I mean really there's just so much to do with them. You've got your basic sniping cards with some new tricks like dark elf raiders and the new hero. You've got this awesome borrow a unit and sacrifice gag going on. You now have this card control setup with shades, harpies, the new chick hero, the caught the sent card, mortella the new hero, and Har Ganeth. We've also got a lot of good resilent units now. And lastly we seem to have serious short gain resource boosts with hate and lash the prisoner. Oh and lets not forget that now with the repeat bolt thrower you all ways have something to do with those last two focus before your turn starts.

But what do you try to go with here? I'm used to playing against the old Ork/Skaven rush, resilent dwarves, and the tricky empire. I'm noramally a chaos player but I've wanted to do dark elves and now that I have them... I just feel like I'm not abusing the sacrifice and card control concepts right.

I've got three starter boxes of this and at least three of every card in the game. Just too many choices right now. Someone has to have some ideas out there and this forum has been deathly quiet on the topic.

I've been toying around with card control and sacrifice with some limited sniping and the bolt thrower but it seems like I'm trying to do too mcuh and the deck is too large and too slow at 60 cards.

I think the problem is there are so many choices, but not enough cards to go one route. All of the options you gave are valid, but not in just one deck. Indirect Damage, Sniping, Corrupting, and massive onslaught are all ways the DE can go, but each one requires a different build. If you are looking to build a deck to play with friends, then I would focus DE on one route and the Chaos on another.

As for comments on the forum, everyone is quiet because the regionals are coming up and no one wants to give out any of their secrets. I have no clue how these forums will be after the tournaments but I am hoping there will be much more buzz when this is all over.

Harliquine said:

When the expansion will be available over here, I'll go the "bolt thrower" road, with many sniping effects to leave no choice to my opponent but to assign those indirect damages to his Capital.

The way i see it there are SIX main areas that DE focus on:

- HP drain (sniping -HP)

- Development (in BZ, Lokhir crosses over to both)

- Corruption (corrupting & taking advantage of)

- Damage Sniping

- Denial (through discarding, stealing cards)

- Sacrifice (benefits from)

The 3 DE Heroes are kind of disappointing to me (when compared to HE heroes' synergies). DE units tend to be more defensive in nature, IMO. Chaos has its hand in ALL of the above areas (mostly in damage sniping) so I think you'd want to consider those as additions to round out your theme. Damage sniping & Denial seem to have the most cards available.

So I've made a DE Denial deck (defensive): mostly DE with Slaanesh's Domination, may or may not include the Journey to the Gate quest and also has some HP drain in it with good defensive units to last long enough to win with Infiltrate! quest. along with the HP drain, stealing units and sacrificing to Lash the Prisoner or Brutal Offering after they defend & deal damage is always a fun way to keep opp. units in check. this deck has beat Skaven rush about 60% so far, mainly thanks to Grasping Darkness + sacrifice on their low-cost units, Shades + Gutter Runners + Caught the Scent early on and Infiltrate! early on - which is now amazingly easy to do even if you only have 2 like me with mapquests & Dark Visions. Mortella is tempting, and somewhat useful, but really only shines vs. an order deck. And of course she's counter-productive to Infiltrate! so you have to use sparingly. Lokhir as well - sounds good, but in use, he's a higher powered (I feel he'd be fine with 1 power) Deathmaster (& higher cost!) - the big drawback is from the other cards in play that the two get their power from - other Skaven supplying power to DM actually do stuff while the developments for Lokhir just are idle adding HP ... and given the options of Cold One Chariot, Dark Initiate, Savage Gors, Burn it Down, it currently falls flat i think. It also tears Jumping Jacks apart if you can get your discrds out quick enough. Ive had most trouble with Orcs.

Also a Chaos Damage deck (offensive) - the obvious bloodsworn/cloud flies/blood frenzy + meledictor of tzeentch, flames of tzeentch, tzeentch's firestorm, boar attack. DE cards that help here are the Reaper & Altar of Khaine, the latter especially good youre going to be using pestilence and/or Khaine's Wrath and get's you your Maledictors back to use over & over again. So plenty of damage to units + Blood Frenzy & Night Raids for units in KZ will eventually give you lots of resources for the Reaper and at that time there shouldn't be many units left to take the damage (is the thought at least!)

Corruption is the other joint effort option, but you'd want an offensive deck to take advantage of that i think, a rush type being the best. I still feel that is best served by skaven still however.

Some excellent points in here (about people keeping their builds and ideas to themselves due to Regionals coming up) and I, also, feel a lot like the OP here. Too many choices almost at this point!

My main question (for anyone to try and answer) is why shouldn't I just go Orc or Orc/Skaven rush? I'm afraid that most people are just going to revert to their best chance to win versus trying out a cool unexpected deck. If that's the case, I'm kind of stuck - if I don't run the deck most likely to win I'm going to be at a disadvantage but yet I hate the idea of taking the easy, expected way out, also.

Ugh. Maybe Warpstone Chronicles will push me one way or the other. LOL

I think the only theme that really allows DE to fill out a deck by themselves is HP drain. There are plenty of interesting ways to pair them up with Chaos, but all things being equal, HP drain combos with more HP drain better than with directed damage simply because you don't want to risk damage cancellation coming into play.

As far as how they fit into the meta, Har Ganeth and Take Captive! are such monster cards against Skaven and Orcs that I would definitely feel good about playing DE in a rush-heavy environment. Skaven can sometimes get around Take Captive! if they sniff it out (Clan Rats, Clan Moulder's Elite, and Wolves of the North all help) but they get hit even harder by Har Ganeth and HP drain. Shades and Mortella can hurt them pretty bad, too.

Here's my pre-Warpstone mono-DE:

Units: 20
2 Walking Sacrifice (0-D)
3 Vile Sorceress (2-DD)
3 Shades (2-D)
1 Cold One Chariot (3-D)
3 Corsairs of Ghrond (3-D)
2 Mortella (3-DDD)
3 Cold One Rider (4-D)
1 War Hydra (5-DD)
2 Lokhir Felhart (5-DDDDD)

Support: 12
3 Warpstone Excavation (0)
3 Contested village (1)
3 Har Ganeth (2-D)
3 Altar of Khaine (4-DD)

Tactics: 16
3 Hate (0-D)
1 Ancient Map (1)
3 Chillwind (1-D)
3 Dark Visions (1-DD)
3 We Need Your Blood (1-D)
3 Take Captive! (3-DDD)

Quests: 2
1 Prepare for War! (0)
1 Night Raids (2-DD)

It's unfortunate that Lokhir more or less means you can't play Innovation, since it would be ideal for financing Take Captive! Could try switching in Malus for Lokhir, but I don't know that I like that either.

How would you tackle a sniping/Hp drain deck that combines DE backed up by Chaos?

I'd probably be tempted to focus on a coruption or sacrifice theme with DE/Chaos, but you could certainly make anything work. Most of the Chaos directed damage options are multiple-icon cards (the Tzeentch cycle: Flames of Tzeentch, Tzeentch's Firestorm, Chozen of Tzeentch, Maledictor of Tzeentch). You do have Cloud of Flies and Brutal Offering that are easily splashable. If you started from a Chaos board you could play more Chaos damage stuff while still having a number of DE splashables available. At least: Call the Blood (1-DD), Har Ganeth (2-D), Shades (2-D), Corsairs of Ghrond (3-D), and Cold One Rider (4-D).

Dark Elf have suffers from the same "illness" of Caos itself...Lots of choices, no consistancy...Will need sometime...

Anyway, I see a couple of strong builds...

The following deck won a recent tournament (there's a recent thread of mine about the tournament, you'll find the list there too)...

It's not MY deck, it's from a coupl of guy that "net-worked" together to build it up and it seems pretty reliable and solid.

Here's the list:

UNITS

3x Lobber Crew

3x Shades

3x Cold One Rider

3x Cold One Knight

3x Vile Sorceress

3x Corsairs of Ghrond

2x Mortella

2x Lokhir Blackheart

SUPPORTS

3x Har Ganeth

3x Mind Killer

2x Cloud of Flies

3x Warpstone Excavation

2x Contested Village

QUESTS

3x Sack Tor Aendris

TACTICS

3x We Need Your Blood

3x Chillwind

3x Pillage

2x Dark Visions

3x Invoke the Khaine's Wrath

SIDE:

3x Burn it down
3x Brutal Offering
3x Call The blood
3x Word of Pain

More details on the "tournament" thread...

A little hint: it's a basic control deck, heavy on tactics, which relies a lot on QZ for Tor Aedris and extra resources.

Mortella is a cornerstone, as well as the "classic" HP reduction.

I didn't see Lokhir a lot during games, but when it comes, it's heavy.

Easy when you play 6 We need your blood

Shindulus said:

I did a mess while translating...The list was not in the right order and I misread a bunch of cards...I'll edti the list...

3 Death master Sniktch
3 Thanquol
3 Clan rats
3 Rats ogres
3 Poison wind globardiers
3 Clan mulder elite
18
3 Chittering Horde
21
3 Chillwind
3 We need your blood
2 Invoke khain's wrath
2 Call the blood OR Mob up (No sure yet wich one to use)
3 Mind killer
2 Dark vision
15
3 Lobber crew
3 Cold one knight
3 Vile sorceress
9
3 Har Ganeth
3 Contested Village
6
51

Control Deck using:

Deathmaster + Chillwind + Rat Ogre
Har Ganeth + Vile sorceress + We need your blood
Poison wing globardier + Call the blood
Strength :

Good draw system Chittering Horde + Dark Vision
Many ways to control
Weakness:

A lot of 1 HP units
unique based synergie
need a moment to set off the kills
Dont found a slot for Warpstones excavations
Comment , idea and meta discussion welcom