Dark Elf Units

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Dark Elf Units

Racial Tag
Like all races, the Dark Elves have hidden traits linked directly to their race tag. Below is a list of traits a unit gains when it has the Dark Elf classification:
 * Immunity to Fear.
 * Very slow recovery from Awe. (60 seconds instead of the usual 30)
 * +2 combat during the night.

Wisp - Elven Builder
Wisps are very weak builders that are used for the Elven races. Four Wisps can merge together and form an Ancient Wisp at cost of 100 crystal, but only after researching the skill with the same name at tier 2. Unlike other builder units, Wisps cannot be put into mines.

Spider - Basic Dark Elf Infantry
A weak but fast melee unit capable of inflicting Poison at a very respectable strength. They do, however, only cost stone for production and are produced quickly. This allows you to field them along side a more potent attack force without much resource competition and can be done quickly.

Skeleton - Undead Missile Fodder
Skeletons are inferior to Dark Infantry for combat but it's the Skeleton's missile resistance that makes it worth producing. This allows it to sponge common piercing missile attacks seen from both archers and towers, allowing the rest of your army to advance towards the enemy without fear of being shot down before they make combat.

Dark Infantry - Basic Dark Elf Infantry
Dark Infantry are decent melee units that excel at destroying Dwarves. Unfortunately, they don't get any upgrades as the game goes on, other than the Dark Ward that affects all Dark Elven units. This leaves them unable to scale along side most enemy infantry and their effectiveness drastically drops from tier to tier.

Dark Archer - Dark Elf Missile Unit
Dark Archers are comparable to Gladewardens and Longbowmen. They are cheap to produce and their arrows can inflict Poison as well as being up-gradable to deal fire damage - allowing them to take down even buildings with relative ease. Building many of these as soon as possible makes a good defense for your base, especially with archery upgrades.

Ancient Wisp - Advanced Elven Builder / Missile Unit
Made by combining 4 baby wisps and spending 100 crystals (takes a grand total of 200 crystals). It generates crystal at a rate of a level 1 mine and can be a lifesaver for the crystal hungry elves. They can construct buildings and are a decent missile unit with long range electrical attacks. They have more hit points than most of your units, but are vulnerable to physical attacks, so you'll either want to keep them protected behind a melee wall or accompany them with so many other ranged units that nothing will survive long enough to do much damage to any particular wisp. They can also be recruited for your Hero's retinue, allowing you to bring them over to other crystal hungry races, such as Daemons and Plaguelords.

Ancient wisps are significantly more powerful the stronger your hero's merchant skill (from Charisma, or from the Merchant class), because decrease in cost of purchases is equivalent to an increase in the rate at which wisps produce crystal. Without any mercantile upgrades, wisps have a geometric growth rate of doubling your number of wisps every 7 minutes (not counting the costs of the buildings used to produce the 4 baby wisps and to increase your supply cap). With mercantile upgrades, you can instead reach a geometric growth rate of quadrupling your number of wisps over the same time period. If your income is quadrupling every 7 minutes, while the other player's isn't, then time will definitely be on your side.

Dark Rider - Dark Elf Cavalry
While its stats may seem unremarkable, the Dark Rider can act as a specialist Assassin designed to decimate Heroes. Compared to its other Elven equivalents, it outperforms Woodriders but is bested by the Dragon Knight. It is also quite expensive for what it does and can't just be thrown at the enemy - it will require specific planning for use.

Queen Spider - Basic Dark Elf Infantry
Queen Spiders are dangerous melee units which should not be left unchecked. Having a few of these attack your weakest troops or builders can lead to an infestation of regular Spiders which, although weak, can rapidly spread Poison among your troops. They aren't tough to kill but are quick and have an even stronger Poison than the standard Spiders, ensuring that even the victor that slain them wont be feeling too well after the confrontation.

Phoenix - Basic Flier
Their combat capabilities may be underwhelming but their ability to convert buildings can really give you an edge over your enemy. Normally you would have to rely on your Hero or General, but being produced at tier 2 allows the Phoenix to take on this task while your Hero attends to other matters. Flocks of these can give you almost complete map control.

Sorceror - Advanced Dark Elf Spellcaster
Much like other Elven spellcasters, the Sorceror can decimate large hordes of enemies with its offensive spell, in this case, Pillar of Fire. They can also raise Zombies to fill mines, although at this point in the game, you also have access to Slavehorde for the exact same purpose. However, Sorcerors can be taken into battle at the very start of the game, allowing them to raise Zombies and thus fill mines at tier 1. They do cost a lot, though, and have a very long build time. This can make it very difficult to get a large formation of them into the field.

Zombie - Undead Builder
The Dark Elves really have only one use for Zombies - mine filling. In terms of building, Wisps are simply far superior in both build skill and movement speed. Zombies cannot actually be produced by the Dark Elves but instead of raised by their Sorcerors. Typically this means you would only have access to Zombies, the Dark Elf mine fillers, at tier 3, which is also the same time when Dark Elves get access to Slavehorde to summon Thralls. However, Sorcerors can be taken into battle at the start of the game, allowing the Dark Elf player to start raising Zombies even in tier 1! This is a great asset to Dark Elves, who normally would have to rely on raw mine capturing or tier 3 to start increasing their resource income.

Thrall - Primitive Builder
At tier 3 the Dark Elves can obtain Thralls from the Reformatory via the Slavehorde skill. As they are "summoned" in batches of 10, you can instantly fill a mine to its maximum capacity, and even have some left over. Unless the Dark Elf player started the game with Sorcerors, who could raise Zombies, the Thralls' arrival would be heroically welcomed as their presence now means the Dark Elves have a way to stuff mines for a faster resource income. Thralls can also build, but as their building skill is inferior to Wisps, they shouldn't be used for this role. In addition to mine filling, Thralls can also be used as a cheap source of "sacrificial" units for summoning daemons.

Spider Priestess - Advanced Dark Elf Spellcaster
Spider Priestesses are generally stronger than Sorcerors in terms of stats. They are, however, slower and have a shorter range, as well as lacking any powerful offensive spells which is the true power of the Sorceror. Instead, Spider Priestesses specialty revolves around Spiders - where they can summon Queen Spiders into play and turn into six regular Spiders upon death. Although the Spiders aren't the best units available to the Dark Elves, being able to instantly summon them for free from a relatively cheap unit is sure to make the Spider Priestess useful.

Daemon - Advanced Daemonic Flying Infantry
Daemons are very powerful flying units that can summon Imps, cause havoc and generally be annoying to your opponent. They are capable of laying waste to most units and, thanks to its flying ability, it is possible for them to destroy enemy units without being impeded by many grounded threats. Their resistance, armor and hits are all very good, allowing them to sponge many attacks from anti-flying units. The ability to summon Imps can be very useful as they can act as a screen to protect the Daemons or for that little bit of extra valuable cold damage.

Although all races con produce Daemons from an Infernal Temple, the Dark Elves can summon Daemons through another means - Sacrifice. Once this skill has been researched at tier 3, the Dark Elf player can select their units and sacrifice their souls in the chance that a Daemon will appear. Although this costs crystal and the more units selected at once further increases this crystal cost, it also increases the chance of a Daemon being summoned. As even Thralls can be summoned, you can group a large amount of them together (for a near perfect 100% chance of summoning) and essentially "purchase" a Daemon for a much cheaper cost than you would if you were to produce one normally from an Infernal Temple.

Imp - Daemonic Flying Missile Unit
Imps are inexpensive and relatively fragile flying missile units. Low hits and armor mean that it cannot take much damage before being slain, especially by archers. Their resistance however, is much higher, allowing them to take more damage from elemental attacks. Although Imps do great in the Damon army, their lack of upgrades and very late appearance in the Dark Elf army renders them almost useless. The Dark Elves can obtain Imps through the Kargothian Gate or by being summoned via a Daemon.

Assassin - Advanced Dark Elf Infantry
As their name implies, Assassins are capable of assassinating enemies. They are powerful in that sense and are very fast and have an obscenely strong Poison - the strongest in the entire game. However, they are very ineffective against buildings and fall quickly to towers. Luckily, they are cheap to produce and, with a few assassination blows, they pay for themselves. Dark Infantry don't scale well but you can effectively replace them with Assassins.

Harpy - Advanced Flier
The Dark Elves have access to a lot of Poison dealing units, some of which are the strongest in the game. Harpies can be used to rid enemy healing-spellcasters of mana, preventing them from being able to cure them or their fellow allies of the illness, allowing it to sink in that bit longer. The Harpies Drain Mana spell can also be used on more offensive enemy spellcasters that pose a large threat to the fragile Dark Elven units. However, Harpies aren't particularly too adapt for taking on such units and require flocks of them to pull of their abilities. But once achieved, you can then swamp the enemy with Spiders, Skeletons, Assassins and Dark Archers without the fear of having them all wiped out by spells akin to Call Lightning or Ring of Fire.

Blackguard - Dark Elf General
Blackguards are generals designed for spying or hit and run attacks. They perform well in most senses but are physically weaker compared to something like a Giant. However, they only take up one of your army points and could be produced en masse for a powerful infantry force. Although with a two minute production time, it will take a while to form. Also, while undocumented in game, they are capable of inflicting Poison.

Storm Dragon - Elite Flier
The Dark Elves can use Storm Dragons like an uber Harpy - provoking enemy spellcaster to use their magic immediately or run the risk of loosing it altogether. Unlike Harpies, Storm Dragons can withstand a lot of punishment, allowing them to take every non-Hero spell in the game. As the Dark Elves have quite a lot of fragile infantry that can't afford to take some multi-hitting spells, the Storm Dragon can come in and save the day - even it it falls in the process. Interestingly, the Storm Dragon works great along side the Dark Elves other Dragon choice - the Dragonliche. With the Dragonliche being resistant to psychical projectiles, the enemy would want to focus elemental attacks against it, almost all of which come from spellcasters which the Storm Dragon can drive away. With some clever play with both Dragon types (or / and a large flock of Harpies instead / with the Storm Dragon) and you can make your already difficult to take down Dragonliche nigh unstoppable.

Dragonliche - Elite Flier
The Dragonliche has always been a monster to deal with, more so than any other Dragon. Although the Dark Elves have access to other missile fodder units (Skeletons and Spiders), the Dragonliche can simply ruin anyone's day. With a Dragonliche spearheading the Dark Elven assault drawing fire away from their units, the otherwise fragile Dark Elven race will stay around much longer. However, the Dragonliche isn't indestructible and the enemy can take it down with elemental attacks with the same effort as taking down any other Dragon. Although elemental missile units are much rarer, you still don't want your incredibly expensive unit pried upon as easy as something much cheaper. And this is where Harpies and the Dark Elves second Dragon choice, the Storm Dragon, can help out. Most elemental missile units come from spellcasters who the two unit types specialize in debilitating, allowing the Dragonliche to maintain its focus on drawing typical missile fire towards it and away from the rest of the Dark Elven army.

Kargoth - Dark Elf Titan
Kargoth is quite possibly the worst Titan in the game. (We're not off to a very good start, are we?) His stats are overall much lower than all other Titans, his attack type is poor for a ranged attack and his death explosion is the weaker Rings of Ice. (Note: The Rings of Ice aren't actually weaker than the fire counterparts, but as buildings are weak to fire it makes the Rings of Fire the superior one as they can level buildings in a large area around them.) Kargoth isn't all bad, though, he does have one thing going for him over the other Titans, and even many units in the game - his speed. With a high speed of 16, there is little that can out run him, making Kargoth good for chasing down fleeing powerful units that need to rest off their wounds before striking back later. By being a ranged Titan, and a frail one at that (by Titan standards), Kargoth will need a lot of support to function well - having him guarded at all times to prevent enemy melee units from engaging him.