Since I'm rejoining the lovely world of warhammer and my first game is probably going to be against Darkelf's:

What is the biggest and smallest threat when playing against Darkelf's nowadays?

They are essentially the 6th edition army, only better.

They still have core fast cavalry (and fliers), which couple dwith their above average Movement value, makes them quite maneouverable. Not as much as WE, but still high in the "decide where the action is happening" department.

Their magic is quite good, with their free power dice spell. Thankfully, they seem lacking in the bound item department, with just two bound spells: one assasin only, and the other just for high sorceresses. Besides "Power of Darkness" the dark lore has chillwind, which is just nasty against woodies, as units which suffer one wound cannot shoot the next turn.
Anyway, most of the dark elf accesible lores need LoS for most spells, which makes mage hunting (expensive mages, to boot) somewhat easier. And the main use of the Focus familiar (which is hiding inside a wood and not worrying about the enemy) is negated by treesinging, so...
another popular item is the Sacrificial dagger, which kills one model in the sorceress unit (bet it'll be warriors) gives her a free dice for the spell. If there is a sorceress inside a unit of warriors, it is a good idea to send some sacrifical unit of your own (glade riders, eagle, warhawks, dryads if the need arises) and aim as many attacks at the witch as possible.
Bear in mind, sensible dark elf players will know this, and if he has an assassin, this unit is a good place for them.

On the dark elf Lore:
chillwind is a nightmare, doombolt is nasty but short ranged.
Word of pain is a terrific debuff (WS and BS reduced to 1 for one turn, may be cast into combat),
Bladewind is quite like a 2d6S4 hit spell, but it may target (one attack) at characters and champions inside units
Soul Stealer is not as good against wood elves, and extremely short ranged, but still packs a punch
Black horror is, from the druchii PoV, a laugh. For the opponent, not at all (and according to the last errata and FAQ, I'd say it ignores magical resistance, which is just a cherry on top of the icing for your cake)

Next comes shoting. Double shooting at a good BS is no good news for us. Get rid of enemy shooters ASAP. Especially shades. If they scout inside a wood, treesing them to death before they can react. If they don't, or you can't, you are probably needing forest spirits to do the trick. Dryads should inflict enough casualties to rout them, but the dark elf scouts may be carrying an assassin. If you have a treeman nearby, try to strangle root the shades on the way to combat.

Finally combat. Hatred gives dark elves a NASTY first round. Against this, besides the woodie trademarked tactic of hitting from so many places that the unit doesn't know what hit them, you can use hatred against them. Charge a cheap unit into their flank (eagle, scouts, glade riders). If you break, he has to pursue, which means he will spend a turn or more going back to the right direction.

Three big threats:
Assassins.
ASF, quite a load of attacks with hatred. Nothing you can do with it, except try to guess if your opponent has one (they're around 120 points, if that's of any use) and where it might be. Once you discover them, try not to engage them, and crush the unit form the flank.
Good hiding places: warriors with Sacrificial dagger sorceress, shades.
Black guard.
Just. Plain. Nasty. Odds are they'll have Banner of Hag Graef (strike first), and thus my advice is this: once you've got rid of shooting units and dark riders, shoot EVERYTHING you have against them. Engage only when you can wipe them out, if anything; as Stubborn, ItP on Ld9 is pretty much the same as unbreakable.
March interdict, ignore, turn them into hedgehogs. You can fight other units, but engaging a more-than-6 black guard unit is asking for having that unit trapped a couple of turns. Not a good idea.


Hydra.
7 hatred S5 attacks is bad enough, but its buddies have 3 AP attacks each. To top it, S5 (altough it drops if you wound the thing) breath weapon, and regeneration. Since beasamesters don't suffer random hits from shooting or magic, if you've got pageant of shrikes or hunter's talon, killing the beastmasters and maybe causing a monster check may be better than aiming at wizards. A suicide charge from glade riders (from the rear, ideally) and aiming as much attacks as possible to the masters is another option.
I don't really know how to deal with them, but have something clar: if the Hydra engages one of your units, said unit is pretty much done for. If you dual charge the thing, you'll probably lose, too.
And it is quite hard to hurt with magic or shooting.
thus, my not very useful advice: hydras are the DE steam tank. Try to ignore it and minimise its impact, concentrate on the rest.

Fun fact: my 18 strong, non-ASF, no BSB nearby, black guard held against a block of empire swordsmen, a block of greatswords, an empire general, BSB AND priest for 5 player turns before dying. Of course, on that very turn came the hydra and a cold one chariot, and the empire knew pain. Loads of horrible, painful pain. You don't want to engage the black guard unless you are blood-knight nasty, at the very least.

Another considerations:
Ring of Hotek is a 25 point item (meaning any hero, black guard or cold one knight champion can carry it, although it is not advisable on sorceresses) that makes you miscast on any double if you cast or target a spell from/at 12 inches of the bearer. Popular choices are black guards or BSBs, but there are no guarantees.
Pendant of Kaeleth is the best ward save in the game. So, as a rule of thumb, it is better to attack the unit instead of characters. If the unit breaks, the character's pretty ward won't do a thing to save him.

Not so bad enemies:
The Khainite units are not bad, but they pale in comparison with the black guard. Executioners strike last, and are expensive. S6 with killing blow, though, don't send valuable characers near them. Witch elves make an insane ammount of poisoned attacks, but tend to die like flies, being T3 and no armour at all.
Cold ones are fear causing, high strength cavalry. Better than the Khainite elites, but still nothing you should worry especially about. If stupidity screws them, make sure you can exploit that. Same goes for cold one chariots, actually.
Corsairs are not the best thing in combat, although they're fairly tough against shooting. The usual infantry treatment ought to be enough.

Good points Elhann - Karma for you!

Some additional ones from me.

Fear any khainite units within 12" of a cauldron as it is Stubborn. Same applies to any unit led by a Death Hag.

Pendant of Khaeleh - Throw Wardancers at it with Med. Strength KB attacks.

Hydra - I aint scared of 1, 2 makes me queasy. A treeman or 3-4 treekin can easily ruin a hydras day. Or better yet, destroy a DE unit within 6" of the beasty and force it to panic test.

When fighting DE it's key to destroy the fast support units quickly (Dark Riders, Shades and Harpies). I would then concentrate fire on either CC units or try to whittle down the xbow units as they can really dish out the pain.

Thanks.

So very true. I couldn't agree more with this.
That, and one of these days, I will learn to write what I want to say with less words.

Shooting is very effective against the new DE.

They can also lay down a huge amount of magic damage, which can be very painful for us. I've played a few magic heavy Dark Elf lists (mainly vs my HE), and their extra dice combined with that focus familiar can really bring "the pain"

Don't skimp on Magic defense and try to get to those mages.

March block Cold One knights if he has them. They are slow and stupid. If they rarely get to march it will hurt his battle plan. If they don't march AND fail a stupidity check, they'll become useless to him. I run mine with the Hydra banner BSB, so I'm relying heavily on them making a difference in the game. If they get left behind or too far off to one side it can be horribly frustrating.

I've faced out Dark cousins several times and the results have been universally unpleasant.
We may have longer-ranged archery than them, but once those RXBs get into range, then they can't half dish it out and they can move & shoot.
Their fast cav were and still are the best in the buisness.
With universal high Leadership, Coldones rarely go stupid, the idea of march-blocking them is fine, but whatever's doing the blocking is going to get peppered with RXB bolts, or toasted by a Hydra (Or two, if the army's well-tooled up!)
Beware of stuff that gets "Eternal Hatred" and ASF.
Beware of the Lord with the high AS & "Reverse Ward Save".
Beware of Assassins, their Throwing Stars are highly lethal against even Treemen.
Their magic, makes our seem like kiddies' party magic.
On the plus side, Harpies are pretty useless!

I hope this is sarcasm.

Harpies are possibly the single most effective unit in the army point for point.

Well, thats a bit bold Especially with things like Hydras and and Black guard running around.

Hmm what would be tougher to defeat 2000 points of Hyrdas or 2000 points of Harpies.

But I would agree that harpies are pretty usueful, and I tend to see them a lot more than I used to.

Yar - but those units really have only 1 job. Combat.

Harpies can
Marchblock
Mage Hunt
War Machine Hunt
Kill Smallish support units
Divert
Bait
Sacrifice

All for a paltry 11 pts a model.

And they don't panic any friendly models.

Elhänns post gives all the important advises, but I would like to point out that shooting is our strongest weapon against DE. 3 units of glade guard can quickly diminish their ranks and with the aid of glade riders you can destroy the support elements before they get a chance to have an impact in the game.

Excequtioners are one unit that most people look down at, but IMO it is an excellent unit. With str 6 and killing blow the unit can fill a role that only cold one knights can do in a DE army. Excequtioners will just cut through high armour save troops, or monsters with a good T. If the unit is carrying the banner of murder (armour piercin attacks) the ability to take down knights is even better, though this doesn't concern wood elves, and that standard is much better on corsairs.

I usually take one unit of 18 and it is always joined by an assassin who is more than cabable to kill most infantry RnF. With 5-7 poisoned killing blow attacks he will reduce the potential attacks against the excequtioners. If there is a caludron the unit can dish out an insane amount of punishment, or if joined by a hag bsb with standard of hag graef.

The war hydra is a very strong monster, that can't be denied. The best way to take it down in combat is to charge it with a spirit sword wielding alter highborn, but this is quite risky. Chances would be much better if you could take a few wounds from it with shooting. Massed GG close range arrows could do enough damage.

Just from reading the posts I am thinking HoDa would be a good thing to take, as 3D6 S4 shots is a good way of getting rid of lightly armoured T3 units (witch elves, executioners, black guard, fast cav).

Since they are also elves, the one thing you know is that the more different nasty elite units he brings, the smaller hid entire army will be because of the high point's cost/model [disclaimer-I have not seen the new DE book, but I would presume they haven't suffered a drastic reduction in price if they have so much special stuff]. Ergo, enough archery into squishy T3 bodies means that you can reduce their units down to a managable size & then dryad spam them to death.

General question to all-Have RBTs changed or do they remain as nasty as ever?

RBT's remain the same. Against druchii army that is oriented towards combat a moblie list with lots of shooting and some heavy hitters work very well.

If you're playing 2k+ I HIGHLY suggest the Suicide King (Highborn Alter; Spirit Sword, Helm of the Hunt). He'll kill Hydras pretty effectively (6 attacks, 4 hits, 1-2 past his Armour/Regen) thanks to the difference in LD. A few wounds earlier via shooting and you'll be well and truly set.

The BIGGEST threat the DE present, IMO, is their shooting (I include ranged magic here); it is far superior to what we Asrai bring to the table; the RBT is just so good. This means taht you kinda have to engage, which means knowing what is threatening. If possible, avoid Black Guard; they're a true tar pit. Same goes for the Hydra; a Treeman can take him, sometimes, but it takes *forever* and you're down 110 points more then him for your trouble. If you can line up the Treeman VS Hydra fight, go for it, but remember that everything else needs to be planned perfectly.

While keeping his units locked down, you need to charge his shooters (and fast units, of course) and overwhelm them. I've found Dryads and Wild Riders ideal; Wild Riders do well because of their speed (stick to forests so they don't get shot down too hard!) and Dryads do well because they're T4, 5+WS, and Skirmishers; woe be to the archers that have to line up on them!

Rush forward with Dryads, put your fast units in striking positions (ideally lined up on RBTs) and crush, while trying to hold down his Hydra; if there's no Hydra, engage the black guard with any anvil unit you have (treeman really is the winner here; anything else will probably get chopped down). If there's no Hydra OR Black Guard, throw a party! You can actually use your Tree for something effective! Engage a block after strangle-rooting, try to pick a fight with Cold Ones....take your pick! Just remember that Assassins can put a real hurting on anything; it's usually safe to assume the enemy has 1 or 2. If he/she is making a poitn of putting Shades 10.01 inches away from your unit, there is an assassin in there (which can be "revealed" closer and thus get 1'st turn charge). Units with Sorceresses will almost always have an Assassin bodyguard. Fortunately, our BEST targets (fast cav, arcers, etc) are usually the ones that DON'T have assassins, since they aren't worth the points to protect



umm...I think that covers all my good advice. I've had a pretty solid amount of luck VS Dark Elves; you have to be careful when attacking, but I've found engaging quickly and decisively is MANDATORY. It may cost you a game here and there, but far more often it'll lead you to victory; you won't likely be able to hide from them, and the longer you spend trying the more casualties you take without hurting them.