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 Jancoran wrote:
It is strange to hear such doom and gloom. Dark Eldar are pretty slick in my opinion. But maybe it's a meta thing. Maybe there's just some places where the armies have Dark Eldar "figured out" or something wierd like that, but that just seems unlikely to me. .

Yes it is strange for a codex that got loads of boosts from the change to 6th, benefits greatly from the general shift to foot based infantry lists and is probably one of the most tactically stimulating and thrilling armies to play in all 40k.

I really I don't see what's causing all this gloom? Did I miss something?

 Jancoran wrote:
Its been a shmashing army for tournies for a long time for me.

Agreed despite what the internet says Sisters have quite a decent codex, not to mention one of the most under costed and annoying HQ choices in the game. I absolutely loath St Celestine, she is a celestial nightmare!

Continuing on the off topic-ness: Sisters really aren't that bad, their problem isn't the codex, it's the lack of love from GW.

On topic: I do feel a tad jealous of Eldar, I would love to run and shoot, they sound so much faster than us(I know I know, we're both fast army, but still!)... May be they could give us run and assault when we get our update... Teeheehee

Sisters/IG can be quite devastating actually. I played a game quite recently against a list using Jacobus in an IG blob with 3 autocannons and 3 power axes, St Celestine, 2 Sister squads in Repressors, 3 Exorcists, A CCS with Camo/Autocannon behind an Quad Aegis, a PCS with flamers in a Vendetta, 2x 3 Autocannon Sabre Platforms. This list had all the tools to make me sweat. I didn't want anything in reserve ( too much interceptor) had a tough time with his AGL cover saves, he had a fearless blob, a returning HQ - Celestine is way OP, and AV 13 vehicles .. really now. So anyone thinking that SoB are pushovers should rethink their assessments. Much like DE they are maligned as sub-par but with the right allies do they ever shine. I was playing a list with WKs and a Seer council and it went to turn four when we had to end the game ( time restraints). At the point the outcome was not predictable yet. Either of is could have pulled out a win. Imagine that turn one he can fire off 14 autocannon shots, and his three exorcists. On turn two I'm facing heavy flamers and four meltas. And St. Celestine on her own can handle any footslogging troop in my list easily. Of course I had extremely good cover saves and mansaged to get first turn - thankfully - and I have to say that WKs are so tough it's amazing and seer council has to be among the most annoying units in the game now.

So much for sub-par codexes. Both DE nad SoB in the right builds will compete.

 felixcat wrote:

So much for sub-par codexes. Both DE nad SoB in the right builds will compete.

Yes. yes they will.

Baronyu wrote:
I do feel a tad jealous of Eldar, I would love to run and shoot, they sound so much faster than us(I know I know, we're both fast army, but still!)...

That's a huge misconception, they are not faster than us, and battle focus does not change that.

They have no open topped transports, this reduces their mobility in several ways, they can't assault out of transports, they can't shoot out of transports without disembarking, and they can't embark into a transport 6" away, move 6" with the transport (to get 12" movement) and still be able to shoot out of their transport (tricks like these are what make Dark Eldar shine). They have no units that can do damage while redeploying 48", bladevanes are an incredibly powerful mechanic.

Finally the biggest downside to battle focus, is you have to be on foot to use it and are therefore inherently slower. All battle focus does is give you the illusion of speed. Sure jump shoot jump is cute, a nice mechanic, but in no way does it make eldar faster than their Dark Eldar brethren.

Baronyu wrote:
May be they could give us run and assault when we get our update... Teeheehee

That would be terrible and so boring to play with, one of the great things about 6th is units like wyches and hellions got to shoot their weapons before assaulting (in 6th they would use fleet to charge after running and not be able to shoot). Your suggested rule would just bring us full circle, not to mention we have a lot of shooting based units that would not benefit from it at all. Good army wide special rules should benefit the whole army, not just a few units.

Night vision and power from pain are both very potent, if anything all we need is a slight re-tweak of power from pain (the change from 4+ FNP to 5+ FNP made it less valuable on certain units). Power from pain is a fantastic way of making a glass cannon army more forgiving, as the more damage you do the more resilient your surviving forces get.

We don't need some assault after running gimmick it doesn't do anything for us.

"Good army-wide rules should benefit the entire army" and then you go on to praise Night Vision, which does what for assault units?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
"Good army-wide rules should benefit the entire army" and then you go on to praise Night Vision, which does what for assault units?

True night vision doesn't do anything for assault units, that being said the rules for night fight already benefit assault units and hinder shooting units (by improving cover). So night vision is a clever way of making both ranged and assault units benefit from the night fight special rules.

A better argument would be why doesn't power from pain affect vehicles? Though traditionally vehicles have rarely benefited from army wide special rules. Another argument would be that furious charge from power from pain doesn't benefit shooting units (preferred enemy would have been better).

At the end of the day special rules of the Dark Eldar benefit every unit in the codex one way or another. Vehicles are shooting platforms and benefit from night vision, shooting units benefit from night vision and power from pain and assault units benefit from power from pain. Flyers being the main exceptions they only benefit from night vision if their is night fight at the end of the game.

My point being that "battle focus" is only beneficial to a small subset of eldar units (infantry shooting units & war walkers), an assault version of "battle focus" would have similar limitations (even more so considering how much stronger shooting is this edition).

I hope that explains more clearly where I was coming from.

When I was thinking of picking up Dark Eldar as a second army a few months back and reading through Battle Reports and the codex, the things that basically prevented me from getting into them was:

- Cover changed game-wide to 5+ : With how fragile the Dark Eldar are, I saw way too many units in their codex that relies on their Cover Save to keep them resilient. The nerf of Cover hurts Dark Eldar more than a lot of other Xenos armies that can fall back on their armor saves.
- Feel no Pain changed to 5+ : While I think it's definitely true that TOO MANY UNITS in 40k have Feel No Pain (I feel it should be a much more rare ability) again, Dark Eldar rely on it to give their units any kind of resiliency. Nerfing it to 5+ seems like it would significantly negatively affect them.

With these two things combined I just thought that Dark Eldar would be more Glass than Cannon, and I just don't think I'd enjoy playing them much, so I didn't get them. I did just purchase the new Eldar though, and I'm really looking forward to buying a Dark Eldar allied detachment because I love the Dark Eldar models so much.

Murrdox wrote:
When I was thinking of picking up Dark Eldar as a second army a few months back and reading through Battle Reports and the codex, the things that basically prevented me from getting into them was:

- Cover changed game-wide to 5+ : With how fragile the Dark Eldar are, I saw way too many units in their codex that relies on their Cover Save to keep them resilient. The nerf of Cover hurts Dark Eldar more than a lot of other Xenos armies that can fall back on their armor saves.
- Feel no Pain changed to 5+ : While I think it's definitely true that TOO MANY UNITS in 40k have Feel No Pain (I feel it should be a much more rare ability) again, Dark Eldar rely on it to give their units any kind of resiliency. Nerfing it to 5+ seems like it would significantly negatively affect them.

With these two things combined I just thought that Dark Eldar would be more Glass than Cannon, and I just don't think I'd enjoy playing them much, so I didn't get them. I did just purchase the new Eldar though, and I'm really looking forward to buying a Dark Eldar allied detachment because I love the Dark Eldar models so much.

Not sure I buy that other Xenos can really fall back on their armor saves, they might be more durable for other reasons, but armor saves is typically not it.

Nids, average save is a 5+
Eldar on troops is usually 4+ or 5+
Orks 6+
Daemons (nothing, but 5++)
Tau 4+ or 6+ on troops


Necrons are really the only ones that can rely on armor saves for durability.

I think the amount of ignores cover in the last two books hurt more than the reduction of cover and FNP to 5+, it was easy enough to get 4+ or 3+ cover still (going to ground, aegis, psychic powers from eldar) but now that gets ignored.

Breng77 wrote:


I think the amount of ignores cover in the last two books hurt more than the reduction of cover and FNP to 5+, it was easy enough to get 4+ or 3+ cover still (going to ground, aegis, psychic powers from eldar) but now that gets ignored.

You're absolutely right about "Ignores Cover". It's like that rule is 6th Edition's over-reliance of Feel no Pain. More and more battle reports that I read nowadays include that silly Skyshield Landing Pad for that exact reason. The Tau book is especially filled with it.

- Cover changed game-wide to 5+ : With how fragile the Dark Eldar are, I saw way too many units in their codex that relies on their Cover Save to keep them resilient. The nerf of Cover hurts Dark Eldar more than a lot of other Xenos armies that can fall back on their armor saves.
- Feel no Pain changed to 5+ : While I think it's definitely true that TOO MANY UNITS in 40k have Feel No Pain (I feel it should be a much more rare ability) again, Dark Eldar rely on it to give their units any kind of resiliency. Nerfing it to 5+ seems like it would significantly negatively affect them.

With these two things combined I just thought that Dark Eldar would be more Glass than Cannon, and I just don't think I'd enjoy playing them much, so I didn't get them. I did just purchase the new Eldar though, and I'm really looking forward to buying a Dark Eldar allied detachment because I love the Dark Eldar models so much.

It is easy enough to look at units that have not improved and ignore those theat are actually better. I've found that DE play better now.

1) A Grot squad with an Archon and a Haemie in a raider will do damage ... new codexes have done nothing to change my Grotstar and I find less armies are prepared to get into cc with them
2) Beastpacks are just changing their build slightly to comform to the new meta. I have a friend at the LGS that runs a large squad with Jain Zar and Vect. Good luch handling them.
3) Mushkilla has proven time again how much reavers excell in 6ed even with the new Tau, Eldar etc.
4) I play a Seer Council with the Baron and the unit is really annoying to play against and does not entirely rely on cover saves ( protect/fortune are still pretty god, hit and run still works, the baron can take some hits for the squad)

So if you pick Wyches as an example of why DE is no longer as good as it once was you do the codex a disservice. We aren't playing any units in a vacuum. Do DE have the tools to field a competitive list? Do I use an AGL, do I use a an aliied detachment? Do I play them pure? There are choices to be made for sure. But there are strong units still in the codex.

 felixcat wrote:

i love my Dark Eldar. It's always been the case that they will lose fast if you make a mistake, but things have definitely gotten much worse for them.

Respectfully, there is a large contingent of platers, myself included and no Mush included that feel DE have gotten better with the introduction of 6ed. Which leads me to this ...

Without allies?

 Juicifer wrote:
Without allies?

Yes without allies.

I have yet to field allies in 6th edition and I do just fine against a large variety competitive lists. I linked some battle reports (with pictures) earlier in this thread (middle of page 3).

Though attempting to argue that Dark Eldar need allies to compete and are therefore bad is a flawed argument. All the top armies out there will run allies of some sort (especially in higher point games): Tau with windrider jetbikes and a farseer, space wolves with an imperial guard infantry blob and so on.

Dark Eldar do just fine without allies, but like any other army allies can help you shore up some of the weaknesses in your list and be a strong addition to your force.

Hope that helps.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 Juicifer wrote:
Without allies?

Yes without allies.

I have yet to field allies in 6th edition and I do just fine against a large variety competitive lists. I linked some battle reports (with pictures) earlier in this thread (middle of page 3).

Though attempting to argue that Dark Eldar need allies to compete and are therefore bad is a flawed argument. All the top armies out there will run allies of some sort (especially in higher point games): Tau with windrider jetbikes and a farseer, space wolves with an imperial guard infantry blob and so on.

Dark Eldar do just fine without allies, but like any other army allies can help you shore up some of the weaknesses in your list and be a strong addition to your force.

Hope that helps.

I agree that just about every army will use allies to make it better. However, I think that there are a fair few codices that can survive without allies (GK, Crons, Eldar, Tau, IG) whereas I think DE are mostly sub-par without Eldar allies.

Obviously that is just my experience speaking and some of you folks have had vastly different experiences (not discounting them). I just find that DE have a few more counters than most other armies in the game (namely Tesla Crons with Flyers, Tau, IG and Serpent Spam).

 Mushkilla wrote:

 Juicifer wrote:
Without allies?

Yes without allies.

I have yet to field allies in 6th edition and I do just fine against a large variety competitive lists. I linked some battle reports (with pictures) earlier in this thread (middle of page 3).

Though attempting to argue that Dark Eldar need allies to compete and are therefore bad is a flawed argument. All the top armies out there will run allies of some sort (especially in higher point games): Tau with windrider jetbikes and a farseer, space wolves with an imperial guard infantry blob and so on.

Dark Eldar do just fine without allies, but like any other army allies can help you shore up some of the weaknesses in your list and be a strong addition to your force.

Hope that helps.

Great battle reports, they were very well played I think.

For the record ... yet another report on how DE fare well in 6ed

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7118-death-or-glory-aldershot-ardboyz-29th-30th-tournament-uk

Now he did not win the event but his observations are quite useful.

 Makutsu wrote:
With the new Tau and Eldar release, it's hard to notice that DE seems to be outgunned, out manoeuvred, out numbered, out strengthed etc...

Dark Eldar bring an absurd amount of firepower to the table. How are they outgunned? Also, Fast Skimmers abound in the Codex coupled with decent range on many of their weapons, so how are they out maneuvered? Consider:

Raiders, Ravagers and Razorwing Fighters come with Dark Lances for free, and you can swap them out (for free!) for Disintegrator Cannons.

Venoms can bring two Splinter Cannons for 65 points, putting out 12 shots and carrying a small unit which can also shoot.

You are looking at 60 points to bring 5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades before you count their Venom (which you should take if not a Raider). These Wyches get Combat Drugs and a 4++ (in close combat) and can assault out of their vehicle after it moves (6" movement + 6" disembark + Charge with Fleet; that's a fairly decent threat range). 125 points is fairly cheap for a scoring unit with that much versatility.

All your Fast Skimmers can move 12" and fire two weapons at full BS (Ravagers all 3); most have 2 some have 3. You get to tack that on to the weapon's range to get your actual threat range. Given the deployment options, you are likely going to be able to shoot at full effect on Turn 1.

These Fast Skimmers can Turbo Boost 18" instead of shooting. They all get 5+ Cover Saves just for moving, 4+ when Turbo Boosting, all without you having to pay for Flicker Shields

Razorwing Fighters are fairly good. AV10 is worrysome, but they can take down enemy Flyers well enough. I'd take one at least, and probably use allied Eldar for a second Flyer.

Scourges aren't that bad (fairly mediocre though); only source of Shardcarbines other than Trueborn IIRC, which put out a lot of shots (hurray Assault 3!). Jump Infantry with a 4+ Save and a comparatively cheap Dark Lance option, though I'd rather bring a Heat Lance probably.

Hellions are still fairly decent, especially if The Baron is along to make them scoring.

And finally you are battle brothers with Eldar who have some solid choices to bring to help you.

 Makutsu wrote:
Overall, I just don't see anything that DE can bring to the table that others cannot beat easily.
On top of that I just don't see a TAC list that DE can bring. Hence a bottom tier army.
What do you guys think?

I think you haven't really thought it through or don't fully understand all the 6E rules and how they affect Dark Eldar units. Dark Eldar are fast and hit hard in the shooting phase, and can really do a number in the assault phase. Their one worry is anti-armor, so if you played in 5E what did you do against all those mech lists? I'd say overall 6E helped Dark Eldar as a Codex. You have to play them a bit differently than you did in 5E, but they aren't bottom tier.

Their a glass cannon. Always have been, always will be. What weaknesses they do have can be shored up with Eldar allies now though.

Honestly, this thread kind of surprises me. I'm not sure how you could possibly qualify Dark Eldar as bottom tier when you have armies like Blood Angels and Black Templar (or Tyranids, some may say; though personally I've seen them doing rather well in 6E).

Edit: I'm curious, what did you do in 5E against all those mech lists if you think Dark Eldar are bad in 6E? The only weakness that glares at me is that consolidated sources of anti-tank, and all of those being Lance weapons (which is a mixed bag; though I like the idea of it).

Not to mention hull points have also made DE AT a lot less likely be ineffective due to poor penetrate rolls. In 5th sometimes it would take forever for lances to destroy things, at least in 6th if you pen something three times it's gone.

I think I'm in the "don't fully know the rules camp", though one thing I've come to hate is my transport being blown up, which wounds the occupants on a 4+, for which they only get a 5+ save. Some remain, who then promptly get curb stomped by that large unit of Fire Warriors...

For me, the armour save across the board is pitiful, though that's the Eldar aesthetic I guess...

Also not not to mention that the beastpack with jar is very good and now we can incorporate the seer council with baron for an amazing deathstar. You might notice I love deathstars ... DE with Eldar have some of the best ...

 kitch102 wrote:
which wounds the occupants on a 4+

S4 explosions wound T3 models on a 3+, so even more of your models should be dying! I still don't know why they got rid of the 5th edition rule that made open top transports only inflict S3 hits when they exploded (only wounding us on a 4+). :(

It did hurt us and overwatch made us rethink our wyche squads. But you cannot expect everything to improve.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 kitch102 wrote:
which wounds the occupants on a 4+

S4 explosions wound T3 models on a 3+, so even more of your models should be dying! I still don't know why they got rid of the 5th edition rule that made open top transports only inflict S3 hits when they exploded (only wounding us on a 4+). :(

Really? My mini rule book says S3 hit, I'm sure of it

 kitch102 wrote:
Really? My mini rule book says S3 hit, I'm sure of it

S3 is if you are caught in the d6" explosion. The passengers take a S4 hit (BRB page 80, Effects of damage on passengers, Explodes!).

Excellent, my gripe is even stronger now! Lol

The obvious solution is not to start your troops embarked. A gunboat still works ...

Not when your tactic is to get a gunboat or 2 loaded with warriors in rapid fire range to take advantage of splinter rack rerolls.

Granted, I could probably change my tactic, though when I'm facing off against static Tau I need to close that gap as quickly as possible, which means getting on a gun boat.

Could possibly run a WWP - not tried that yet - though I've seen a lot of folks talk ill of them. Still, might be something to experiment with...

WWP are just not what they WERE. That doesn't make them bad. But players are OFTEN negative nellies about anything that "gets worse". Its some form of thereapy for them to throw the baby out with the bath water.

It is less useful and you're not wrong to seek another tactic BUT...WWP is still useful.

Cool.

Just to run a theoretical tactic past you then (I've leant my brb out so nothing to check against)

Could I deepstrike a raider, disembark the occupants amd drop a wwp in the same turn? Dsing a unit of grotesques with a haemy or 2 slap in the middle of his units would be lovely, especially if it meant my units could arrive in rapid fire range without needing to cross the board after

You could, but I'm not sure if you even need to disembark to place a WWP. The biggest problem I see though is... What happen if the units that need the WWP entry enter first? And if you're already deepstriking, why not just have your gunboats deepstrike(Duke or retrofire) and not have all the confusion of having to somehow, magically, have the WWP placer units arrive before the WWP entry units? Also, grotesques may be tough, but if you have little on the table to distract, you'd just have placed an unit of 10-ish wounds T5 zero save, except FNP in the middle of double tap range... who also can't do much except placing the WWP and being shot at. Annnd... How many points are you dumping into the reserve force? Grotesques are quite expensive. Remember you need 50% of your force on the table, and you wouldn't want them to be too fragile.