Rumoured Dark Elf Rules

These have been posted on a few of the rumour sites, and given how close we are to a release these are likely to be fairly accurate:

New Releases

• All of the new models look great

• The DE Army book is written by Matt Ward

• The largest dual kit is the Cauldron of Blood which allows you to make either a Cauldron of Blood or a Bloodwrack Medusa. You can also use this kit to make the special character Crone Hellebron.

• The next dual kit is Witch Elves and the Sisters of Slaughter – Sisters of Slaughter are apparently the lost daughters of fallen noble houses and look great.

• The new DE Core box allows you to make your warriors with Spears, Swords and Shields or Repeater Cross-bows.

• The Dual Hydra/Kharibdyss kit looks pretty good, there are pictures of the Hydra with different paint schemes that actually look a lot better than the leaked photo we’ve already seen.

• The Special Character Shadowblade  is a single pose figure that will come in a clampack

• There is a Lore of Dark Magic Card set being released.

• Dark Elves now have the armywide special rule of ASF (unsure if this will apply to monsters/cold ones)

• Dark Elves also have Hatred but presumably only in the first round

• Black Guard have eternal hatred

• New Rule called murderous prowess allows Dark Elves to re-roll 1′s to wound. Unsure if this will extend to shooting and magic.

• There is a new Beastmaster Lord Level Character which costs 300 points when naked on a Manticore

• Witch Elves are core and 11 points per model. They can also take magical banners.

• A unit of 30 Spear Elves and of 30 Xbow Elves with Full command costs 390 points. Unsure what options were used but that means the warriors were 12 points per model.

• A DE Sorceress Hero looks to be 80 points

• Cauldrons of Blood still come out of Hero slots and look to have increased in points. They can join units and one of their powers allows a unit to re-roll to wound. In the Batrep a unit with a Cauldron and this buff up deletes a unit of Sobunz.

• Bloodwrack Medusas are rare and have a shooting attack called Bloodwrack Stare. Not sure what it does

• Hydras can now regain wounds in a manner similar to the Slann with the regen power of the old ones. They are now 180 points, have monster+handler but have to buy their breath weapon.

• Lore of Dark Magic – The attribute is called spiteful conjuration and does extra wounds to enemies that have spells cast on them. Unsure of how the mechanic works but could be similar to Tz lore attribute?

• Lore of Dark Magic – Only spell mentioned is called Word of Pain and it reduces WS/BS/I

• A Dreadlord with Heavy Armour and a Shield on a Black Dragon costs 449 points.

• Cold Ones are 30 points and have 2 Attacks, unsure if the cold ones themselves have ASF

My only concern with this is that having ASF, Hatred and rerolling ones seems excessive.  I would think only one or two of those rules would apply, or perhaps various units have one or two.

Regardless the models look stunning.  If you are a DE player you should be very, very happy.