‘Warhammer: The Old World’- Dark Elves Win In Tokyo – List Breakdown

Take a look at a real-life winning list from Warhammer: The Old World. All hail the Dark Elves!

This week I thought I’d take a little break from ranking units. Theories and talking about what we think is good is nice, but it doesn’t quite compare to seeing things out in the real world. So I figured we could start looking at some lists that have won actual events out there. To start, we turn to the recent Karl Franz Cup in Tokyo. This wasn’t a huge event, but it was a decent-sized one-day event. We talked with William Livingstone about his Dark Elves list that won the event. Lets take a look

The List

Here is what William has to say about this list:

“So this list has been working very well for me. The armour bane 3 and the fantastic crossbow the hero uses has been a real incredible benefit for the Army. Units of iron breakers knights monsters bloodthirsters tend to just disintegrate under the fire. I believe the unit of shades wiped out 20 long beards over two turns as well. The amount of shooting in the Army also deals with lightly armored infantry.”

“For anything bigger I run a dreadlord on black dragon. He has two uses. The first is he will destroy a unit softened up by any shooting and reliably overrun into the next target. The second is he is my anti monster as well as the shades. In the tournament he killed a lot… The dread lord fought the high elf wizard lord on a star dragon with the headsman’s ax and his higher weapon skill meant he was winning the combats.”

“One thing I would like to mention the hero and his magic crossbow is especially good against demons with a Max potential AP of four. Comes with one base AP and also the poison is incredible. The key magic item is rerolling all hits for one round. So 40 shots hitting on fours rerolling everything plus the heroes d3 plus one.”

You can see all those things in the list. It’s built around a powerful Dreadlord on a dragon. Core is taken up with various units of Dark Riders. The really surprising aspect is a couple units, one of them very big, of Shades, which I have not seen a whole lot of recently.

How the Dark Elves Played

The Karl Franz Cup was a one day three round event. It sounds like a lot of fun. Here is what William had to say about his various games:

“Okay so for my first game I faced dwarves. It was The Tower scenario. ( Capture the monument.) He went first and his 25 long beards with the ward save Vs shooting were destroyed without making contact, just by shooting.

His 10 iron breakers also wiped by shooting in a single turn by my 20 shades . Most of the irondrakes ?? Too by the other shade unit and riders. Then, with no units for him to claim the monument my dragon swooped in to eat an iron drake unit and runepriest and Claim the objective.

Game 2 Break Point Vs daemons.
My toughest game due to the scenario. I killed the bloodthirster quickly with shooting, made a placement error and got a unit killed by flesh hounds. He had a block of blood letters and daemonettes, three juggernauts, a Daemon prince and some fiends . It was a draw but I scored almost the same as my first game, due to killing most of his army.

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Game 3 Meeting Engagement
Crucially none of my units were delayed. One unit of reavers and an eagle was delayed for him. 3 units of 5 reavers, silver helms, lots  of dragon princes, wizard lord on dragon, frost phoenix, 2 eagles, he went first but only cast two spells all game due to getting stuck in Combat after his dragon princes broke and i got a rear charge on the dragon with my dragon that has broken through his princes. I was able to wipe out everything by turn 5. “

An interesting aspect that William talks about is how much a difference the missions can make. I think it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of just playing Meeting Engagement and some of the other missions aren’t all that different. However both The Tower and Breakpoint have a pretty big impact on the game and change things.

Thoughts On William’s List

Overall I like this list. You can see that it has some good combos and synergy in it. Everything is taken with a purpose, which is a hallmark of a strong focussed list. Additionally I like that it’s being a bit innovative and trying something new. Not only is it Dark Elves, one of the statistically worst armies in the game right now, but its doing a lot of BS-based shooting. I haven’t seen that working out great. On top of that, I haven’t seen a lot of people taking big units of Shades (though I recall a time in 7th/8th Edition when big units of them were a meta choice). It’s also a list with no Rare choices!

While the Shade shooting might not seem crazy at first, you can see how it adds up. The Razor standard makes it a bit more scary. Guiding Eye allowing the whole unit (with 42-44 shots) to re-roll hits is pretty big. You can even use the Sorceress to drop Word of Pain on a target to make it worse for them! However William says she’s is mostly there to give the dragon Battlelust, and that was clutch in some games.

The Old World Meta Pokes Through

While the list does innovate, you can also see how the emerging meta is shaping it. This list really ticks the boxes. You’ve got your big dragon, almost a must-take if you can. Then you’ve got five units of skirmishers. There actually isn’t a single ranked up unit in the army. Everything is fast and mobile. Most things can move freely in any direction and have great LoS. In a lot of ways, the Dark Elves list feels more like an AoS or 40K list than an WFB/TOW list. You are seeing that in a lot of lists these days, and I can’t say I love this trend. While it can be thematic for sneaky Dark Elf raiding party- its not really what I think most of us want out of the game. No blame on William here, that’s what the game allows, and not his fault at all.

Final Dark Elves Thoughts

Overall it’s a fun and solid list, that does things a bit differently. It’s nice to see Dark Elves winning events. Obviously I don’t exactly how all the game went, but I can see what seem to be a few weaknesses. The list relies a lot on BS-based shooting. I wonder how it would fare vs a list with that can stack a lot of shooting penalties? In addition, he is rocking just a single Lvl 2 mage, though he says that wasn’t an issue. It does seem an enemy with some decent fireballs could wipe out the Shades and leave the army without its main unit.

You’ll also notice that the event was only 1750 pts, not a common size. I asked William what he would add to get to a more standard 2000 pts and he responded

“Evolution increase the level of My Wizard to level 4, add some extra dark Riders,  and 7 more Shades. I would strongly consider switching to battle magic to get shooting rerolls of 1 Vs a unit. And the 5+ ward for my Shades would help Vs missile fire.”

So there you have it (though I think sticking with Dark Magic is the way to go!). We can’t say how well the list holds up in larger games, where the one unit of Shades will have less effect, but it still seems like it will do well.

Anyway, a huge thank you to William Livingstone for talking to me about the list and letting us write it up. Any mistakes and errors are probably mine. Congrats on the win!

Let us know what you think of this list, down in the comments!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.