arms attached.

So, on to the army itself. Those of you who know me will know that I like my armies/teams/whatever to be effective. That doesn't necessarily mean that I will always squeeze every point out of an army, but I don't like using stuff that's rubbish. Winning is fun. But nice models are fun too.

Having bought the Dark Elf spearhead, mostly so I can get the book early, I have spent much time deliberating over an army list. If I’m going to bother painting some models, it might as well be as few as possible; so I need to get the list reasonably okay before I even pick up a brush.
Looking through the book, I came up with this list which I plan to playtest using a borrowed army or proxied models.

Dreadlord on cold one, sea dragon cloak, Armour of Eternal Servitude, Pendant of Khaeleth, Crimson Death.

6 Cold One Knights, full command, Banner of Cold Blood, Ring of Hotek.

Master, Armour of Darkness, Soulrender.

20 Black Guard, full command, Standard of Hag Graef.

10 Repeater Crossbowmen, shields.

10 Repeater Crossbowmen, shields.

6 Dark Riders, repeater crossbows, musician.

3 Reaper Bolt Throwers.

Assassin, additional hand weapon, Manbane, Rune of Khaine.

8 Shades, additional hand weapons.

8 Harpies.

Total Cost: 1992pts

Now looking at this list you may think that I am woefully lacking in magical defence, and you’d be right. Mostly. The only scrap of defence I have is the Ring of Hotek carried by the Cold One Knight Champion (or the Black Guard Champion, depends at the moment).

This little beauty will discourage those over-eager high-level casters from throwing loads of dice at spells once they suffer their first miscast. It’s not going to stop all their offensive spells, just the most potent (hopefully). Anyway, they can’t cast spells if their head is not attached, so I plan to cut it off!

Model-wise, I have started painting crossbowmen, and plan to put a picture on here by the weekend. Please comment on the list. Some comments may be acted upon (as long as they don’t suggest painting lots more models).

Edited to add changes to list.

I'd seriously consider a War Hydra, and you have already identified your main weakness - lack of magical defence.

The Black Guard are a nice solid unit, and should do well. But they may prove to be very expensive for what they do.

You can never go wrong with crossbows and Dark Riders.

My only recommendation, without a rebuild from the ground up, is to drop a couple of shades, and the Bolt thrower, perhaps a black guard or two and find those points for the War Hydra.

I'd defenatly fit a hydra in there - it's a very nasty piece of kit! And maybe drop the BG down to 17, and go 6 wide with the Master in there. I know it looses you a rank, but the number of kills you'll get is worth it - and you'll not need that extra rank!

Personally, I'd drop the assassin for more dark riders, but that's just me. I never leave the Black Arc without at least two units of DR.

And I'd recommend the Banner of Cold Blood for the CoKs, because it lets you off stupidity for the vital turn when you've gotta charge. I've lost count of the number of games that stupidity has cost me...

I'm not totally sold on the hydra yet, and I can;t re-jig the points enough to get one. On reflection, I do agree that the Banner of Cold Blood will be very useful for the knights, as even with Ld 10 you can still fail your stupidity roll. The assassin is not leaving the army, as they are now double-hard nutjobs capable of chucking out 5-7 attacks per turn before anyone else, along with manbane makes them too deadly not to take. Plus the model is ace.

The black guard and master are going together, and will be deployed 7 wide 3 deep for maximum potential of attacks. The assassin can then either go with them for uber killyness, or be sneaky and go with the shades who are now more than capable of slapping average infantry units in combat (WS5 and 2 attacks each with hatred! chuck in the assassin and you've won combat).

I'm interested to see how you plan to deal with magic missiles.

Your shades are prime targets for those. A single 3 dice attempt at a 2D6 S4 magic missile will potentially wipe them out, or reduce them significantly. And not a darn thing you can do about it!

You have two really hard units, but are your support for those units going to be enough.

Should do well against certain armies, High Elves, Empire, low toughness and not enough horde. Against big hordes and magic heavy lists you may find yourself struggling.

There's a damn nasty trick I've thought up for the shades/assassin combo. Turn one, move the shades through the wood they deployed behind (or up to the corner of a building, I suppose), to just outside 2" from the edge. They can't be seen, so they're safe. Then, start of your next turn, reveal the assassin - he displaces a rank and file (so he goes where one of them was), then the displaced shade is placed within 1" of the unit. Put him towards the edge of the woods (or past the corner of the building), so he can see the enemy. Then charge, out of nowhere!

Like I said magic is going to be a bit of a problem, but you don't have the points to deal with everything. I've got plenty of shooting to thin out the enemy, and two juicy units that'll need killing, to attract the magical attention. I'm just going to have to be a bit canny with the shades.

A way to get rid of annoying magical gits is the harpies. Just charge them straight into the front of a unit containing a wizard, get three of them to clobber him and he'll probably die. The harpies will die horribly shortly after, but they're not dark elves so who really cares.

Anyway, I've still got two dispel dice, and if I pray to the right gods I can stop their spells. Hopefully...

P.S. that trick with the assassin is stretching the rules somewhat. If you tried that one against me, I'd probably smash your models.

Tim moaning about an abuse of the rules! i never though i would see the day! sounds interesting though mate! and i do like the new cold one models and i have even itched my fingers about them too! i've not even read the book! maybe one day though! still not convinced and i have way to much to do all ready! but if you want to try a game against a magic heavy army then i'll give you a game sometime and i dont mind if you proxy, so you can try different units and combos

I'll take you up on that game offer Ali. Can't next week but anytime after that is ok.

I played against a High Elf army containing Teclis and a lvl 2 mage today, and although my army took a bit of a magical battering (he vaul's unmaking'ed my ring of hotek first turn, doh!) I managed to kill the hated foe. Teclis died by the hand of my dreadlord and the other mage was wiped out along with his unit against my black guard. My reaper bolt throwers and crossbows took their toll, more than making up for my lack of magical attacks. End result: massacre to me.

Need to playtest against more armies though, as high elves and dark elves are notorious for knocking lumps out of each other. The log continues...