So I'm playing the knights of erebus map right now as the D.E. Everythin is fine and dandy till everyone starts to get bowman, then things get a little rough. Does anyone have suggestions for this or for any other underhanded, coniving, and stealthy D.E tactics?

Might want a mod to move this to strategies also! Sorry, havnt posted much. forum noob.

And I only play conquest also, so offensive strategies are preffered.

i think that the 'mist' (a level 2 summoner spell has hidden nationality), with Faeryl's arcane trait you should have at least 10 conjourer/summoner,
just use the mists to sofften up the cities for your nightwatch/assasin. also you should build the shadowriders, you must have this unit if you are playing a hidden nationality game.

What about open war? I know its not the specialty of the dark elves but still. Someone might declare war on me.

Try bribing your enemies enemies into declaring on them.

While I haven't tried this with the Svartalfar yet, I think Elves can fare quite well even in open wars. With the Svarts you have the advantage for Recon units, start with a number of Hunters promote them well (Faeryl is Raider so gaining XPs is no problem at all). Concentrate of Recon units line and upgrade your promoted Hunters.

IMO, Svarts should adopt FoL early in the game whether they will convert to CoE later or not. Priests of Leaves can cast Poisoned Blade on your Recon units adding +1 Poison strength (Mages can cast it as well but the priests have access to it so early- before you get mages ). With 2 Movement + Commando a stack of promoted Hunters/later Rangers is quite deadly.

If you got a raw mana node you should also build a fire node. Have a number of mages with fire balls. Upgrade them later to Archmages and use the devastating Meteor Swarm.