If you’re like me, you wasn’t inherently interested in the Dark Elves. Such a race is clearly the king of edginess, signified by the unit names (Bleakswords, Dreadspears) and appearances. When you give them a try though, you’ll find they’re extremely fun to use and thematically brilliant. A lot of their enjoyment comes in the form of great campaign mechanics but their units are quite unique too. Each unit is good in their own right but there are some that are a cut above the others, this list will detail the 10 best units available to the Dark Elves in TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER!
P.S – This list is campaign focused, making me able to rank them on overall effectiveness, instead of having to take cost-effectiveness into massive consideration (although it still determines rankings slightly).
10. Shades
One of the best all-round units in the entire game, Shades bring a ton of usefulness to your army composition. Capable of acting as skirmishers, front-liners, back-line ranged infantry, you name it. Strong armor-piercing missiles make them a great choice if you require a ranged unit and can spare the gold. Great melee stats open the door for a number of strategies, or just for sending them into melee when they run out of ammunition. Combine this with the fact they have Stalk (move hidden in any terrain) and even Vanguard Deployment to end up with an amazing Dark Elf unit.
9. Reaper Bolt Thrower
Both this entry and the previous one share a common trait, their flexibility. Reaper Bolt Throwers are the only artillery the Dark Elves need, as they can act as either anti-large or anti-infantry. You can switch between the firing types by selecting the unit while in-battle. Being the only artillery unit, it had to make the list in some form. I’ve found they aren’t anywhere near as effective as the entries further down the list yet every army needs a Reaper Bolt Thrower.
8. Cold One Dread Knights
Despite how insanely tanky these guys are, Cold One Dread Knights can destroy units as fast as more damage-focused cavalry. Not just via combat capabilities, this unit causes fear and has the ability to chase down any fleeing opponents with ease. A base armor stat of 120 is quite insane, especially when you factor in the fact they have shields. Taking a unit of Cold One Dread Knights down is no easy feat!
7. Witch Elves
When used correctly, Witch Elves are an insanely good unit. Make sure you do not use them as a front-line, they’ll get melted by enemy ranged fire and you’ll be wondering why you bothered to recruit them. For their price (800g), they’ll carve through elite infantry units without a care in the world. Bonuses vs infantry and armor-piercing damage grant them boons in close-quarters, as they inflict their enemies with the Madness of Khaine, causing them to rampage and ignore given orders. As I mentioned though, focused ranged fire will deplete their ranks quickly so utilise them well!
6. Black Ark Corsairs
Honestly, this entry and the previous one could be considered joint entries. Witch Elves deal a lot more damage than Black Ark Corsairs but they favor defensive stability anyway. This unit still deals quite a lot of damage though, offering a cheaper alternative and much more front-line potential. At no point throughout your campaign should you turn your nose up at some Black Ark Corsairs!
5. Har Ganeth Executioners
A huge cost is justified by an exceptional tendency to demolish infantry units. Slow and bulky, Executioners will take their time getting to combat but when they do, all shall fall. Crazy high base damages with bonuses vs infantry and armor-piercing make this unit one of the best in the game against infantry. High health, armor and leadership stats mean they’ll stick around in a fight, dealing considerable damage constantly. The only reason not to choose this unit is your budget, as they do cost 1200 gold to recruit and have a 300 gold upkeep.
4. Darkshards (Shields)
You could argue Shades are much better than Darkshades, as they have slightly more range as well as significant melee competence. I’ll direct you to the right arm of any Darkshard with Shields member. Shades are hugely vulnerable to enemy missile infantry troops, they’ll be deleted if they get focus fired. Darkshards (Shields) have no such quarrels, taking a massive 55% less missile damage while dealing a ton of damage in their own right. Combine this with their cost and you have one of the best missile infantry units in the entire game, in terms of cost effectiveness.
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3. Black Dragon
It’s strongly recommended you let your lord ride a Black Dragon instead of recruiting one as an entire unit. Even then, you can’t really go wrong with a huge intimidating dragon. We all know how strong these beasts can be, high amounts of mobility are devastating when it has such tankiness and damaging potential. A single dragonbreath attack can melt hundreds of troops, I’m not even joking!
2. Black Guard of Naggarond
No other unit in the entire game is as good against large, monstrous foes as the Black Guard of Naggarond. Sworn to serve Malekith and only Malekith, these brutal warriors are the best of the best. Wielding insanely high armor-piercing and anti-large damage is one thing, such traits are usually offset by a low unit count or pitiful defenses. You’d think that wouldn’t you but instead, this unit has high armor, health and a unit size of 100.
Crazy. Of course, they’re one of the most expensive units available but for good reason, they’d be stupidly over-powered if not.
1. War Hydra
In spite of the War Hydra being only the 2nd most expensive unit available, I feel it had to reach the number 1 spot on this list. No other entry is quite as successful as this huge ‘infantry’ unit. Every 4 or so seconds, a War Hydra will attack for a bloody end, dealing massive damage that all but ignores armor. A unit of this size is usually an easy target for various ranged units, except the War Hydra has a 35% missile resistance.
Add the ability to cause terror, respectable melee defenses, regeneration and a breath ability to rival the Black Dragon to make the best Dark Elf unit available in TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER!
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Ready to dive into the complex tactical combat and cutthroat fantasy diplomacy in Total War: Warhammer 2? There are four starting Warhammer factions to pick from, from dinosaur-riding lizards to hordes of subterranean rats -- and each plays incredibly different from the others.
As the Dark Elves, your goal is to obtain the Scrolls of Hekarti to take control of the Vortex through a series of magic rituals. Along the way you'll be raiding settlements, taking slaves, and battling off armies of rat men or weakling High Elves.
Below we cover everything you need to know to get up and running with an unstoppable force of Dark Elves and slaughter your way through the Warhammer 2 campaign!
Looking for a guide how to beat the Total War: Warhammer 2 as dino-taming lizards instead? Check out our guide to the Lizardmen campaign for more information.
The Best Dark Elf Lord for Your Total War: Warhammer 2 Campaign
You've got two starting options for your Legendary Lord: a melee/spell-caster hybrid, or his Hydra-riding mother. The main differences between them revolves around experience points and loyalty.
Dark Elves want to be raiding and engaged in battle whenever possible. If you sit around defending an area instead of going to war, your loyalty will take a big hit -- and that can be disastrous if you aren't prepared.
Malekith automatically gifts out experience to other Lords, which is a major double-edged sword. If a Lord is higher level than Malekith, or if a Lord gets wounded and flees a battle, expect to take a big loyalty hit. While Malekith is technically the easier of the two, you have to keep him in battle constantly or the other Lords (and their armies) will rebel against you. His Bladewind combat ability is extremely useful, however.
Morathi, Malekith's mother, actually gives a bonus to loyalty for other Lords in the area. While technically the more difficult of the two, she can be a better option for the mid game when you need your armies to do what you want them to do. Just keep in mind that she doesn't include a tutorial mission, so you better know what you are doing ahead of time if you go with Morathi.
Picking Your Dark Elf Legendary Lord
Dark Elf Black Arks
While the Lizardmen have their powerful Geomantic Web to offer bonuses across their empire, the Dark Elves instead get the mobile Black Arks, which support armies and have building slots like any other settlement.
That's not the big draw, though. Black Arks offer bombardments to aid battles close to the Ark. Make sure to position these Arks near where you are about to be engaged in warfare!
Essentially, you've got extra long range spells to rain down death on concentrations of enemy units without actually having to bring in any spell-casting characters, so don't overlook this massive advantage.
Dropping concentrated fire bombardments
Warhammer II Dark Elf Campaign Strategy
The Dark Elves occupy the frozen north at the campaign's start, with the Skaven being your primary problem throughout the early campaign. To begin, focus on taking Naggarond and then recruit another Lord so you have two armies flush with Darkshards and Dreadspears.
Afterwards, your mid-range goal here is to forge alliances to the south and east to keep people from attacking you while you work towards taking Ghrond. This task should be done via siege rather than a straight fight, as it's very difficult to win that battle in a direct assault. You want the army to come out and fight you instead.
Don't forget that Dark Elves have a leg up over the competition on the technology tree, which can be advanced faster without having to build as many precursor buildings first as other factions.
As mentioned above, you are going to deal with serious loyalty issues throughout the Dark Elves campaign. Completing quests and faction-wide battle wins increase overall loyalty, but losing quests and faction-wide battle losses decreases loyalty. You can help pump this up further by stealing tech, which frequently results in captured slaves as well. Giving these slaves to your Lords will keep loyalty high.
Don't forget that your Legendary Lord -- no matter which one you picked -- can utilize a Rite to boost loyalty as well. Finally, the Khanite assassin eventually gets the Stalker trait that can also boost loyalty.
Dark Elves have a third resource to juggle: slaves! You can use this resource to balance out other aspects of the economy in ways the other factions can't use. More slaves means a province produces more gold, which is good -- but get too many slaves and public order starts to drop when the servants outnumbers the actual populace.
If you have a province with high public order but you need gold, upgrade your slave capacity buildings and then start raiding. While order will go down, you will be flush with currency. Likewise, choosing to the option to take slaves after battle is frequently a better idea than killing the survivors for extra experience, since Dark Elves have a high turnover rate and you will be replenishing units often.
Naggarond
Warhammer II Dark Elf Combat Strategy
Darkshard missile infantry are key here, and you can basically formulate your whole battle strategy around them. Later on, Shades can become indispensable and in some situations, even better than Darkshards.
Whether utilizing Darkshards or Shades, you need to master forming them up properly to avoid the problems of friendly fire or missing your enemies entirely. Archers have problems hitting if they are spread out too thin. In general, it's a good idea not to keep them in a long, shallow line, but rather to have two close ranks lined up one behind the other.
You want several groups positioned next to each other that can concentrate fire and reposition quickly to hit moving targets. Make sure to set control groups of your rows of Darkshards so they can quickly rain down fire and you aren't wasting time clicking and dragging to reposition your archers.
In this formation, with several moderately deep ranks that aren't long left to right and are concentrated together, your primary concern should be long range artillery fire from the enemy. If the opposing army has artillery, it needs to be ambushed and taken out early in a battle.
Dark Riders are your initial mounted units, and frankly they aren't that great -- but you should use them for side and back attacks when you are stuck with them. Upgrade these guys as soon as you can to their crossbow version for better tactical options.
What melee unit you want to focus on is up to you, but essentially their goal here is to protect the Darkshards and hold off the larger melee or hero units while you can kill at range. Coupled with abilities like Bladewind and bombardments from your Dark Arks, you can annihilate most enemies.
Have fun mowing down enemies with your archers!
That's just one of several possible strategies for playing the Dark Elves, but so far for us it's been a winning one. Do you have any other hints and tips for playing these diabolical hit and run combatants?
Let us know your favorite Warhammer 2 Dark Elf strategy in the comments below, and be sure to check out our other Total War: Warhammer 2 guides if you feel like playing a different race or want more help with the game in general.
Total War: Warhammer 2 is great. The Creative Assembly has elegantly streamlined the game, introduced an excellent new campaign structure and done a tremendous job of realising four exciting factions from the OTT world of Warhammer. We like it so much we gave it 92 in our review.
For new players the game explains itself better than any other Total War to date, through detailed tooltips and sensible campaign introduction tutorials. It is a complicated game, however, and some systems (I'm looking at you, corruption) can pop up and disrupt your campaign out of nowhere. I've addressed a few of these elements below with brand new players in mind.
Learn your army in custom battle
You do need a short winning streak of battles to get a campaign off the ground. If you struggle to take your first province, or do so too slowly, you risk falling behind in the grand race to control the vortex. Total War: Warhammer 2 is forgiving during the opening stretch, but a campaign isn't the best place to learn an army and experiment. Plus, how are you supposed to know what to build if you don't know how the units you're unlocking really function?
So, jump into skirmish against the computer in custom battle mode and get used to your army's units right away. Just how tough are those High Elf spearmen really? Can a dinosaur with a laser cannon on its back tank a hundred clan rats? I have found it useful to focus on a few core units that work efficiently to form the backbone of an army. Then I like to find a few high level units I like so I can later aim for them in the campaign.
There are some cool story scenarios to play too. These are a good way to learn the controls, and they show you what a balanced force can look like. There's no substitute for picking your own units if you're trying to learn a force. A few hours of experimentation in custom games could save you many hours during a campaign.
Look past a campaign's starting difficulty
In typical Total War fashion each campaign has a difficulty rank to let you know how tough that faction's starting position is on the world map. It's tempting to jump into the easiest starting position, but there is more to the choice than this. Though it's wise not to opt for a hard campaign straight away, it's worth bearing in mind each faction's tricks and play style before you choose.
If you play as High Elves in Teclis' 'easy' starting position you find yourself in the heart of the High Elf island of Ulthuan. It's a beautiful land of rainbows, huge magical vortexes and fortresses positioned in easily defended mountain passes. As starting positions go, this is as good as it gets. However the High Elves are an elite army that relies on a relatively small number of vulnerable units that can deal a lot of damage. Their research tree is the most complicated of the set. Plus their special ability to manipulate enemies through trade is also more abstract than, say, Skaven, who can bring up units from beneath the earth in corrupted territories, or the Dark Elves, who can spawn enormous black arks to harass distant enemies.
If you have played Total War games before then the organised blocks of infantry in a High Elf army will feel nice and familiar, but I would be tempted to recommend the Lord Mazdamundi Lizardmen campaign and even, perhaps controversially, the Squeek Skaven campaign. Mazdamundi's starting position is very friendly to the Lizardmen. Once you've seized your province you can ally with the cheerful human faction south of you and then raid the weak Dark Elf forces to the north. Lizardmen units are more fun than Elves because they have dinosaurs and giant frogs that cast magic. This is a fact even though Jody will fight me over it.
The Skaven Queek campaign is a tough prospect for a newcomer, but it's a lot of fun if you don't mind taking some punishment and want to think like a Skaven warlord. Taking the starting province is dead easy because you just set up in a series of ruins, however you face constant raids from a High Elf island nearby and from treasure-hunting Lizardman fleets. There are a bunch of Skaven clans to the east that will fight hard for the warpstone source in that area of the map. It's a game of scrabbling from settlement to settlement. Raid aggressively to keep your food supplies up and smother enemy territories with corruption. This is the way of the horned rat.
The Dark Elves are interesting too. They get more powerful when more things die in battle, they have cool monsters and Malekith is a powerful general. Sadly, I find Malekith's starting position a bit dull. You're dropped into the frozen North far from the sea, surrounded by independent states and ruins plagued by Skaven. Once you do get onto the ocean Black Arks are amazing. These ominous seaborne fortresses are cities in their own right.
Check which buildings you need for research
Most of Total War: Warhammer's factions need to construct buildings to unlock paths on the technology tree. This does a neat job of tying building, tech and unit production into one interlocking system, and it gives each faction characterful approaches to R&D. Lizardmen—magical demons and masters of the universe—have loads of mystical buildings that unlock short sprints of technology. Skaven instead start learning new tech when they've built a couple of tier-three buildings (though note that you can found a settlement at rank three if you have enough food for a shortcut).
Whatever faction you decide to start with, open up their tech tree on turn one and mouse over the little red icons attached to technologies. These will tell you what you need to build to start researching that discipline. When you know your tech buildings you can plan to leave spaces for them in your provinces. If you don't want to worry about any of this, go with the Dark Elves. They can plunge straight into the research tree with a simple payment. That's sorcerers for you.
Look out for corruption
Chaos and the Skaven infest the lands they occupy, changing the very nature of the Old World to suit their gods. Corruption is displayed as a percentage value in each territory and you may even notice the land changing in appearance as Chaos warps your home into a lava-strewn hellscape.
If a land becomes too corrupted your armies start to die off, public order takes a massive hit, and and you're pretty much screwed. Chaos corruption can spread very aggressively (much more quickly than the first game, it seems) and because wrangling corruption is a slow process, prevention is better than cure.
A territory's info card on the bottom left of the screen gives you a useful breakdown of all of the factors influencing corruption in that region. Your methods for dealing with corruption vary from faction to faction. Look for hero skills and buildings that improve your quotient of untainted land. Note that you can level up the same hero skill multiple times, so you can create heroes dedicated to hoovering up corruption wherever they go. Multiple hero effects stack as well, so if you have a serious corruption problem a reactive cluster of heroes might help.
Of course you might play a faction that enjoys rolling around in corruption, in which case look for buildings and heroes that spread more of the stuff. It's fun to load up Skaven heroes with pestilence and send them raiding in enemy territory where they can steal food and spread rot at the same time.
Chaos invasions become powerful quickly
In Total War: Warhammer 2 the four major factions are performing rituals to influence the roaring vortex at the centre of the map. Every time you successfully perform a ritual Chaos invades your lands. In my experience the first invasion is easy to bat away, but Chaos attacks with much greater power with each ritual performed.
I was caught out in one campaign when I decided to let my garrisons and an army of magically summoned wild dinosaurs defend my lands while my main army was marauding abroad. A collection of rampaging Chaos armies stole away several cities before my mighty Slann returned to crush them. The best defense is a strong economy that allows you to sustain multiple armies, but if you like to gamble you can build defensive structures that grow the garrisons automatically stationed at your cities.
Merge units, and be careful about raising a second army too soon
Unit upkeep costs are a big deal. Raising a second army of noteworthy strength can wipe one or two thousand gold off your incoming gold total per turn. If this puts you into the red then be prepared to disband individual units from your armies to balance your economy. This is especially painful if you're having to disband battle-tested forces that have earned veteran bonuses.
Merging units is an efficient way to cut costs. If you have two half-strength units of clan rats after a battle, consider merging them by clicking one, shift-clicking the other, and then selecting the merge command from the tiny pop-up menu. Now you're only paying for one unit rather than two. You can always hire another unit of clan rats later when you have more cash coming in.
There are lots of ways to make money. The safe way is to build a bunch of money-making buildings and spread them across your empire. If you would rather use those building slots for other things then you can be a pirate instead. To do this plunder nearby lands in raiding stance, defeat enemy armies and extort as much money as you can from the aftermath, and sack cities every so often to empty their vaults. Look out for bonuses in your hero skill trees and technology trees that increase the percentage of gold you get out of combat engagements and plundering settlements.
If you're a charismatic faction like the High Elves, trade can also bring in a lot of cash. Talk to everyone and try to establish as many trade agreements as possible.
That's enough to be getting on with for now. It is still difficult to quickly discern what minor variants on units really do in the game, but the best way to fix this is with experimentation in step one. With a bit of training you'll have control of that vortex in no time.
Black Arks are the largest vessels commanded by a Dark ElfCorsair, vast floating fortresses capable of carrying thousands of warriors and slaves. Their sorcerers summon beasts up from the deep which fortifications are then built on. These ‘living ships’ always travel with a Black Ark, and drive fear into the hearts of all the corsairs would prey upon.
History
During what would be called the Sundering, when Malekith's plan to unbind the Great Vortex of Ulthuan failed, he and his followers utilized the last of their sorcerous powers to ride out the storm that followed. Energized by dark magic, their black citadels broke free of Nagarythe, and rose upon the frothing waves. Upon these floating castles -- the Black Arks, as they would be called in later years -- the Witch King and his minions fled the cataclysm they'd unleashed, traveling north-west across the churning seas, to the desolate wilderness of Naggaroth.
In the uttermost westward reaches of the Sea of Malice, in the freezing shadows of the jagged Iron Mountains, the Black Arks of Nagarythe finally halted. There, in that desolate land, Malekith declared he would recreate the glories of Aenarion's reign and build a capital to put the greatest cities of Ulthuan to shame.
The Black Ark that had once been Malekith's own castle beached itself upon the stony shore, fusing with the slate and iron-rich rocks of the foothills bordering the water. With slaves taken from the primitive human tribes to build the towers and walls of his new fortress, the Witch King named this place Naggarond.
Known Black Arks
Warhammer 2 Black Ark Replenishment
Black Ark Warhammer 2 Release
Total War Warhammer 2 Growth
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