Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Dark Elves.

Why Play Dark Elves

• Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
• Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
• Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
• You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
• Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

Pros

• AP for Days: If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
• Mobility: You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but with a ton of good light cav and infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
• Powerful Lords: When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
• Decent Defenses: You're no tank faction, but with a lot of your elites having high melee defense, leadership and armor along with the debuffs they can bring to the table, they can hold out for a decently long time.
• Flexibility: Thanks to Murderous Prowess, you can play offense unlike a lot of factions can. You can also play Defense, kite, heavy monster focus and all around can use whatever tactic you can think of with these guys.
• Strong Economy: Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of Slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces Slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
• Naval Supremacy: An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.
• DLC isn't as important: You still have some good units in your DLCs, but out of all the core races you are probably the least reliant on them. You can run base game Dark Elves and win pretty consistently.

Cons

• Limited Range: Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact Darkshards are extremely good for their cost, but they don't shoot very far. Even some gunpowder units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
• Unreliable Heavy Cav: The Stupidity of Cold Ones Knights in this game got translated to Rampage, meaning if they take too much damage, you lose control and they charge forward to probably die if you're facing a smart opponent. Similar to the Lizardmen, but unlike them, you don't have a way to make them stop. Even Malus, who specializes in Cold Ones and had a rule that allowed them to ignore stupidity, can't get rid of rampage.
• Lack of Healing: You're the only Elven faction with no multi target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with you low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
• Expensive: Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
• Poor Public Order: Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
• No Encampments: If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.

Universal Traits

• Murderous Prowess : A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and statisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90.
• Slaves : You get slaves by raiding, winning battles and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to be worked to death doing the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
• Black Arks :

Lords

Legendary Lords

• Malekith: Warhammers rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
• Morathi : Morathi is a very weird animal (no pun intended). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other caster lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis.
• Hellebron (DLC) : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armoured like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat against, preferably lightly armoured chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
• Lokhir Fellheart (FLC) :
• Malus Darkblade (DLC) :

Generic Lords

• Dread Lord (Melee) :
• Dread Lord (Ranged) :
• Supreme Sorceress (DLC) :
• High Beastmaster (DLC) :

Heroes

• Death Hag :
• Sorceress :
• Khainite Assassin :
• Master (DLC) :

Units

Infantry

• Dreadspears : Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman perform better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long.
  • The Hellebronai (RoR) : Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
• Bleakswords : The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears, just as basic, just as mediocre. Their only redeeming feature is their large shield. They have more damage potential in theory but this more or less comes down to what they are facing; they will hold up well against Goblins and Empire State Troops, but basically anyone can hold up well against these units. As with Dreadspears: Okay for the early game, drop them the moment something better becomes available, like...
• Black Ark Corsairs : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as dwarf warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price make sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage.
• Witch Elves : Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensate for this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. They are best compared with Savage Orks, which fill a similar niche but unlike Witch Elves, have the HP to back it up. Their difficult accessability in combination with their frailty make them pretty much inferior to Sisters of Slaughter, who have the same offensive output but can actually take a hit.
  • Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR) :
• Sisters of Slaughter (DLC) : They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Strangely. Their extremely high melee defence, among the best a single unit has, and their missile resistance of 20% make them surprisingly tough to crack, desite being able to easily dispatch many kinds of troops. Their only weakness is the lack of a bonus against large, monsters and heavy cavalry are their nemeses.
• Executioners : The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that.
  • Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR) :
• Black Guard : Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. They work the best in tandem with Executioners.

Missile Infantry

• Darkshards : Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the early game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them pretty useful, especially when focus firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in a arrow exchange.
  • The Bolt-Fiends (ROR) :
• Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows) : A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility.
• Shades : Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. High rate of Fire, high damage output and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. These should be your main gun line once you get access to them, they shred everything.

Cavalry

• Dark Riders : Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missle cavalry.
• Dark Riders (Crossbows) :
  • The Raven Heralds (ROR) : Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield.
• Doomfire Warlocks (DLC) : Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee, they perform just the same as Dark Riders do, hit hard, get magical damage but are extremely frail. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells.
  • Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR) :
• Cold One Knights : A massive disappointment. They are outclassed by any other medium cavalry they are supposed to be fighting against, really slow for a cavalry unit, have rampage and share the frailty of all Dark Elves units. Don't bother with them.
• Cold One Dread Knights : The same problems with the basic Cold One Knights are even worse here, since they are exceedingly expensive and hard to get. Dread Knights actually rank among the worst units in the game.
  • Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR) : Whats this? Cold One Knights that don't spaz out.

Chariots

• Cold One Chariot :
• Scourgerunner Chariot :
  • The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR) :

Artillery

• Reaper Bolt Thrower : Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for best artillery piece. Alright it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater they posses two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.

Monsters

• Harpies : Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies.
  • The Crows of Khaine (ROR) : Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
• Feral Manticore : Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against strength. They are very susecptible to Rampage, so take care of them.
• War Hydra : Lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and armoured units.
  • The Chill of Sontar (ROR) :
• Kharibdyss (DLC) : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, with poisoned attacks and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured enemies, but holds up even worse against enemy monsters.
• Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC) : Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly.
  • The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR) :
• Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC) : A medusa with a Go Cart.
• Black Dragon : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Occupies a niche between Sun and Star Dragons in terms of killyness, but retains a devastating breath attack, huge mass and good mobility. As is tradition, compared with other dragons, quite frail when caught on the wrong foot.