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After reading through the Planet strike rule book i was struck by how many advantages Dark Eldar get.

First major advantage Dark Eldar get are, they are always the attacker. What, you say, any one can be a defender? Not the Dark Eldar from page 4 of the DE codex "Piratical Raiders ....fluff... To represent this, in any mission where there is an attacker and defender, the Dark Eldar are always the attacker". Sweet so they can always use Hellish Cacophony (unless defender is really only going to take only 1 or 2 objectives?)

Hellish Cacophony (minus the turn number from the defenders LD) is stupidly powerful for DE, when you combine it with any of the following....
Terrorfex a gun widely available to DE. It fire a blast doesn't kill but does pin with -1 modifier if the unit is under half its starting strength and -1 per model hit if more then one model is hit, this gun will now very quickly pin defenders.
TrophyRacks on the vehicles if you within 6" enemy -1 to their LD (not cumulative so only -1 even if more then one vehicles is in range)
Torture Ampvehicles with these can tank charge these (and they're fast skimmers so that's covering up to 24")
Hell Masks in CC pass a LD test or you hitting that model on 6's

Mandrakes are always deployed at the start of the battle (its part of their hidden deployment rules). So first turn you can bog down some use full shooting units or simply jump into an empty building

Raiders and Ravagers can take scream jets that let them DS. (Given Disintergrators and a TerrorFex so every thing can still fire)

The normal decision of whether to field a Lord or Wych army go out the window since you can already field the same amount (and they're all scoring). In fact you could go as far as taking just 1 Haemonculus to cover the HQ choice (though personally i like the idea of take 9 of them ^_^) So in short Dark Eldar can pin you in fear and pick you apart at their leisure.

Gonna have to disagree Tri on the leadership tricks being effective, even in planetstrike. There are to many ways to ignore leadership modifiers these days.


Anymech list= additional layer of defense against leadership modification
Tyranids=fearless
Orcs=fearless
Daemons=fearless
CSM=Fearless or rerollable LD test
Meq= Can be stubborn or fearless
Daemonhunters=Fearless
Witchhunters= book of unmodifiable leadership + acts of faith.
IG= Stubborn with commissars


So even with the obvious attacker advantages the DE will have and hellish cacophony I don't see there being any unbalancing advantages in planet strike.

A side note 9 DS haemonculi with destructors is terrifying.

I simply play against too many 100% fearless opponents, I never have the chance to take advantage to leadership based attacks.

Just like any match up in 40k, there are totally one sided match ups. But in PS you know exactly what army you are going up against when you write your list, and chances are you know what your buddy is bringing.

So I see a stratagey like this as something with lots of potential, but easily countered by most armys.

It is completely fair to say that dark eldar would be great attackers.

And spending a moderate amount of points on leadership combos along with hellish cacaphony is totally worthwhile.

Do they auto-win? I doubt it. Until they have a resilient unit, then defender units rolling on from reserves are still going to be able to shred wyches and warriors from range, and pop armor 10 open topped vehicles.

If your defender opponent doesn't use reserves to counter-attack, you could rip apart his defenses rather quickly, and shoot open bastions with blasters. with cacaphony in play, that'll surely pin the people inside.

Beware unshaken quad-cannons when you deep strike your raiders. An active interceptor means your raiders are going to get hurt really bad before even getting a shooting phase.

I'm looking forward to defending against dark eldar with my IG. I've been perfecting my defensive strategies (I haven't used any impassable terrain, and don't plan to) And i totally look forward to the challenge.

Shep wrote:
I'm looking forward to defending against dark eldar with my IG. I've been perfecting my defensive strategies (I haven't used any impassable terrain, and don't plan to) And i totally look forward to the challenge.

I look forward to hearing a battle report.

@ every one. I know that dark eldar will be beatable but they have rather allot of bonuses that stack in their favour. Fearless is a great defence. Rerolls and stubborn aren't. Rerolling LD 4-6 is better then not having a reroll its still not good odds. Stubborn ignore negative modifiers against moral test, so the nasty pinning weapons will still be causing pinning tests at -3 (or more).

Sorry for the threadnomancy, but I felt this was specifically important for this thread to include, yet was not worth a whole new thread.

But the sneaky sneaky dark eldar can work their way around even the hardiest of troops.

Terrorfexes and Horrorfexes will still effect units that are fearless, and here's how:

The rules outline that Fearless units will automatically pass all pinning and morale checks. What the Terrorfex/Horrorfex calls for is neither. The rules specifically call for a leadership check that fill forthwith result in a pinned result. No pinning check is ever taken. Because there are different kinds of leadership checks other than morale and pinning (IE psychic) the fearless units must still take the test. Nids are the only exception because they explicitly can never be pinned. RAI, this is a load of crap, but I suppose if GW ever updated the book, they'd not have this sort of problem.

I learned this the hard way at a tournament. Darn good upgrade for 5 pts on a raider.

Really..... interesting.... I'm gonna have to look that up myself. (maniacal laughing)

I use horrorfexes on all my raiders, as standard, so good to know.

BTW, welcome to Dakka

Now, if only I could find someone who'll play Planet Strike.