Cold ones bus

To be honest, the very last place you want a SS is in close combat... and that exactly where you want the COK to go. Put the SS on a Dark Pegasus or bunker her in another unit.

It's a shame, though, because the SS on Cold One model is pretty nice. It works better with a lance or sword replacing the staff on the model, making her a combat character (or the champion) instead of a SS.

Looks like a pretty good bus to me. Maybe you could give the Dread Knight the Sword of Might so that he will always strike at S5 and not suffer from rubber lance syndrome. He can also help out with any Ethereal units that may come your way, (It'd suck to have your 1000 pt bus held up by a little unit of ghosts!) and since he'd be the only one with a magical weapon, he'd be your only chance to hit them.

I don't see much of a problem with having your Supreme Sorceress in with the COKs since she'll be in the second rank. The Cold One will give her a 5+ armor save in addition to the 4++ ward save and being nestled in a big unit of 2+ armored knights should keep her quite safe. The problem comes when you lose a Master or your Dread Knight in a challenge. She'll have to move to the front and that's when she'll get assaulted like crazy. Still, a 5+, 4++ is a pretty good save for a caster! If you want to try a trick with her and make her a tad more deadly, give her the Gem of Spite and let her go to town on enemy wizards. It may not be the greatest item, but can potentially be problematic for your opponent, especially if you are going to be throwing a lot of dice at spells. The Lore of Shadows is a rather expensive lore, so the likelihood of rolling a miscast increases with this lore. And you are correct, if you run Shadow, you'll want her close to the action, but protected somehow. I think nestling her in this unit is one of the best ways to do this. True, a Dark Pegasus is really good for her to get into a safe position, but your opponents apparently LOVE to take war machines which would be her greatest threat, being exposed on a DP like that. I say give it a try and see what happens.

FYI - I had a friend who's favorite build was a HE Dragon Prince bus (this is also where I learned the benefit of taking the Sword of Might {Sword of Battle when facing some horde armies like Skaven or Goblins} on the unit Champ). It was much the same as your build here, the only exception was that HE can strike in three ranks...because they're HE. So if you took 3 ranks of 5, you'd have all 15 models attacking. I never saw any opponent withstand a charge from them. You could come close to this just by expanding your frontage to 6 or 7 wide, but that would expose your SS. In this case, I'd put her in a unit of Dark Riders and let them "shadow" behind the COKs. They could act as her screen. You'd lose a point of armor save on her, but theoretically, that shouldn't be a problem. (In this case, I wouldn't take the Gem of Spite, because this will limit the 12" radius of the item even more.) This might be a good alternative to maximize your attacks.

Yeah, the only real downside to Cold Ones is stupidity, but with a Master in the unit, as well as a BSB, then the liklihood of them failing a Stupidity test is very slim. I think that's greatly outweighed by the 2 S4 attacks and +2 to armor saves (Thick Skinned).

Empire have a Warrior Priest (for Prayers and Hatred), BSB for rerolls, Grand Master for Ld9 (as high as they can get from a character other than Karl Franz), and buff wagons that can tag along behind them for bubble buffs. Other than that, wizards. But as you mentioned, their knights are core and can have a 1+ armor save with Lances. Personally, I prefer the 2+ armor save with Great Weapons. Those never lose their S5 attacks.

Personally, I might give the unit the Standard of Discipline so that they'd be Ld10, since they'll have to take all those Stupidity tests. That will also allow you to give the Banner of Swiftness to a foot unit (like Witch Elves), allowing them to get into the safety of Close Combat even faster!

The Lore of Shadow works really well with Dark Elves because they are so offensively minded. They hit fast and hard. The whole reason they win, is because they can do MASSIVE amounts of damage, all before their opponents can swing! If there is a spell that can weaken their opponent and make their death-dealing even more effective, then it's a good spell for them. That's what the Lore of Shadow does for them. It's also why Dark Magic works so well in conjunction with the Lore of Shadow. Weaken your opponent, then hit them with heavy offensive magic.

How did it go?