Indeed, Dark Elves are very strong. They fit perfectly to the WH3 meta, especially after their instabuild mechanic for slaves was introduced. Solid economy, growth and units, you expand fast and with many battles you have influx of slaves which allow you to build up even faster.
People bitched about the slave rework but it's so much more inituive now. I love that you can sacrifice filthy slaves quickly raise a garrison building when conquering a new frontier. Thematic and proper! Or edicts for growth or just cash!
Yeah, the slave system feels better now. It was abusable in WH2 but you had to jump through all these hero hoops and designate a single province to have all the slaves and it just FELT kind of dumb. Powerful but dumb. Now its much more interactive. I'm spending my slave currency all the time in WH3 to address so many different things. Do i need a cash injection? Do I need to boost public order? The city I just captured has an enemy lord coming to recapture it, ok upgrade it and build walls in a single turn. It may not be the same cash cow but it certainly FEELS better now.
I mean slave economy in tww2 was easier to manage, because you just needed to get slaves after every battle and place some assassins in your best province (eg Quintex) and you made millions per turn, but now I think it's better, because it requires you to do some decision making in the early game by making you think whether you can afford the next building, that uses slaves and I think instabuilds and dictats are a huge help not only to the economy, but also stabilizing cities with garrisons and public order, because contrary to what was in tww2, now you can manage yourself the level of slaves by just using it in provinces, while then you had to cope with constant public order problems when you had too many slaves. Also with the melee buffs I can finally make a decent corsair army with Lokhir instead of just using shades and darkshards for everything
Playing lokhir in twwh2 (i dont have 3... Money has other priorities in the meanwhile) slaves are easilly manageable. focus them in one or 2 provinces with a port, put a black arc there full of tier1 units (like, i play on normal....corsairs are what, 15 unkeep with all the unkeep reduction from buildings and blue skills?) and later put put a lord with 3 (2 after you confederate with malekith) masters to alt slave decline and full khanite assassin for slave income. Yvresse and the broken lands (the province either lokhir or rakarth get) are great slave dumps, but only after they get to tier 5. Till then i alt the slave dispatch
@@AzoiatheCobra sure, but then you have to manage order in that one province (tho it has been a while since I played and I mostly played Morathi with then annoying corruption mechanic, so I'm not sure). I still prefer 3 in every way except Malekith's and Hellebrond's starting positions, because of new strong neighbours that hate you. Lokhir has more port-heavy starting location, Rakarth has more thematic Lustria, Malus starts next to other Dark Elves and Morathi has her corruption, that has no downsides when absent and gives slaves and positive public order. The whole slave mechanic is imo better too, because what's the point of having millions, if you aren't able to spend it? So in 3 rushing constructions and boosting growth is a must. Also it makes your slave level stable because of port generating them, so you're not a colossus on clay legs, which will crumble the moment it doesn't have anyone to raid
He's my favorite! I have turned my group of friends against me and DE in general after our first multiplayer Immortal Empires game. We played a 5 player game and Lokhir and his Black Arks have been deemed "broken". My favorite thing to do with Lokhir is to stack all the sacking bonuses and see how much money I can make in a single turn.
I do like the idea of the new slave system, and the fact that it's a global resource, but I think it's missing a couple of things. First, a way to disable slave consumption in a province. A toggable like the taxes. Secondly, a way to generate slaves. Maybe instead of a toggable province wide slave consumption button, we could have enslaving camps, be it similar to ogre camps, or different settlement type like labour camps for the chords, or simply buildings producing slaves. Plus ports should make many slaves, that would give a higher priority to coastal settlements. It could also be interesting to have a way to buy slaves. I like that many evil factions run on a deficit that forces them to be aggressive, but I also like to have the option to play a stable campaign.
The thing I never really figured out about the Dark Elves wasn't their campaign mechanics, it was how to build an army with their roster. They've got really good missile units, but most of their infantry are damage dealers and won't hold for very long that can't take any sort of ranged fire, so against any sort of challenging army my missile units wind up running for their life instead of shooting. They also don't have good long range artillery so they have to move up, which is bad if you're doing a missile centric strategy. Shades are good hybrids but the problem with hybrids is that they're not great at anything, plus I just generally don't know how to use hybrid units effectively. They've got some cool monsters but they seem to get shot easily like most monsters, except dark elves seem to lack the disruptive tools that other monster factions have. Their cavalry is mediocre and pretty slow, except for their missile cav but their missile cav can't fire while moving so they just wind up running for their life against other cav, and they get outranged by missile factions like dwarves, high elves, etc. It just seems like a really disjointed smattering of units that don't work well together. I'd love to hear someone explain a good army composition during early, mid, and late game and how to actually use them.
Yeah all this and just not feeling super interesting compared to other factions. Same with high elves but I feel like they have a little more going for them
for me I just play them to hit hard and hit fast. They are a very much "win more" faction in combat where if you can really punch an enemy army in the gut quickly you trigger murderous prowess and crush them even harder. also people shit on harpies but I just use them as zombies basically and sacrifice them to shut down range units until the corsairs get into melee. because of corsair stat lines they dont really lose to any other infantry in melee at their tier that you would be fighting, plus they have a lot of armor so high elf archers cant really damage them and rangers will lose too im melee. if you are trying to play them defensive with a line of spears and archers its not gonna work too well since they wanna hit hard and fast. also with shades just flank with 2 units, focus fire one enemy and they will implode. Plus with marital names of power and tech shades can get the range of like jezzails lol
Shades are excellent hybrids, just expensive and they're "only" very powerful vs true doomstack. You can win a campaign with just basic Shades (and that's what I did until they allowed the better variants to be one turn recruitment again) very reasonably. You can also be super aggressive with Shades given their vanguard deployment and stalk -- hit hard and fast and overwhelm. Going through your other comments (and this is all based on my experience playing L/VH): 1. If your missile units are running for their life then turn Skirmish mode off, it's horrible and should basically never be used. Even basic Darkshards have 22 defense with the red line buffs at rank one -- they're not going to win a melee vs vs reasonable infantry but they can hold for a bit vs things like Skavenslaves/Goblins and buy time vs other infantry. A key thing is lines of missiles and/or checkerboard formation. The front ones are getting meleed but the ones in back keep shooting. 2. Dreadspears and Black Guard are Naggarond are your holding infantry. 3. Reaper Bolt Throwers are actually not bad but the new siege layouts makes them difficult to use. My standard army in WH2 was like 14 shades and 3 Reaper Bolts but these days I generally don't bother with artillery. They're not bad in field battles, though, and in particular having 2-4 in an army makes it a lot easier to take on High Elven Archers who otherwise outrange your Darkshards/Shades. 4. Hydras can tank a lot and are very hardy. 5. Dark Elf Cav is a bit mediocre and the Cold Ones are a bit slow. They're not BAD (I'd say only Dark Riders are really useful) but the Dark Elves tend to have better options. That said, a full stack of Cold One Dread Knights is actually very powerful and very resistant to ambushes. Army Composition... 1. Early game works fine with like one Lord (I prefer Female Dreadlord), one Death Hag (for Replenishment), one Sorceress (usually Fire but most of their lores are at least decent), 8 Dreadspears, and 9 Darkshards (ideally with shields). If you don't have hero capacity yet replace Death Hag with another Dreadspear and Sorceress with another Darkshard. Basic hold down enemies and drop the hammer on them with Darkshards. Really only vulnerable to enemies with significant longer range units, so in that case consider mixing in some Reaper Bolts to clear out their archers. Can also try to just go Shades from like turn 5ish or whatever (exact turn number depends on starting Lord, can be as early as turn 1 for some Lords) but keep in mind you're basically putting most of your eggs in one basket (nothing can withstand 20 Shades early on but you can't cover multiple fronts easily). 2. Mid-game can still go with Dreadspears/Darkshards for just spamming out armies and moving 3-4 in concert to dangerous enemy locales. I think most people shift to Shades (Greatswords) here because they're just a solid all around unit with few weaknesses and a lot of potential buffs. They just cost nearly 300 gold each baseline (so expensive but not 450-600 end game monster expensive). 3. Late game there's still absolutely nothing wrong with Shades (Greatswords) still. They're never obsolete, you just might need 2 armies to cracker tougher areas. That's typically what I do because they can be recruited easily in one turn from t3 settlements and Black Arks to get replacements as needed (or new armies). Can also make stacks of Cold One Dread Knights, War Hydras, and/or Black Dragons depending on personal preference. If you want an elite more traditional army can go something like Black Guard of Naggarond for a frontline, some Darkshards (Shields) or Shades to support the back, some Reaper Bolt Throwers to hit enemy archers or approaching enemies, and then toss in some Cold One Dread Knights if you want normal cav or War Hydras/Black Dragons/Kharybdi for monsters (just remember Kharybi are dedicated anti large monster killers and not generalists). Also feel free to throw in Har Ganeth Executioners for any infantry if you think you need it. TL;DR: only Dark Riders are truly bad, even the Manticore with its stupid Rampage can do a number on the enemy in the right circumstances. ...and even Dark Riders are pretty good at cleaning up routing enemies for a low price.
You don't need to hold the line with a shade stack. Ever. You can kite any infantry to death and kill any ranged via stalk + surround forward deployment. The only potential issues are fast monsters and cavalry. But AI doesn't do pure cav stacks, and if not too many are present, you simply focus fire them. Scourgerunner chariots can be used to soften cavalry before main engagement too, unless enemy has exceptionally fast cavalry.
If you're looking to hold the line, use Master heroes. Depending on mount option they can be very tanky. Since you get +1 every time you unlock at only tier 2 them you can easily have enough capacity to support your armies. Heroes as a front line has the benefits of making enemy ranged units struggle to get hits and it allows you to load each and every one of them with magic items for powerful battlefield effects. Ranking them all up so frequently is tedious, but their efficacy for the task cannot be strongly disputed. Another advantage of doing this is when your army is caught in a position where it may get wiped out (run out of movement, walked in blind to an area and found strong enemy forces), you can simply disperse all of your heroes from the army, disband it and reconvene and recompose in a safer location. To increase your sturdiness in battle you should build your armies around getting into the fight as quickly as possible. Use ambushes a lot. Stack Cunning characters. This strategy gives your opposition little time to fire any missiles or get any magic off. If you can do that, your damage taken will be low. Masters once given mounts get into battle to tie up the enemy very quickly. If the enemy is allowed to fire multiple volleys of missiles, you're doing it wrong. Speed is your biggest asset. Don't sleep on Beast (Pann's Pelt) or Shadows (passive grants mapwide speed) magic which can help you get into a fight more quickly. Early on you won't have a lot of Masters and probably won't have a sorceress so use Dark Riders to distract and cause problems for enemy ranged units while your slowcoach army gets into position. Witch Elves are also decently quick to the fight and reduce enemy ability to run away by 20%.
Legend always moans about DE. I tried them for the first time recently, rakarth no less because I like his monster mechanic, and the slave mechanic is so powerful. I'm on turn 90 and Im gaining so many slaves passively let alone from battles but there's always something to spend them on to negate the negative public order. Then there are shades and hydra which are so powerful and rakarth is rocking a black dragon doomstack (gained from fighting high elves), scourge runner chariots are also really effective. I was pissed about the lack of global recruitment at first but once I understood black arks I realised how much better that system can be... Providing you're near the sea.
Strongest economy are still the high elves at least late game. As soon as they can recruit lords at rank 10 they can increase their income through industry by 1% per lord. So you can jusr recruit lords give them the skill. (It's the Vaul one) and make additional money. The only limit is the amount of lords you can recruit per turn.
Different style. I feel like the DE can get their economy up faster than the HE and snowball to a larger empire then they can more quickly, but they are very much focused around sacking and raiding constantly and spending their slaves, so a loss of battle that results in losing a cash generating army makes them more volatile. On top of that if you do run out of slaves, your overall economy goes down significantly. Basically, DE are day traders and HE are blue chip investment folk. Sure most of the time its a safe bet to run the long investment, but you're only going to be rich when you retire. Dark Elves are looking to get that FU money in their 20s.
Links aren't allowed in comments on TH-cam but let me list my Military/Defensive allies on turn 88 on my last Legendary/Very Hard Malekith campaign: Repanse de Lyonesse, Durthu, Thorek Ironbrow, Belegar Ironhammer, Ungrim Ironfist, Tictactoe (I know it's the wrong spelling), Imrik, Teclis, Miao Ying, Zhao Ming, Zlatlan (minor Lizardman faction), Karl Franz. So for those counting that's Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, High Elves, Cathay, and The Empire all in my grand alliance. Praise be to envoys.
Does anyone know how to get Medusa and supreme sorceresses? Because I made every builing for my Morathi campaign - Immortal Empires - Warhammer 3 and I cannot get them. Also the Medusa aren't even mentioned in any research or army buffs. Almost like they aren't recruitable?
Wh3 slave mechanic and uses for slaves far superior to wh2 slave mechanic imo, also able to generate slaves with ports makes the donut that much more better to conquer
Here's the thing though, Dark elves econ is still weaker than high elf econ. And less stable. Overall their empire building is built on aggressive playstyles, but unlike other factions, they're also not as easy to be aggressive with imo.
Reddit opinions are wrong because reddit circle jerk is strong. A bunch of a-holes enforcing an opinion that might not be relevant now or probably ever. Dissent is not allowed, it's a form of "if it's on the internet it's true" and internet hive mind.
Is not just reddit, campaign content creators like Legendsoftotalwar rank them way lower, not even a single faction is ranked avobe average on his tier list , and he is a way better player than costin
@@chelo136 Idk what to say, if you don't see the dark elf power, what can I say but your opinion is based on a disillusioned perception. Not the most powerful but in this list he said he cared about early game power and fun replayability. I am not saying LoTW is bad, he isn't but there are many very bad channels like the Colonel Demander that guy is an idiot and he plays all the time too.
Not true, black arks can generate slaves passively, I'm gaining 400 slaves passively on my current campaign and that's not even trying to get the max passive gain I can get (because I don't need it) though it's always best to be aggressive with any faction in this game.
@@studmuffin1217 black arks have like half the upkeep and don't increase your supply lines either so handy for taking or sacking enemy port cities. Plus the battle abilities they give to themselves and other armies not to mention being able to recruit new units right on your frontline. It's strong stuff.
The economy is very strong, especially once the midgame starts. The major issue are really their endgame units, they are a bit lackluster. Shades do not cut it in the endgame (especially in auto resolve). You most likely run around with monster stacks and maybe some Black Guard of Naggarond/Har Ganeth Executioners. But since you have such a powerful economy, you can just overwhelm even the cheating AI with armies of lower quality units. I like them very much overall. Far better than before the update. They were massive trash before. The slave mechanic was massive trash, its much better now.
Er I won a Domination Victory (272 settlements conquered) on turn 88 as Malekith on Legendary campaign/Very Hard battle. I used Darkshards/Dreadspears to start and then basically exclusively Shade (Greatswords) stacks for the rest of the campaign. And Shades are amazing in autoresolve.
Dark Elves are S tier i agree but i hate that CA stole WH2 Dark elves mechanic to give it to the chaos dwarfs and then given back a discount mechanic with global penalties. Thats why people hated the change.
I just want to say that I like your videos but I always wandered why are them so bright, like your gamma is so much higher than in my game or on other people's?
The DE are probably in a better position in 3 then they were in 2, and the slave mechanic is more intuitive; but they are still not a strong faction in 3. With the growth and build bonuses; they are still tons slower growing tall then Skaven. Their ranged units are good, but their artillery is frankly terrible. Their economy is better; but HE is stonger and far more stable and that isn't getting into HE, Skaven, or Brit economy. The Black Ark mechanic is very interesting and fun, but their roster really is just sort of lacking and the actual battle mechanics with them just comes across as....well, boring...they aren't alone in that though. HE suffer this for the same reason DE do, and Ku'Gath has this flaw for a completely different reason. Ontop of this, they have the same...or arguably worse then.....loyalty mechanic for their non LL lords that Skaven have. Dark Elves have a few decent mechanics in several different areas that combined make them about the bare minimum of what is acceptable as playable for a player faction....but they aren't a faction that I've ever really been excited to play like some of the others. They aren't as bad as some factions, but they aren't great nor are they a race I'd list as particularly strong. They're probably a better baseline faction then the Empire though, and they are a better and funner faction then some other factions. But the strongest and best races in WH? Not really no.
DE problems stem from poor theming, bad tabletop adaptations (like dark riders, cold ones etc.) and ugly visuals, gameplay wise they are alright i guess but can never come close to the awesomeness of for example sisters of avelorn just insta winning ur campaign :( If u wanna know what in my opinion is terribly wrong with the dark elf roster go watch legend of total war's unit ranking vid about it
Have you played Morathi? It's literally the easiest campaign in the game imo. sell rat settlements to mazdamundi for a bff and lots of cash, take out hag, then SAIL AWAY to ulthuan. Literally a steamroll campaign now that you can get shades on turn 2. I like sisters of averlorn fine, they just cant compare to morathi.
@@runeh3022 Have u played them before the patch? You could gain infinite gold pre- patch with slaves using stacking. That was nerfed until it is no longer possible.
@@lamjianhua2884 I did yes, but if you need that exploit to have them be playable, I have to question your skills in the game to some extent tbh. I never used it as there was no need and the DE's have always been a favorite race of mine to play. Infinite gold = godmode essentially, and that's not even remotely fun if you actually enjoy a challenge.
You really should play them after the small slave rework. Far better than before. Hated them and now they are very good economy wise. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them at the moment bar the lackluster choice of endgame units.
Indeed, Dark Elves are very strong. They fit perfectly to the WH3 meta, especially after their instabuild mechanic for slaves was introduced. Solid economy, growth and units, you expand fast and with many battles you have influx of slaves which allow you to build up even faster.
The only issue is that after turn 40 you steamroll map like crazy. But this can be said about most of the factions in WH3…
People bitched about the slave rework but it's so much more inituive now. I love that you can sacrifice filthy slaves quickly raise a garrison building when conquering a new frontier. Thematic and proper! Or edicts for growth or just cash!
Yeah, the slave system feels better now. It was abusable in WH2 but you had to jump through all these hero hoops and designate a single province to have all the slaves and it just FELT kind of dumb. Powerful but dumb. Now its much more interactive. I'm spending my slave currency all the time in WH3 to address so many different things. Do i need a cash injection? Do I need to boost public order? The city I just captured has an enemy lord coming to recapture it, ok upgrade it and build walls in a single turn. It may not be the same cash cow but it certainly FEELS better now.
Supreme sorceresses can get black dragons as well
I mean slave economy in tww2 was easier to manage, because you just needed to get slaves after every battle and place some assassins in your best province (eg Quintex) and you made millions per turn, but now I think it's better, because it requires you to do some decision making in the early game by making you think whether you can afford the next building, that uses slaves and I think instabuilds and dictats are a huge help not only to the economy, but also stabilizing cities with garrisons and public order, because contrary to what was in tww2, now you can manage yourself the level of slaves by just using it in provinces, while then you had to cope with constant public order problems when you had too many slaves. Also with the melee buffs I can finally make a decent corsair army with Lokhir instead of just using shades and darkshards for everything
agreed. wh3 dark elves since chaos dwarfs launch are easily their best iteration.
Playing lokhir in twwh2 (i dont have 3... Money has other priorities in the meanwhile) slaves are easilly manageable. focus them in one or 2 provinces with a port, put a black arc there full of tier1 units (like, i play on normal....corsairs are what, 15 unkeep with all the unkeep reduction from buildings and blue skills?) and later put put a lord with 3 (2 after you confederate with malekith) masters to alt slave decline and full khanite assassin for slave income. Yvresse and the broken lands (the province either lokhir or rakarth get) are great slave dumps, but only after they get to tier 5. Till then i alt the slave dispatch
@@AzoiatheCobra sure, but then you have to manage order in that one province (tho it has been a while since I played and I mostly played Morathi with then annoying corruption mechanic, so I'm not sure). I still prefer 3 in every way except Malekith's and Hellebrond's starting positions, because of new strong neighbours that hate you. Lokhir has more port-heavy starting location, Rakarth has more thematic Lustria, Malus starts next to other Dark Elves and Morathi has her corruption, that has no downsides when absent and gives slaves and positive public order. The whole slave mechanic is imo better too, because what's the point of having millions, if you aren't able to spend it? So in 3 rushing constructions and boosting growth is a must. Also it makes your slave level stable because of port generating them, so you're not a colossus on clay legs, which will crumble the moment it doesn't have anyone to raid
@@AzoiatheCobra and in 2 I always remembered dumping most slaves in Eataine, because of the Lothern gates and it being 4 province region
I just started camping as the kraken Lord. He's so fun!
He's my favorite! I have turned my group of friends against me and DE in general after our first multiplayer Immortal Empires game. We played a 5 player game and Lokhir and his Black Arks have been deemed "broken". My favorite thing to do with Lokhir is to stack all the sacking bonuses and see how much money I can make in a single turn.
I do like the idea of the new slave system, and the fact that it's a global resource, but I think it's missing a couple of things.
First, a way to disable slave consumption in a province. A toggable like the taxes.
Secondly, a way to generate slaves. Maybe instead of a toggable province wide slave consumption button, we could have enslaving camps, be it similar to ogre camps, or different settlement type like labour camps for the chords, or simply buildings producing slaves. Plus ports should make many slaves, that would give a higher priority to coastal settlements.
It could also be interesting to have a way to buy slaves.
I like that many evil factions run on a deficit that forces them to be aggressive, but I also like to have the option to play a stable campaign.
But harbours generate slaves, don't they?
So you can passively generate slaves by focusing on coastal conquest.
Harbors, Black Arks, and Khainite Assassins all generate slaves.
Raiding is actually the best way to generate slaves. I've parked a lord in a province that gave me 600 slaves per turn. We weren't even at war.
The thing I never really figured out about the Dark Elves wasn't their campaign mechanics, it was how to build an army with their roster. They've got really good missile units, but most of their infantry are damage dealers and won't hold for very long that can't take any sort of ranged fire, so against any sort of challenging army my missile units wind up running for their life instead of shooting. They also don't have good long range artillery so they have to move up, which is bad if you're doing a missile centric strategy. Shades are good hybrids but the problem with hybrids is that they're not great at anything, plus I just generally don't know how to use hybrid units effectively. They've got some cool monsters but they seem to get shot easily like most monsters, except dark elves seem to lack the disruptive tools that other monster factions have. Their cavalry is mediocre and pretty slow, except for their missile cav but their missile cav can't fire while moving so they just wind up running for their life against other cav, and they get outranged by missile factions like dwarves, high elves, etc. It just seems like a really disjointed smattering of units that don't work well together. I'd love to hear someone explain a good army composition during early, mid, and late game and how to actually use them.
Yeah all this and just not feeling super interesting compared to other factions. Same with high elves but I feel like they have a little more going for them
for me I just play them to hit hard and hit fast. They are a very much "win more" faction in combat where if you can really punch an enemy army in the gut quickly you trigger murderous prowess and crush them even harder. also people shit on harpies but I just use them as zombies basically and sacrifice them to shut down range units until the corsairs get into melee. because of corsair stat lines they dont really lose to any other infantry in melee at their tier that you would be fighting, plus they have a lot of armor so high elf archers cant really damage them and rangers will lose too im melee. if you are trying to play them defensive with a line of spears and archers its not gonna work too well since they wanna hit hard and fast. also with shades just flank with 2 units, focus fire one enemy and they will implode. Plus with marital names of power and tech shades can get the range of like jezzails lol
Shades are excellent hybrids, just expensive and they're "only" very powerful vs true doomstack. You can win a campaign with just basic Shades (and that's what I did until they allowed the better variants to be one turn recruitment again) very reasonably. You can also be super aggressive with Shades given their vanguard deployment and stalk -- hit hard and fast and overwhelm. Going through your other comments (and this is all based on my experience playing L/VH):
1. If your missile units are running for their life then turn Skirmish mode off, it's horrible and should basically never be used. Even basic Darkshards have 22 defense with the red line buffs at rank one -- they're not going to win a melee vs vs reasonable infantry but they can hold for a bit vs things like Skavenslaves/Goblins and buy time vs other infantry. A key thing is lines of missiles and/or checkerboard formation. The front ones are getting meleed but the ones in back keep shooting.
2. Dreadspears and Black Guard are Naggarond are your holding infantry.
3. Reaper Bolt Throwers are actually not bad but the new siege layouts makes them difficult to use. My standard army in WH2 was like 14 shades and 3 Reaper Bolts but these days I generally don't bother with artillery. They're not bad in field battles, though, and in particular having 2-4 in an army makes it a lot easier to take on High Elven Archers who otherwise outrange your Darkshards/Shades.
4. Hydras can tank a lot and are very hardy.
5. Dark Elf Cav is a bit mediocre and the Cold Ones are a bit slow. They're not BAD (I'd say only Dark Riders are really useful) but the Dark Elves tend to have better options. That said, a full stack of Cold One Dread Knights is actually very powerful and very resistant to ambushes.
Army Composition...
1. Early game works fine with like one Lord (I prefer Female Dreadlord), one Death Hag (for Replenishment), one Sorceress (usually Fire but most of their lores are at least decent), 8 Dreadspears, and 9 Darkshards (ideally with shields). If you don't have hero capacity yet replace Death Hag with another Dreadspear and Sorceress with another Darkshard. Basic hold down enemies and drop the hammer on them with Darkshards. Really only vulnerable to enemies with significant longer range units, so in that case consider mixing in some Reaper Bolts to clear out their archers. Can also try to just go Shades from like turn 5ish or whatever (exact turn number depends on starting Lord, can be as early as turn 1 for some Lords) but keep in mind you're basically putting most of your eggs in one basket (nothing can withstand 20 Shades early on but you can't cover multiple fronts easily).
2. Mid-game can still go with Dreadspears/Darkshards for just spamming out armies and moving 3-4 in concert to dangerous enemy locales. I think most people shift to Shades (Greatswords) here because they're just a solid all around unit with few weaknesses and a lot of potential buffs. They just cost nearly 300 gold each baseline (so expensive but not 450-600 end game monster expensive).
3. Late game there's still absolutely nothing wrong with Shades (Greatswords) still. They're never obsolete, you just might need 2 armies to cracker tougher areas. That's typically what I do because they can be recruited easily in one turn from t3 settlements and Black Arks to get replacements as needed (or new armies). Can also make stacks of Cold One Dread Knights, War Hydras, and/or Black Dragons depending on personal preference. If you want an elite more traditional army can go something like Black Guard of Naggarond for a frontline, some Darkshards (Shields) or Shades to support the back, some Reaper Bolt Throwers to hit enemy archers or approaching enemies, and then toss in some Cold One Dread Knights if you want normal cav or War Hydras/Black Dragons/Kharybdi for monsters (just remember Kharybi are dedicated anti large monster killers and not generalists). Also feel free to throw in Har Ganeth Executioners for any infantry if you think you need it.
TL;DR: only Dark Riders are truly bad, even the Manticore with its stupid Rampage can do a number on the enemy in the right circumstances.
...and even Dark Riders are pretty good at cleaning up routing enemies for a low price.
You don't need to hold the line with a shade stack. Ever. You can kite any infantry to death and kill any ranged via stalk + surround forward deployment. The only potential issues are fast monsters and cavalry. But AI doesn't do pure cav stacks, and if not too many are present, you simply focus fire them. Scourgerunner chariots can be used to soften cavalry before main engagement too, unless enemy has exceptionally fast cavalry.
If you're looking to hold the line, use Master heroes. Depending on mount option they can be very tanky. Since you get +1 every time you unlock at only tier 2 them you can easily have enough capacity to support your armies. Heroes as a front line has the benefits of making enemy ranged units struggle to get hits and it allows you to load each and every one of them with magic items for powerful battlefield effects. Ranking them all up so frequently is tedious, but their efficacy for the task cannot be strongly disputed. Another advantage of doing this is when your army is caught in a position where it may get wiped out (run out of movement, walked in blind to an area and found strong enemy forces), you can simply disperse all of your heroes from the army, disband it and reconvene and recompose in a safer location.
To increase your sturdiness in battle you should build your armies around getting into the fight as quickly as possible. Use ambushes a lot. Stack Cunning characters. This strategy gives your opposition little time to fire any missiles or get any magic off. If you can do that, your damage taken will be low. Masters once given mounts get into battle to tie up the enemy very quickly.
If the enemy is allowed to fire multiple volleys of missiles, you're doing it wrong.
Speed is your biggest asset. Don't sleep on Beast (Pann's Pelt) or Shadows (passive grants mapwide speed) magic which can help you get into a fight more quickly.
Early on you won't have a lot of Masters and probably won't have a sorceress so use Dark Riders to distract and cause problems for enemy ranged units while your slowcoach army gets into position. Witch Elves are also decently quick to the fight and reduce enemy ability to run away by 20%.
Legend always moans about DE. I tried them for the first time recently, rakarth no less because I like his monster mechanic, and the slave mechanic is so powerful. I'm on turn 90 and Im gaining so many slaves passively let alone from battles but there's always something to spend them on to negate the negative public order. Then there are shades and hydra which are so powerful and rakarth is rocking a black dragon doomstack (gained from fighting high elves), scourge runner chariots are also really effective. I was pissed about the lack of global recruitment at first but once I understood black arks I realised how much better that system can be... Providing you're near the sea.
Strongest economy are still the high elves at least late game. As soon as they can recruit lords at rank 10 they can increase their income through industry by 1% per lord. So you can jusr recruit lords give them the skill. (It's the Vaul one) and make additional money. The only limit is the amount of lords you can recruit per turn.
Different style. I feel like the DE can get their economy up faster than the HE and snowball to a larger empire then they can more quickly, but they are very much focused around sacking and raiding constantly and spending their slaves, so a loss of battle that results in losing a cash generating army makes them more volatile. On top of that if you do run out of slaves, your overall economy goes down significantly. Basically, DE are day traders and HE are blue chip investment folk. Sure most of the time its a safe bet to run the long investment, but you're only going to be rich when you retire. Dark Elves are looking to get that FU money in their 20s.
Who's the best Legendary Lord in your opinion guys, Malus?
Malus is a beast. Lokhir owns the campaign.
Links aren't allowed in comments on TH-cam but let me list my Military/Defensive allies on turn 88 on my last Legendary/Very Hard Malekith campaign:
Repanse de Lyonesse, Durthu, Thorek Ironbrow, Belegar Ironhammer, Ungrim Ironfist, Tictactoe (I know it's the wrong spelling), Imrik, Teclis, Miao Ying, Zhao Ming, Zlatlan (minor Lizardman faction), Karl Franz.
So for those counting that's Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, High Elves, Cathay, and The Empire all in my grand alliance.
Praise be to envoys.
Does anyone know how to get Medusa and supreme sorceresses? Because I made every builing for my Morathi campaign - Immortal Empires - Warhammer 3 and I cannot get them. Also the Medusa aren't even mentioned in any research or army buffs. Almost like they aren't recruitable?
You have to have the malus darkblade dlc, the shadow and the blade
I just miss Warhammer II Naggarond
Wh3 slave mechanic and uses for slaves far superior to wh2 slave mechanic imo, also able to generate slaves with ports makes the donut that much more better to conquer
Here's the thing though, Dark elves econ is still weaker than high elf econ. And less stable. Overall their empire building is built on aggressive playstyles, but unlike other factions, they're also not as easy to be aggressive with imo.
So why u placed them in low tier, but Empire is top?
Playing Malekith now, i am not a good player and I feel like I am just mucking about yet at turn 41 I have an income of 8k. Lile wth.
Turn 73, 61k Income per turn.
Reddit opinions are wrong because reddit circle jerk is strong. A bunch of a-holes enforcing an opinion that might not be relevant now or probably ever. Dissent is not allowed, it's a form of "if it's on the internet it's true" and internet hive mind.
Is not just reddit, campaign content creators like Legendsoftotalwar rank them way lower, not even a single faction is ranked avobe average on his tier list , and he is a way better player than costin
@@chelo136 LoTW doesn't play the campaigns that often and his opinions are largely based on public perception. Also their criteria are different.
@@Duranous. he literally plays campaigns almost daily on stream here on TH-cam.... if that is not often i don't know ...
@@chelo136 Idk what to say, if you don't see the dark elf power, what can I say but your opinion is based on a disillusioned perception. Not the most powerful but in this list he said he cared about early game power and fun replayability. I am not saying LoTW is bad, he isn't but there are many very bad channels like the Colonel Demander that guy is an idiot and he plays all the time too.
Reddit is the worst place on the internet to seek for advice : full of frustrated trolls.
Dark Elves need constant battles to work. No defense or recovery time allowed.
Not true, black arks can generate slaves passively, I'm gaining 400 slaves passively on my current campaign and that's not even trying to get the max passive gain I can get (because I don't need it) though it's always best to be aggressive with any faction in this game.
@@Snotlingfondler True I do under-utilize black arks for sure. Too comfortable with land armies, chaos dwarves are my go to race.
@@studmuffin1217 black arks have like half the upkeep and don't increase your supply lines either so handy for taking or sacking enemy port cities. Plus the battle abilities they give to themselves and other armies not to mention being able to recruit new units right on your frontline. It's strong stuff.
The economy is very strong, especially once the midgame starts. The major issue are really their endgame units, they are a bit lackluster. Shades do not cut it in the endgame (especially in auto resolve). You most likely run around with monster stacks and maybe some Black Guard of Naggarond/Har Ganeth Executioners. But since you have such a powerful economy, you can just overwhelm even the cheating AI with armies of lower quality units. I like them very much overall. Far better than before the update. They were massive trash before. The slave mechanic was massive trash, its much better now.
What do you mean shades do mot cut it? You can give them +200 range and greatsword version can
Er I won a Domination Victory (272 settlements conquered) on turn 88 as Malekith on Legendary campaign/Very Hard battle. I used Darkshards/Dreadspears to start and then basically exclusively Shade (Greatswords) stacks for the rest of the campaign. And Shades are amazing in autoresolve.
Both shades and dark shards can carry you to the endgame very easily
lol
Dark Elves are S tier i agree but i hate that CA stole WH2 Dark elves mechanic to give it to the chaos dwarfs and then given back a discount mechanic with global penalties. Thats why people hated the change.
Who hated the change? I enjoy my dark elves campaigns quite a bit
I just want to say that I like your videos but I always wandered why are them so bright, like your gamma is so much higher than in my game or on other people's?
he made a video about that a week or two ago. :)
The DE are probably in a better position in 3 then they were in 2, and the slave mechanic is more intuitive; but they are still not a strong faction in 3. With the growth and build bonuses; they are still tons slower growing tall then Skaven. Their ranged units are good, but their artillery is frankly terrible. Their economy is better; but HE is stonger and far more stable and that isn't getting into HE, Skaven, or Brit economy. The Black Ark mechanic is very interesting and fun, but their roster really is just sort of lacking and the actual battle mechanics with them just comes across as....well, boring...they aren't alone in that though. HE suffer this for the same reason DE do, and Ku'Gath has this flaw for a completely different reason. Ontop of this, they have the same...or arguably worse then.....loyalty mechanic for their non LL lords that Skaven have.
Dark Elves have a few decent mechanics in several different areas that combined make them about the bare minimum of what is acceptable as playable for a player faction....but they aren't a faction that I've ever really been excited to play like some of the others. They aren't as bad as some factions, but they aren't great nor are they a race I'd list as particularly strong. They're probably a better baseline faction then the Empire though, and they are a better and funner faction then some other factions.
But the strongest and best races in WH? Not really no.
Better get your vitamin A if you want to see anything on black ark mapsxD
DE problems stem from poor theming, bad tabletop adaptations (like dark riders, cold ones etc.) and ugly visuals, gameplay wise they are alright i guess but can never come close to the awesomeness of for example sisters of avelorn just insta winning ur campaign :(
If u wanna know what in my opinion is terribly wrong with the dark elf roster go watch legend of total war's unit ranking vid about it
Have you played Morathi? It's literally the easiest campaign in the game imo. sell rat settlements to mazdamundi for a bff and lots of cash, take out hag, then SAIL AWAY to ulthuan. Literally a steamroll campaign now that you can get shades on turn 2.
I like sisters of averlorn fine, they just cant compare to morathi.
@@ericposey-vt5ej The changeling is the easiest campaign in the game, so no morathi is not the easiest or even close.
@@chelo136 ok sure. I don’t consider changeling a tw campaign since that’s like saying chess and checkers are the same due to using the same board.
The Dark Elves were strong in Warhammer 2. However since they nerf the slave mechanics the dark elves are horrible to play at the moment.
Bro you are just parroting what others tell you. You and I both know you didnt watch the video
Horrible how? Malekith can be a bit rough, but the others are quite easy and enjoyable to play for sure.
@@runeh3022 Have u played them before the patch? You could gain infinite gold pre- patch with slaves using stacking. That was nerfed until it is no longer possible.
@@lamjianhua2884 I did yes, but if you need that exploit to have them be playable, I have to question your skills in the game to some extent tbh. I never used it as there was no need and the DE's have always been a favorite race of mine to play. Infinite gold = godmode essentially, and that's not even remotely fun if you actually enjoy a challenge.
You really should play them after the small slave rework. Far better than before. Hated them and now they are very good economy wise. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them at the moment bar the lackluster choice of endgame units.