54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
I am relatively new to Warhammer 40K, and I decided to play with Dark Eldar. Everyone seems to laugh and says that the army is just not capable of competing. That makes me love my Dark Eldar army even more... what better way to reap joy than to bash a few space marines or crush a necron force with an army that is touted as being inferior? I love when someone expects an easy victory, but ends up having a tough game or even a crushing defeat!
So, this thread will be dedicated to Dark Eldar armies, tactics, equipment, techniques, etc.
Lets have fun with it.
11060
Post by: Phototoxin
Erm... those people are idiots. DE are pretty nasty. Fragile. But nasty. Blasters, wyches ravagers. Go from there :-)
5301
Post by: Milisim
I've lost ONCE with my DE.
If these clowns in your FLGS think DE are weak they are in for some massive shock and awe when you start getting your list up to COMP STANDARDS.
Take 3 Ravagers STANDARD for 9 DARK LANCES that can move 12" and shoot them ALL.
Take 3 Venoms filled with 4 Trueborn Kabalites with BLASTERS.
That is 21 Dark Weapons... Just to start....
Wracks become troops choices with Haemy... Most likely the best bang for your buck HQ unit.. Buy him a Liq Gun.. also this unit comes with a Pain Token so load him up on a Raider with Wyches....
I love Incubi... I know it takes away 4 Blasters but something about hitting with 15 Power Weapons a turn makes me smile =]
Check out some of the good ARTICLES here on DakkaDakka... most Tactics and units are discussed to death...
I would say the DE are a top 3 army right now.... Your friends are in for a dose is reality soon.
42002
Post by: Kharrak
Just not capable of competing?
Every single Dark Eldar player would smile cruelly at that. They are a very frightening codex. They are a GOOD codex: They have their strengths and their weaknesses, and it balances it out quite fantastically. They are designed to work to their strengths, and avoiding their weaknesses, or at least pushing their strengths before their weaknesses become an issue.
They are extraordinarily fragile when they get hit, and they are completely unable to play attrition games. As such, they are completely built around the idea of hitting first, and destroying their target before it can hit/fire back. They rely extraordinarily on going first, to maximise this fact.
So, a very tricky race to play (more so than, say, Space Marines), but they can be excruciatingly cruel 
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
As I read many reports and tactic entries, I seem to find that many people don't have much love for the Reaver Jet Bikes. This confounds me in many ways.
The Reaver Jet Bike is a very useful tool. If used properly, it appears to be a constant thorn in your opponent's side, and small squads can also draw lots of attention away from your main army.
The Reaver Jet Bikes are amongst the fastest models in the game, and therefore, it is very important to use this speed. Does your opponent have tanks? Reavers can manage. Does your opponent have units of infantry in the open? Reavers can manage well. Does your opponent have control over their units or are they 'out of synapse' or 'blood thirsty'? Reavers can really assist.
Tanks versus Jet Bikes. The Reaver Jet Bikes can be armed with tank popping weapons. Some like the heat lance, while others prefer the blaster. Personally, I would always go with the blaster. You can have 1 blaster per 3 jetbikes in the squad, and the blaster is only 3 points more expensive than the heat lance. So, why a blaster over a heat lance? The blaster has the Lance rule, which reduces any attacked armour to 12. The range of the weapon is 18 inches, strength is 8 and the AP is 2. The heat lance has the Lance rule and the Melta rule, which allows a second D6 to be rolled when penetrating armour IF AT HALF RANGE OR LESS. The heat lance strength is 6, AP is 1 and range is 18 inches. Therefore, while the extra dice is nice for armour penetration, keep in mind that the strength is already lower than the blaster and the your bikes must be 9 inches away from the enemy or closer in order to apply this rule. Further, consider that you also have a chance of rolling a 1 or 2 on the extra dice, which really means that 1/3 of the time, you will simply end with the same result as if you had hit with a blaster, but now you are CLOSER to your enemy.
So to reiterate, the Blaster gives you the same chance of 'hitting' (BS remains same), and with S8 and Lance rule, you need to roll a 4 to Glance or a 5+ to penetrate (against most armies). Also, you keep your unit 18 inches away from the enemy. At 18 inches away from the enemy, the heat lance hits require a roll of 6 to Glance and Penetration is not possible against most vehicles (unless you are playing Dark Eldar! with armour 10s!!!). Given that the heat lance has an AP1, you would get to add a +1 modifier to the damage chart roll, but you are already at a -2 modifier due to the Glance, so your net is still not as good as the blaster damage chart roll. Now, if you are 9 inches away from the enemy, the heat lance hits would have a 13.89% chance of glancing and a 58% chance (approximately) of penetrating (versus the blaster's 66.7% chance of glancing and 33.3% chance of penetrating from 18 inches away). At 18 inches away, the heat lance only has a 16.7% chance of glancing a typical non-dark eldar vehicle and there is no chance of actually penetrating.
I like my jetbikes to stay alive, therefore, I prefer having better results from a greater distance away. Yes, the heat lance can be more destructive when closer to your enemy, but I would rather use my bikes to disrupt the opponent's tactics, take out a few infantry here and there, pop a vehicle or two, etc, before dying.
Remember as well that the heat lance and blaster are both assault weapons and the dark eldar jetbikes are 'relentless'.
Use speed as your ally. Turbo-boosting the Jetbikes will eliminate your use of ranged weapons, but it is the best way to pound infantry with bladevanes and cluster caltrops, both offering instant hits (D3 per bladevane model and D6 per cluster caltrops model). Also, sometimes this technique may bring you to within range of an enemy, but at least the turbo boost will confer a 3+ cover save.
Finally, the Reavers have a wonderful rule that allows them to move 6 inches in the assualt phase, regardless of whether or not they are assaulting. Sooooo.... turboboost across an enemy squad of infantry to soften them up with bladevanes and caltrops, landing behind cover and getting your 3+ cover. Next turn, move out from behind cover slightly and shoot all weapons (blasters and splinter rifles, for example) at the enemy and then in the assault phase, simply move back into cover. The Jetbikes have good toughness (4) and they also use combat drugs! (wyches).
I like to run squads of 6 with an Arena Champion (the extra leadership can be really helpful) or squads of 4 with no Arena Champion (they are going to die after serving a focused purpose anyway, so no sense wasting the extra points). In a squad of 4, I don't upgrade to cluster caltrops, because I really just want to hide and pop one shot from a blaster at a tank, or use them late in a game to jump onto an objective and contest.
Any thoughts or comments? Hope this has been helpful. The more we learn and read and discuss, the better our Dark Eldar become. I am not an expert, so please excuse any inaccurate assumptions. Let's all be pleasant and courteous in this thread so we can be constructive and learn.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow!!! Before my very first entry into the thread there were already replies!!! Love the Dark Eldar players! Kudos for being so prompt and astute!
54020
Post by: Maitereya
I was thinking about getting some reavers. I'm still conflicted. For a few points more I can get 4 blasterborn and a venom. Your reaver post is making me think though, it would also be a nice change from the venom spam.
20867
Post by: Just Dave
My recommended tactics for Dark Eldar?
Read Thor's tactica's in the article section.
42002
Post by: Kharrak
For reavers, I think their largest potential criticism is what happens to them AFTER they blow up a vehicle, if you're using them for the Heat Lance.
Many fear that they will simply be shot out of the sky.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Yes, but with the boosters, you usually can find cover within 18 inches of a targeted vehicle. People tend not to know what to do when Reavers come flying by, cutting and hiding. Also, if a blood angels walker or tyranid feeders have to go towards the nearest enemy unit, there is nothing more satisfying than leading them away from your army with fast, nimble jet bikes. Also, they are really cool looking models.
Finally, they are awesome when they exit the web way portal.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Oh, and they are exceptional during objective matches, especially if they can survive until the 4 th and 5 th turns, when enemy infantry are either bearing down on your objective, or covering their own.
581
Post by: Grimaldi
DE struggle against certain builds...primarily heavily mechanized IG. They can do very well against most armies, but those few matchups make taking DE to a large-scale, competitive tournament, and expecting to win, virtually impossible.
I've played DE for a long time, and the new codex is a lot of fun, with a good balance of shooty, melee and mobility. Their overall fragility, combined with the expense the game tacks on to all things "lance" because they can be effective against AV13-14 (even though it doesn't help at all against the much more common AV 11-12 spam) and current mission types (DE give up KP very easily, and lose troops easily but can't take more than 6 scoring units) all combine to give DE some major issues.
17376
Post by: Zid
Read Thors tactica.
That being said, Dark Eldar are highly competative when used by a smart player and using a smart list. DE is not an army that you can just throw a bunch of units together and win (like some armies *cough* GK *cough*). I recommend either webway lists or raider lists or venom lists
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Milisim wrote:
Take 3 Ravagers STANDARD for 9 DARK LANCES that can move 12" and shoot them ALL.
Take 3 Venoms filled with 4 Trueborn Kabalites with BLASTERS.
That is 21 Dark Weapons... Just to start....
One of the dumbest builds out there, you have all that in 6 units, massive waste of points, and part of the reason why I dont like trueborn. You'll probably sweep your opponent of armor by turn 2 or 3 if you go with it and then all those darklight weapons will spend the rest of the game shooting at infantry, massive underutilization and incredibly inefficient.
43229
Post by: Ovion
I have over 10k of DE.
I've scratchbuilt a Haem Bio-Titan.
I run (as Dark Eldar go) a suboptimised Coven list.
It has Grotesques, Talos, Wracks with Hex Rifles, Talos and a Razorwing.
Last week I tabled 1750pts of marines with 1300pts of DE (450ish points of troops took a wrong turn, and the squads he had sitting on an objective dissapeared, leaving them too far away to do anything that game.)
I will say that they are very unforgiving of mistakes though.
Will take a little getting used to but is very rewarding once you do.
581
Post by: Grimaldi
Large beast squads are great, mostly with razorwings and khymerae. They can threaten a huge area, kill most units in assault, and are fairly resilient.
Again, though, mech IG is going to be a nightmare match for you. Run the numbers on your raiders fighting his chimeras, or your ravagers against his vendettas. Points costs are nearly the same, but your stuff dies much more easily, and he'll quite possibly have more vehicles than you!. Your troops are better, but IG will have more, and will end up being more resilient through those numbers. Get close for blaster use or assault, and you're close to his heavy flamers and melta. A couple of hydras thrown in to completely ruin your day, and that's a wrap.
8911
Post by: Powerguy
chaos0xomega wrote:Milisim wrote:
Take 3 Ravagers STANDARD for 9 DARK LANCES that can move 12" and shoot them ALL.
Take 3 Venoms filled with 4 Trueborn Kabalites with BLASTERS.
That is 21 Dark Weapons... Just to start....
One of the dumbest builds out there, you have all that in 6 units, massive waste of points, and part of the reason why I dont like trueborn. You'll probably sweep your opponent of armor by turn 2 or 3 if you go with it and then all those darklight weapons will spend the rest of the game shooting at infantry, massive underutilization and incredibly inefficient.
Um, sorry to break it to you but 21 Dark Lance weapons is only par for the course, its pretty hard to take too much Darklight weaponry since its still burning through Marines and Terminators from 18" away (making it more useful than a Meltagun in that sense). Its hardly expensive either, 864pts still leaves you at least 1000pts for scoring units (which are dirty cheap for DE) and anything else you might want to bring.
Assuming you get the first turn, 3 Ravagers and 3 Blasterborn get 14 hits, which works out to about 4-5 pens and a couple of glances. Since you aren't AP 1 you are looking at maybe 1-2 dead vehicles and a couple of damaged ones (assuming AV12, its slightly better if you are shooting Rhinos, but not much) without factoring in cover saves (and against a decent opponent who deploys well he will get cover against at least some shooting), but against pretty much any competitive build this is still going to leave 5+ functioning vehicles. In return you should expect on average to lose about half of these Darklight shots, Trueborn get shot to pieces since they have disembarked within Rapid Fire range (after movement) and Ravagers are going to be the first target for any long range anti tank shooting. If you don't Alpha Strike hard enough then your ability to pop vehicles disappears, so need as much as possible to start with to maximise you chances of crippling them early, and then if things go badly you still need as much firepower as possible since its fragile and going to disappear quickly.
23433
Post by: schadenfreude
chaos0xomega wrote:Milisim wrote:
Take 3 Ravagers STANDARD for 9 DARK LANCES that can move 12" and shoot them ALL.
Take 3 Venoms filled with 4 Trueborn Kabalites with BLASTERS.
That is 21 Dark Weapons... Just to start....
One of the dumbest builds out there, you have all that in 6 units, massive waste of points, and part of the reason why I dont like trueborn. You'll probably sweep your opponent of armor by turn 2 or 3 if you go with it and then all those darklight weapons will spend the rest of the game shooting at infantry, massive underutilization and incredibly inefficient.
The 3 venoms do well at mowing down infantry. The problem with trueborn in venoms is it doesn't take people long to realize they have more firepower than the ravagers, a lower armor value, and they are a double threat (Trueborn to armor, venoms to infantry) compared to the ravager's single threat. It's also stupid easy to knock venom's out of the sky. A simple IG multi laser shot has a 50% chance of scoring a pen and a 25% chance of scoring a glance on a venom. Blasterborn are just the glass hammeriest unit of a glass hammer army.
7072
Post by: The Strange Dude
Dark Eldar sub par? Boy are they in for a rude awakening, in my local club it's got to the point where people don't like playing against DE as they are 'overpowered'.
In my mind DE is a finesse army and not everyone will get on with them but in the right hands they become nigh on unstoppable, here are my tips to getting the most out of DE (This is for a shooty build the easiest style to get on with).
List Building
1) Haemonculus w/liquifier is all the HQ you need (this frees up points for your army and stops you falling into the point sink of shiny archons)
2) 3 Wracks and a venom w/2 cannons at least 2 units of make great deckchair units for sitting on objectives and still add plenty of shots.
3) 5 Kabalite 1 w/blaster in venom w/2 cannons is a good forward scoring unit and adds to your darklight total
4) 4 trueborn w/blasters in venom w/2 cannons is an awesome unit
5) Ravagers are the most efficent anti-tank you have access to.
6) The magic number for wyches is 6-8 w/agoniser
7) Wyches should ALWAYS have haywire grenades
Gameplay
1) You are going to lose units accept it and keep playing.
2) Go into reserve to avoid getting alpha striked
3) Read Thors tactica and visit the dark city (link in my sig)
4) would have been more have to feed my son!
23433
Post by: schadenfreude
Additional Haemonculus w/liquifier add pain tokens, and it's a good HQ for it's price.
In a tournament setting the big problems I see with dark eldar is their inability to alter reserve rolls, and the potential for the other side to steal the initiative.
I've played enough games against DE to know they can't go 2nd against IG. Starting on the table gets them blown out of their transports on turn 1. Starting from reserve means they come in piecemail on a 5+ turn 2 thanks to an officer of the fleet. When 33% of reserves make it in on turn 2 instead of 50% they really take a beating. Then when 66% of reserves make it in by turn 3 instead of 83% the beatings continue. If any army was in dire need of the ability to give themselves +1 on reserve rolls it's dark eldar.
17376
Post by: Zid
schadenfreude wrote:Additional Haemonculus w/liquifier add pain tokens, and it's a good HQ for it's price.
In a tournament setting the big problems I see with dark eldar is their inability to alter reserve rolls, and the potential for the other side to steal the initiative.
I've played enough games against DE to know they can't go 2nd against IG. Starting on the table gets them blown out of their transports on turn 1. Starting from reserve means they come in piecemail on a 5+ turn 2 thanks to an officer of the fleet. When 33% of reserves make it in on turn 2 instead of 50% they really take a beating. Then when 66% of reserves make it in by turn 3 instead of 83% the beatings continue. If any army was in dire need of the ability to give themselves +1 on reserve rolls it's dark eldar.
Thats where the Baron comes in; +1 to go first is great. Honestly, DE has all the tools to take down IG. If you fear IG that much, honestly take some NS's. Chimeras are now only 30" range guns, so you can hide on a table edge and not get hit potentially. Plus turning IG;s most predigiously spammed weapon (meltas) into 6" guns is full of fun!
That being said, FF's are always better either way. I've seen FF's win games. 33% chance to ignore hits is better than most people think.
581
Post by: Grimaldi
Nightshields don't really help that much...to shoot a chimera, you've got to be within 36". The chimera can still move 6" and fire 30", so if you don't stop it on your turn, it'll shoot back on its turn. It may help prevent one of your vehicles from being targeted by several chimeras, but 30" is still enough range to cover a large chunk of the board, and the IG stuff will be moving forward. You can't win by hiding in the corner as DE! Plus, adding FF (a must, really) and NS really bump up the cost of things, reducing your number of units.
What is normally fairly mediocre in the IG army (lots of multilasers) become a major problem for DE. They shred open-topped AV 10 vehicles, ignore FNP on T3 models, insta-kill T3 stuff, etc.
55314
Post by: Ghawhaar
I am relatively new to DE, but am finding them an enjoyable army to play. I started with losing every game (I had some pretty terrible lists, and did not make the smartest moves) but am now beginning to put up a decent fight when playing with friends. I think a powerful, but often overlooked build is a webway portal list. The other night I had my GK roomate jump his dread knight up to my portal, ahead of the rest of his army, only to be assaulted by incubi, wyches, talos pain engine, and my archon for free consolidation! (that was a terrible decision on his part, but I don't think he realized I could have so much of my army attack like that.) It also tends to "herd" opponents. They do not want to be within assault range of your portals, limiting where they can move on the boards. I do tend to lack anti-tank, something I need to work on.
38926
Post by: Exergy
Dark eldar elite wrote:As I read many reports and tactic entries, I seem to find that many people don't have much love for the Reaver Jet Bikes. This confounds me in many ways.
The Reaver Jet Bike is a very useful tool. If used properly, it appears to be a constant thorn in your opponent's side, and small squads can also draw lots of attention away from your main army.
The Reaver Jet Bikes are amongst the fastest models in the game, and therefore, it is very important to use this speed. Does your opponent have tanks? Reavers can manage. Does your opponent have units of infantry in the open? Reavers can manage well. Does your opponent have control over their units or are they 'out of synapse' or 'blood thirsty'? Reavers can really assist.
Tanks versus Jet Bikes. The Reaver Jet Bikes can be armed with tank popping weapons. Some like the heat lance, while others prefer the blaster. Personally, I would always go with the blaster. You can have 1 blaster per 3 jetbikes in the squad, and the blaster is only 3 points more expensive than the heat lance. So, why a blaster over a heat lance? The blaster has the Lance rule, which reduces any attacked armour to 12. The range of the weapon is 18 inches, strength is 8 and the AP is 2. The heat lance has the Lance rule and the Melta rule, which allows a second D6 to be rolled when penetrating armour IF AT HALF RANGE OR LESS. The heat lance strength is 6, AP is 1 and range is 18 inches. Therefore, while the extra dice is nice for armour penetration, keep in mind that the strength is already lower than the blaster and the your bikes must be 9 inches away from the enemy or closer in order to apply this rule. Further, consider that you also have a chance of rolling a 1 or 2 on the extra dice, which really means that 1/3 of the time, you will simply end with the same result as if you had hit with a blaster, but now you are CLOSER to your enemy.
So to reiterate, the Blaster gives you the same chance of 'hitting' (BS remains same), and with S8 and Lance rule, you need to roll a 4 to Glance or a 5+ to penetrate (against most armies). Also, you keep your unit 18 inches away from the enemy. At 18 inches away from the enemy, the heat lance hits require a roll of 6 to Glance and Penetration is not possible against most vehicles (unless you are playing Dark Eldar! with armour 10s!!!). Given that the heat lance has an AP1, you would get to add a +1 modifier to the damage chart roll, but you are already at a -2 modifier due to the Glance, so your net is still not as good as the blaster damage chart roll. Now, if you are 9 inches away from the enemy, the heat lance hits would have a 13.89% chance of glancing and a 58% chance (approximately) of penetrating (versus the blaster's 66.7% chance of glancing and 33.3% chance of penetrating from 18 inches away). At 18 inches away, the heat lance only has a 16.7% chance of glancing a typical non-dark eldar vehicle and there is no chance of actually penetrating.
I like my jetbikes to stay alive, therefore, I prefer having better results from a greater distance away. Yes, the heat lance can be more destructive when closer to your enemy, but I would rather use my bikes to disrupt the opponent's tactics, take out a few infantry here and there, pop a vehicle or two, etc, before dying.
Remember as well that the heat lance and blaster are both assault weapons and the dark eldar jetbikes are 'relentless'.
Use speed as your ally. Turbo-boosting the Jetbikes will eliminate your use of ranged weapons, but it is the best way to pound infantry with bladevanes and cluster caltrops, both offering instant hits (D3 per bladevane model and D6 per cluster caltrops model). Also, sometimes this technique may bring you to within range of an enemy, but at least the turbo boost will confer a 3+ cover save.
Finally, the Reavers have a wonderful rule that allows them to move 6 inches in the assualt phase, regardless of whether or not they are assaulting. Sooooo.... turboboost across an enemy squad of infantry to soften them up with bladevanes and caltrops, landing behind cover and getting your 3+ cover. Next turn, move out from behind cover slightly and shoot all weapons (blasters and splinter rifles, for example) at the enemy and then in the assault phase, simply move back into cover. The Jetbikes have good toughness (4) and they also use combat drugs! (wyches).
I like to run squads of 6 with an Arena Champion (the extra leadership can be really helpful) or squads of 4 with no Arena Champion (they are going to die after serving a focused purpose anyway, so no sense wasting the extra points). In a squad of 4, I don't upgrade to cluster caltrops, because I really just want to hide and pop one shot from a blaster at a tank, or use them late in a game to jump onto an objective and contest.
Any thoughts or comments? Hope this has been helpful. The more we learn and read and discuss, the better our Dark Eldar become. I am not an expert, so please excuse any inaccurate assumptions. Let's all be pleasant and courteous in this thread so we can be constructive and learn.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow!!! Before my very first entry into the thread there were already replies!!! Love the Dark Eldar players! Kudos for being so prompt and astute!
Reavers are awfully expensive and awfully fragile. 22points a model, 5+ save, die in droves to flamers or in assault.
I find they are not a good blaster option, you can take blasters elsewhere.
Heatlances are nice, when you have to have a tank die, but that leaves you 15" away from the tank and with 2" disembark and then 6"move 6" assault perilously close to getting assaulted by the contents.
A nice trick is to JSJ into terrain. You have to take dangerous, but skilled riders means you have a 1/36 chance of dying.
Against infantry the caltrops are nice, But they are rarely going to do better than a venom with additional cannons.
Reavers are not the most competitive choices in the book.
That said, they are one of the most fun units in the book. I often take them in casual games. ZOOOM ZOOOM ZOOM
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Reavers are awfully expensive and awfully fragile. 22points a model, 5+ save, die in droves to flamers or in assault.
I find they are not a good blaster option, you can take blasters elsewhere.
Heatlances are nice, when you have to have a tank die, but that leaves you 15" away from the tank and with 2" disembark and then 6"move 6" assault perilously close to getting assaulted by the contents.
A nice trick is to JSJ into terrain. You have to take dangerous, but skilled riders means you have a 1/36 chance of dying.
Against infantry the caltrops are nice, But they are rarely going to do better than a venom with additional cannons.
Reavers are not the most competitive choices in the book.
That said, they are one of the most fun units in the book. I often take them in casual games. ZOOOM ZOOOM ZOOM
Yes, they are a bit expensive and are relatively easy prey.. however, they are very fast and hide well in small squads. Also, like you said, they are SO FUN to use. Most times I bring out the Reavers, my enemies don't know what to do with them and they immediately fear their presence. Also, they look soooo cool! Thanks for the comments.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
SO? What do people feel about fielding Vect and his Dias of Destruction? I must say, I only played with him twice and I did win both games. The first game I used him with a squad of 8 wyches and a Homonculus. I ran two venoms up into the enemies face and between them was the dias of destruction. Meanwhile, I had two RazorWings on the enemies far flank, but in range of his vehicles. He didn't know what to do... the venoms were easy targets and he was threatened by the RazorWings. On the second turn I had already lost 1 Razorwing (failed flickerfield roll) and one venom, but I was ready to pounce. I dropped out of the Dias, which survived a few shots in turn 1, moved 6 inches, ran 3 inches and assaulted 6 inches to multi-engage a squad of Immortals (Necrons) and a squad of Warriors. He was not prepared for the pain I brought. Vect nearly depleted his warriors, while the wyches finished them off and made a good dent in the Immortals. I lost 3 wyches to failed invulnerable saves and then the next turn destoyed his ramaining Immortals. Meanwhile, as he realized that the squad was not to be messed with, his heavy units become less concerned with my remaining RazorWing, Dias of Destruction and Ravager, and tried to pound Vect. Given that I had consolidated into cover, I managed to survive a leadership test after losing a few wyches and I was able to move, run and assault one of his Ghost Arcs with Haywire grenades - WRECKED it and then was able to enagage the troops from within. This one squad was so powerful and awesome, my opponent could not focus on the remainder of my army. I had two squads of 4 Reavers hiding in cover, but within range of jumping on 2 of the objectives being held by him, and he was not even attempting to approach the 2 objectives that I held due to his attention being focused on Vect. Vect did die on turn 4, but by then, his squad had already contested an objective, destroyed 2 warrior squads and a squad of Immortals and wrecked a vehicle. I was able to Raider a squad of Wracks over to one of the opponents objectives, and take it. I was also able to zip over a squad of Reavers to contest one of his objectives in turn 5. Won the game holding 3 objectives and contesting 1.
The second game saw my Dias of Destruction be the main target. It was destroyed in Turn 2 and with lots of open ground to still cover, I chose to run my squad (Vect, wyches and a Homonculus) into cover and on my only objective (capture and control). I built a wall with my Heavy units and managed to drop a webway portal from a Homonculus on a Venom in the middle of the table. Reavers and Beasts (large squad of 5 masters, 2 clawed fiends and 15 Khymerae) exited the portal and clogged up the middle of the board, engaging most of his ground units, while Incubi and Wracks made their way over to his objective. He did challenge my objective, but was not able to overcome my Vect squad, or draw them away from my objective. But that only happened once. The rest of the game was him playing defence. I flew Reavers over the squad protecting his objective twice and then finished them off with the Wracks and Incubi, taking his objective with Wracks (troop choice because of Homonculus). He wasn't able to unengage from the middle of the board to contest his original objective.
So, both games were very largely affected by the presence of Vect. Yes, his squad was ridiculously expensive... but two times fielded and two times victorious, even after having put out the big expense for the squad? I would say he was well worth the points. Any thoughts?
38926
Post by: Exergy
Dark eldar elite wrote:
SO? What do people feel about fielding Vect and his Dias of Destruction? I must say, I only played with him twice and I did win both games. The first game I used him with a squad of 8 wyches and a Homonculus. I ran two venoms up into the enemies face and between them was the dias of destruction. Meanwhile, I had two RazorWings on the enemies far flank, but in range of his vehicles. He didn't know what to do... the venoms were easy targets and he was threatened by the RazorWings. On the second turn I had already lost 1 Razorwing (failed flickerfield roll) and one venom, but I was ready to pounce. I dropped out of the Dias, which survived a few shots in turn 1, moved 6 inches, ran 3 inches and assaulted 6 inches to multi-engage a squad of Immortals (Necrons) and a squad of Warriors. He was not prepared for the pain I brought. Vect nearly depleted his warriors, while the wyches finished them off and made a good dent in the Immortals. I lost 3 wyches to failed invulnerable saves and then the next turn destoyed his ramaining Immortals. Meanwhile, as he realized that the squad was not to be messed with, his heavy units become less concerned with my remaining RazorWing, Dias of Destruction and Ravager, and tried to pound Vect. Given that I had consolidated into cover, I managed to survive a leadership test after losing a few wyches and I was able to move, run and assault one of his Ghost Arcs with Haywire grenades - WRECKED it and then was able to enagage the troops from within. This one squad was so powerful and awesome, my opponent could not focus on the remainder of my army. I had two squads of 4 Reavers hiding in cover, but within range of jumping on 2 of the objectives being held by him, and he was not even attempting to approach the 2 objectives that I held due to his attention being focused on Vect. Vect did die on turn 4, but by then, his squad had already contested an objective, destroyed 2 warrior squads and a squad of Immortals and wrecked a vehicle. I was able to Raider a squad of Wracks over to one of the opponents objectives, and take it. I was also able to zip over a squad of Reavers to contest one of his objectives in turn 5. Won the game holding 3 objectives and contesting 1.
The second game saw my Dias of Destruction be the main target. It was destroyed in Turn 2 and with lots of open ground to still cover, I chose to run my squad (Vect, wyches and a Homonculus) into cover and on my only objective (capture and control). I built a wall with my Heavy units and managed to drop a webway portal from a Homonculus on a Venom in the middle of the table. Reavers and Beasts (large squad of 5 masters, 2 clawed fiends and 15 Khymerae) exited the portal and clogged up the middle of the board, engaging most of his ground units, while Incubi and Wracks made their way over to his objective. He did challenge my objective, but was not able to overcome my Vect squad, or draw them away from my objective. But that only happened once. The rest of the game was him playing defence. I flew Reavers over the squad protecting his objective twice and then finished them off with the Wracks and Incubi, taking his objective with Wracks (troop choice because of Homonculus). He wasn't able to unengage from the middle of the board to contest his original objective.
So, both games were very largely affected by the presence of Vect. Yes, his squad was ridiculously expensive... but two times fielded and two times victorious, even after having put out the big expense for the squad? I would say he was well worth the points. Any thoughts?
Vect is a beatstick but a single str6 wound getting past his shadowfield will gib him for good. His dais is over priced and cant have vehicle upgrades, it is almost not worth taking.
vect is like 240 points, his dais is 200, and you have to fill it with 9 other guys. Minimum cost of 120 for wyches. That ends up being 560 points in one basket that can be stunned, tarpitted, or blown out of the sky pretty easily.
If your oppenent doesnt know what he is doing then yes it can be effective but otherwise Vect is probably best saves for REALLY high point games.
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
I just played a game against space wolves today and I did bring Vect along for the ride. He and his squad were royally demolished by a squad of terminator like space wolves. I literally did 1 wound to his 5 man squad and he wiped me out. Wow. That was not pretty. Luckily, I played well enough with the rest of my army to tie the game.
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Post by: Kharrak
Dark eldar elite wrote:I just played a game against space wolves today and I did bring Vect along for the ride. He and his squad were royally demolished by a squad of terminator like space wolves. I literally did 1 wound to his 5 man squad and he wiped me out. Wow. That was not pretty. Luckily, I played well enough with the rest of my army to tie the game.
Did he assault you, or did you assault him?
Vect, by himself, on average should kill about 2 normal termies if his unit assaulted. No idea what his unit was, though. Had it been Incubi, would have likely dealt another four wounds prior to that 5+ invul save, which would have (on average) knocked down another two terminators - all before the termies could hit back. SS termies on the other hand...
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
I assaulted him. However, these space wolf termies had a 2 or 3++ Invulnerable save. I hit him 16 times and did 13 wounds (3 from Vect's power weapon), but he turned all but one away with his invulnerability save rolls. It was crazy. Then he just squashed me. I can't believe Vect doesn't have 'eternal warrior'. His toughness is weak.
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My Incubi assaulted his heavily armed guys (the squad with the rockets and las cannons) and totally wiped him out with no return attacks.
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
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Post by: Hückleberry
If been having success using Duke Sliscus lately. The two dice for combat drugs and the option to deepstrike has been throwing my opponents off of their game.
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Post by: Ovion
Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
OK, so Archons are fairly standard, they can be cheap or expensive, have a hell of a statline and can take a lot of fancy gear.
Haemonculi are the bread and butter of my lists - up to 6 HQs? That give pain tokens? that have liquifier guns / hex rifles? yes ple ease.
Don't know about the Succubus, but probably something along the lines of a more combat orientated wychy archon I assume.
As for the special characters:
Asdrubael Vect - He's big, he's bad, he's the granddaddy of the Dark Eldar as they are today - he's incredibly expensive for what he does. Fun though.
He's not bad, but tbh in games under say... 2500pts he's a huge point sink for what he does. If you add in the Dais, it may be another ravager, but it can't take upgrades and it's forcing you to take at least 80pt squad, generally you want something decent to go with your high priced dude, so it's gonna be 200pts+ extra, making a flying 800pt+ target.
Lady Malys - honestly, I don't know much about her but she seems ok for fun games.
Drazhar, Master of Blades - I always loved the Drazhar character, pretty much always took him in my archons retinue back in the day. These days, ideally, he wants to be at least 30pts cheaper for his abilities, or boast some sort of invunerable save (like a 5+), but hey. Fun to use, really expensive.
Lelith Hesperax - Don't really do the Wych thing, so again don't really know about her. Converted the model into an Archon though 
Urien Rakarth - The father of pain suffers from a similar problem to the rest of the DE characters, Special Character Tax, in that he costs a lot for what he does. He's basically just a Haemonculi with some cool toys (though no liquifier gun or hex rifle... :() He falls over in combat almost as fast as a regular Haem, the lack of invun save is crippling on these expensive characters. Ultimately, unless you really, really want to spend a ton of points to get Str6 Grots, the 3 Haems you could buy instead is far more useful.
Duke Sliscus the Serpent - This guy is awesome. He's reasonably priced for a DE SC, he's got nice rules - the upgraded venom blades, the combat drug boost, upgraded posion for a squad, confering deepstrike to all your vehicles for free, reasonable armour saves etc. For a Wych list, deepstriking list, footlist, dakkalist or a combination of the above, he's a reasonable choice for a HQ.
Kheradruakh, The Decapitator - I love mandrakes, love their background, love their models, etc, but they suck overall. To expensive and underpowered. The Decapitator is better, but his lack of independant character, having to go into reserve and no being able to assault the turn he arrives means he gets to sit in the middle of nowhere and get shot.
Baron Sathonyx - He's cheap and effective from what I'm told, but I've never used him myself. Goes well with a squad of Hellions or Beasts.
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
Thanks... good info to consider. I am heading out to play right now... I may have to add a few new HQs to my list for fun.
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Post by: Exergy
Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
I would list them as follows:
Competitive
Hamonculi are the best overall as they are cheap and buff your units with pain tokens.
Lots of people like the Baron, going first is good, often worth 100 points anyway. Stealths and the strength to take on tanks are added bonuses
Archons can be tooled to kill ICs and usually will grind out a lot of dead marines
Vect is an expensive beatstick
Semi Cometitive
Drazhar is ok, but for nearly vect's price why not get vect.
Urien is fun, he makes Covens lists much better. He isnt bad, jsut not that good either.
Lady Malys is fairly good, redeploying is good but DE usually have so many units moving d3 of them doesnt do much
The duke has a bunch of abilities, but you have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs.
Noncompetitive
Lelith isnt very good, beatsticky but str3 and not much way to rectify it.
Truly Awful
Khuzar the decapitator is perhaps the worst character in the game. Absolutely awful
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Post by: worldwarme
Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
I run, (Almost Exclusively) Duke Sliscus:
Placed in a building with 20 kabalites, most often armed with 2 splinter cannons, gives them anywhere form 30-48 shots, hitting and wounding on 3+. This has tormented Tyranids, Monsterous Creatures and Terminators to no end.
My Wyches have become Tactical speacislists, now that the Duke has given them a Choice in Combat Drugs. (=1 strength fighting Necrons and Marines.Great, Oh look a 6? Well now, combint that with the Pain Token I have from the Hammy I have in that squad And that means Furious Charge AND Feel no pain- yeeeehaaaw!)
I have pitted him against a charging pack of Terminators and won, thanks to the twin Poisoned blades that ignore armour on 5-6, and his own 2+ invul.
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Exergy wrote:Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
I would list them as follows:
Competitive
Hamonculi are the best overall as they are cheap and buff your units with pain tokens.
Lots of people like the Baron, going first is good, often worth 100 points anyway. Stealths and the strength to take on tanks are added bonuses
Archons can be tooled to kill ICs and usually will grind out a lot of dead marines
Vect is an expensive beatstick
Semi Cometitive
Drazhar is ok, but for nearly vect's price why not get vect.
Urien is fun, he makes Covens lists much better. He isnt bad, jsut not that good either.
Lady Malys is fairly good, redeploying is good but DE usually have so many units moving d3 of them doesnt do much
The duke has a bunch of abilities, but you have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs.
Noncompetitive
Lelith isnt very good, beatsticky but str3 and not much way to rectify it.
Truly Awful
Khuzar the decapitator is perhaps the worst character in the game. Absolutely awful
I have no idea what " Have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs" Means by this. At 150, he is a great Finds! Lets wieght it out: Archon cost with blast pistol, Shadowfield, Combat drugs, Power weapon, (Lets just comapre that to the Twin Venomblades to simplify what their cost would be.)and Ghostplate Armour .: Already at 135-140, (Don't have my codex handy this second. Shadowfield is 30 or 35 pts?) Now what points price would you put on the Following: 2 dice for Selecting Combat Drugs? ( I'd say another 5pts per squad or character is reasonable). Deepstriking all your Vehicles? I think in Vehicle upgrades that saves you 10 points per ( Again, no codex in reach). Extra toxic Poison for 1 squad? Lets say that is a 2 points per model upgrade. By these calculations we can start seeing a price nearing 240-250pts. But he comes in at 150. Best bang for your buck imho.
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
Well, all good info. Today I fielded Lelith Hekatrix. She was truly amazing. She and her wyches actually wiped out a small horde of Space Wolves (3 separate units, 1 of which had all power weapons) in game 1, and ended holding my objective. In game 2, her wyches died miserably, but she was able to assist in wiping out 2 squads of Imperial Guard, and ended the game in good position to jump on anyone trying to get to my objective. She was very fun to play... and everyone seems very scared of her.
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Post by: thakabalpuphorsefishguy
Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
I do like lady malis. But I am super fond of the archon, I normally forgo haemies, and Vect is too expensive for my taste. ESPECIALLY with as prevalent as str 6+ is.
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Post by: Exergy
worldwarme wrote:
I have no idea what " Have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs" Means by this. At 150, he is a great Finds! Lets wieght it out: Archon cost with blast pistol, Shadowfield, Combat drugs, Power weapon, (Lets just comapre that to the Twin Venomblades to simplify what their cost would be.)and Ghostplate Armour .: Already at 135-140, (Don't have my codex handy this second. Shadowfield is 30 or 35 pts?) Now what points price would you put on the Following: 2 dice for Selecting Combat Drugs? ( I'd say another 5pts per squad or character is reasonable). Deepstriking all your Vehicles? I think in Vehicle upgrades that saves you 10 points per ( Again, no codex in reach). Extra toxic Poison for 1 squad? Lets say that is a 2 points per model upgrade. By these calculations we can start seeing a price nearing 240-250pts. But he comes in at 150. Best bang for your buck imho.
What I mean is of all his wargear and rules. The only good thing he brings to the table is rerolling combat drugs.
Well yes, you have to pay for the blast pistol, the ghost plate, combat drugs, and his weapon. You have to buy things you might not want.
Blast Pistols are ridiculously expensive, ghost plate is fairly expensive as well especially for a model with 2 wounds(one of which is going to be the 2++ from the shadowfield)
He isn't an archon, he has less attacks, less wounds, less WS, less BS, less Ld, and less inititive. He might as well have the statline of a Hami at this point.
Deep striking Raiders is largely useless. even for free I would almost never do it.
His poison isnt that good either and forces you to deploy him in a squad of warriors or trueborn. Worse if you want to get a splinter cannon in the warrior squad you have to deploy them on foot. I call having to deploy CC characters in fragile shooty units a large disadvantage. I think the duke actually gets better if your army has no trueborn or warriors in the army so he can deploy where he likes. Trueborn should carry DL or blasters, warriors are only mediocer even with the 3+ posion. Venoms are better AI and warriors are best as small units with a blaster.
Rerolling combat drugs is awesome, but how awesome depends on how many units you have with combat drugs. If you were running: an archon with CD, 3 units of bloodbrides, 6units of wyches, and 3 units of hellions then yes I think the duke is a MUST have. But who runs that?
The duke is a CC character, he is meant to be in CC but he doesnt do a very good job of it. An Archon with CD, husk blade, and shadowfield will beat him every time and costs 15 points less. For what its worth, an archon with CD, a venom blade, and a shadowfield will beat him and costs just 105.
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Post by: Ovion
TBH Exergy, Trueborn with Splinter Cannons (especially with the Duke) rip things to shreds. Dakkaborn in a Dakkavenom is 20-24 shots, which is ultiamtely damn effective.
Having 1 in 3 squads of trueborn as this is an unexpected and very deadly threat, especially if the bulk of your infantry are say, wyches or wracks and you lack ranged firepower.
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Post by: Exergy
Ovion wrote:TBH Exergy, Trueborn with Splinter Cannons (especially with the Duke) rip things to shreds. Dakkaborn in a Dakkavenom is 20-24 shots, which is ultiamtely damn effective.
Having 1 in 3 squads of trueborn as this is an unexpected and very deadly threat, especially if the bulk of your infantry are say, wyches or wracks and you lack ranged firepower.
I covet my elite choices more than you I guess. I would rather take more venoms. 2 venoms is 24 shots that can move 12 and shoot 36. Dakkaborn in dakkavenom have to stand still to get that many shots at that range.
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Post by: mishka_shaw
Trueborn squads. I run about 4 of them in a venom with pure blasters (2-4 venoms in all).
Blasters chew up tanks. Remove FNP and finally insta-kill most units (Copters, Nobs, Tyranid warriors, Zoanthropes, Typhus).
Use the venoms cannon to mow the infantry and the truborn to shoot from the vehicle at the gooey insides of a terminator.
edit: Don't underestimate nightshields too.
Last night I had a god roll game where I saved about 80% of my vehicle pens with the 5+.
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Post by: Massaen
Exergy wrote:What I mean is of all his wargear and rules. The only good thing he brings to the table is rerolling combat drugs.
Well yes, you have to pay for the blast pistol, the ghost plate, combat drugs, and his weapon. You have to buy things you might not want.
Blast Pistols are ridiculously expensive, ghost plate is fairly expensive as well especially for a model with 2 wounds(one of which is going to be the 2++ from the shadowfield)
He isn't an archon, he has less attacks, less wounds, less WS, less BS, less Ld, and less inititive. He might as well have the statline of a Hami at this point.
Deep striking Raiders is largely useless. even for free I would almost never do it.
His poison isnt that good either and forces you to deploy him in a squad of warriors or trueborn. Worse if you want to get a splinter cannon in the warrior squad you have to deploy them on foot. I call having to deploy CC characters in fragile shooty units a large disadvantage. I think the duke actually gets better if your army has no trueborn or warriors in the army so he can deploy where he likes. Trueborn should carry DL or blasters, warriors are only mediocer even with the 3+ posion. Venoms are better AI and warriors are best as small units with a blaster.
Rerolling combat drugs is awesome, but how awesome depends on how many units you have with combat drugs. If you were running: an archon with CD, 3 units of bloodbrides, 6units of wyches, and 3 units of hellions then yes I think the duke is a MUST have. But who runs that?
The duke is a CC character, he is meant to be in CC but he doesnt do a very good job of it. An Archon with CD, husk blade, and shadowfield will beat him every time and costs 15 points less. For what its worth, an archon with CD, a venom blade, and a shadowfield will beat him and costs just 105.
You have not used him much have you...
For his price, the stat line is solid (worth 55 base at a guess) and with gear his a very well priced. His stat line is much better than a haemy and more than a match for most IC's. Deep striking is the SINGLE BEST option he gives. its a 5pt upgrade per vehicle for FREE but a better version of the item! The tactical flexability is huge.
Given you have to have troops, 9 warriors in a raider with a blaster and duke are cheap, scoring and he can just bail out and leave them while he goes where you want. I commonly do just that. 16, 3+ posion shots for 81 points is gold!
For the record - you don't reroll the drugs, you roll twice and choose the result. Thus if you roll a double, tough luck, I think the drugs are the weakest part of his rules forcing you to add units that don;t benefit the other 2 rules he has.
As for beating sliscus everytime - consider for a second how good his weapons are... 2+ to wound, ignore saves on 5+... its better than an agoniser - much better. All the flexability of the venom blade with all the killyness of the agoniser. He is very good in combat against all but the toughest of enemies and lets face it, if they can kill him they can kill any other archon you care to build thanks to the 2++ shadowfail and T3. Also consider that while the 135pt archon you listed is pretty good - he is focused on 1 thing - killing characters. Sliscus can pop tanks, kill infantry, slug it out with most IC's AND gives massive army wide changes.
Point for point he is perhaps the best IC in the book
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Post by: Ovion
I've had a Mawloc do it's underground deep-strike thing into combat with Sliscus before. The guy was going on and on and on about how it was going to wreck him, and his squad.
Sliscus took no wounds and killed the Mawloc.
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Post by: worldwarme
@ Exergy:
Again, I am in complete agreeance with Massaen. I suppose its all about what kind of army you are Fielding and what kind of army you are playing against. Nonetheless, I win considerably more than I loose with my Duke list, and in the last 6 or 7 games I have played, he has only died once. I find his stats are more than enough to get the job done. His 2+ Invul and poison ( 5-6 no armour save) have helped him kill monsterous creatures, countless marines, terminators and Necrons/ Necron Lords.
I don't like deep striking my vehicles , but I like knowng that if a situation came up where it would serve me well to do so, I have that option, (IE turn 4-5 , my raider with wyches finally come on in an objectives mission.) But , hey, if you don't like him , you don't like him. Me, I still think he's the best character in that army and well worth the 150 pts it costs to have him.
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Post by: Smitty0305
Whoever says DE arnt competitive are bad and havent played any competitive game of 40k in their life.
Archon/Hemoncs for pain tokens
Trueborn in Venoms for Anti Tank, Venoms anti infantry
Witches in Raiders to assault what falls out
Raiders to blow more stuff up
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Post by: DaKKaLAnce
Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.
I use Drazhar often, If not every battle I play.... He is a monster in CC. Most people wont use him because he is so pricey, and lacks a inv save. But so far he has never failed me and has killed more than his points cost every battle.
Just be sure to get im in CC asap, and attach him to some incubi, I usaully have a squad of about 4-5 with him.
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Post by: worldwarme
Agreed. Drazhar is a force to be reconed with. Glad somebody is representing him. I used him once, in one list, one game and loved how well he preformed. Expensive, for sure, but fun to surprise an unfamiliar opponant with.
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Post by: Exergy
Ovion wrote:I've had a Mawloc do it's underground deep-strike thing into combat with Sliscus before. The guy was going on and on and on about how it was going to wreck him, and his squad.
Sliscus took no wounds and killed the Mawloc.
anything with a shadowfield can potentially kill anything. you can string together a lot of 2++s together. Happens to me about as many times as my shadowfield shorts out on the first wound.
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Post by: worldwarme
Except its not just the Shadowfield. Its initiative, charging with several attacks, good Weapons skill and a set of Duke Blades. Sorry , but 2+ wounding is better than 4+ Agonizng in his case. But I have praised Duke enough, and its clear that Exergy will not be swayed. Thats the great thing about DE. There is a lot of HQ to choose from. Another one I like is Urien Rakarth, although in order to really take full advantage you should have some Grotesques and/ or at least some wracks. ( I really need to get an abundance of these two units in order to shock my club at Duke's absence).
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Post by: DaKKaLAnce
worldwarme wrote: There is a lot of HQ to choose from. Another one I like is Urien Rakarth, although in order to really take full advantage you should have some Grotesques and/ or at least some wracks. ( I really need to get an abundance of these two units in order to shock my club at Duke's absence).
I kinda want to start an army of the Covens.... Urien would be a great choice , I should test him out to see how well he does.
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Post by: Ghawhaar
The nasty part of Drazhar is one of his abilities that lets him move after piling in. This means you can arrange it so he is the only one in base to base with the opponents scary IC, then dart away preventing him from attacking. I have done this, won combat, then wiped the squad, negating an IC that would otherwise have beat me up.
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Post by: chaos0xomega
the ability works even better with large squads, say a mob of boyz with a powerklaw nob, move out of the 2" engagement bubble of the nob and stomp on a bunch of the boyz instead (its even better too, because these large squads usually can't fully "pile in" so you can hit the unit in an area with a lower model density and you'll have less normal attacks to worry about in return as well).
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Post by: Massaen
The key to Draz is to NOT be with a unit of incubi when you charge - that way the darting strike rule can be really used to your advantage
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Post by: TH3FALL3N
The Duke has always brought me good luck, by far the most all rounded IC
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Post by: Dark eldar elite
Well, that was a great discussion about ICs. It appears that the main ones of favortism are the Duke, the Archon and Drahzar. I personally like Leltih and Vect. I have never used the Duke or Drahzar, but I will certainly do so very soon. I like to get a feel for all of the characters.
So, what about Scourges? Does anyone like them or use them? I sometimes field a small unit of 5 or 6 with splinter cannons and shardcarbines. Tends to do well against Tyranids. Any thoughts?
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Post by: lonekthx
The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.
As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.
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Post by: Massaen
lonekthx wrote:The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.
As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.
Irony! Its the other way around for most!
The succubus is good - but is not a force multiplier. She kills around 2 MEQ a turn (not allowing for combat drugs) and thats great bang for buck... but a haemy with a liquifier will do just as well and gives a pain token to a unit. Combine that with a cheaper cost and 3 per HQ choice... you can see how good he is now yes?
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Post by: worldwarme
I find Scourges a bit expenssive, but a nice asset to have in some kists. Those shard carbines are awsoem. I have a squad of 10, but I don't field them that much, just because of what else I can get for those points. Still , I love the look of them en masse. Great models!
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Post by: chaos0xomega
I think Scourges are a better choice than Jetbikes (IMO). Cost the same but you can get 1 more special weapon per squad than you can with the bikes.
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Post by: Ascalam
I'm fond of using reavers in tiny groups (in non- KP missions anyway) as assassins. 3 bikes with one special weapon.
A small group can hide as it zooms about, pop out of cover to nuke a tank or IC (if he's standing all alone) and then vanish again.
I use scourges as a highly mobile firing squad, usually. Move into position one turn (like the top of a building, for example) and unload 4 dark lances or heat lances into something the next. I also use them tooled vs infantry as flying dakka, moving around units pelting them with shots.. Depends on my list.
Ravagers are good. I like to run at least 2 in my non-coven lists. My coven lists tend to be 2 Talos and a Cronos.
I have a vicious fondness for WWP surprises also Plop down a WWP, and watch the units pop up in the enemy's face.
Mandrakes are awesome looking paperweights, but rather pathetic. The only time i see them is in themed lists.
The Talos works well with WWP entry  He can be beastly in CC. The Cronos is less so vs MEQ, but can be pretty deadly vs T3 enemies like eldar and guard, and will hand out Pain tokens like candy to your other troops
DE can be amazingly vivious when you have learned to use them right. They don't have the benefit of power armour (as a rule) and armoured transports to allow you to get complacent, and their codex is built around sudden, vicious strikes. The best defense is a good offfense, and you have to try to deal the maximum amount of hurt in the minimum amount of time, before the enemy has time to trash you in return.
Don't forget that lances reduce that nice Necron armour from 13 to 12, making the pen that drops it to 11 more easily attained, and that Necrons don't like getting in CC much, as a rule. Dropping a unit of Bloodbrides into a necron unit makes for mangles metal in my experience 
21912
Post by: Hoss
has anyone tried this with scourges (i havnt yet but want to) get 5+ of them in a group with a haemonculous with a hex rifle, leave the haemy first turn and take the token then proceed to do your scourgey business while the now naked haemy takes pot shots, or is that just waaaay too overcosted? i know its not competitive in any way shape and or form, but hey, it would give the scourges a double 4+ vs small arms fire and force your opponent to try to whittle them away through those saves, or shift some heftier firepower their way to take them down, and then they even have the 6+ invuln, far short of reliable, but hey, its something, and it will still net you FnP vs heavy bolters and such.
i also love the scourge models and have ten of them, i certainly think they are a dangerous unit that can not be ignored, but, like many DE units, are expensive and fragile.
or maybe skip the hexrifle and have your HQ pile into a raider with some wracks or something if you think that it is a waste of points. many players can justify paying the price tag to hook a haemy up with wyches, but what about other fragile units that would love FnP on the first turn? has anyone experimented with this tactic?
one other thing to add here, something i struggle with a lot for some reason, and i think it belongs in a beginner tips thread. in the heat of battle, it can be easy to forget power from pain (for me at least) and i will often times do myself out of acquiring pain tokens thanks to the order of how i shoot my units. a perfect example: the other evening i played against a gray knights player and decided that turn one, if nothing else, his tricked out dreadknight was going to be removed from the table. so, i proceeded to shoot ravagers, blasterborn in venoms, and anything else i could at it. my error occurred when the dreadknight had 2 wounds left and i shot with the three blasterborn in the venom first and managed a wound, then mopped up the final wound with my venom. duh! vehicles dont get pain tokens...this venom and its crew were taken out in my opponents following shooting phase (by melta so FnP wouldnt have made a difference, but still!) and if it had been another form of destruction, they may have lived, let alone resulting in more models surviveing the explosion from their transport being blown up. maybe its just me, i would consider myself a beginner, probably only played a dozen or so games with my DE (miraculously havnt lost one yet) but shooting order can really make a difference, especially with power from pain
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Post by: Lokas
I run scourges in my usual list (love the model, couldn't resist putting them on the board) and situationally, I will fork over my Haemonculus's pain token to them instead of my Wyches.
It all depends on the army I am facing. If it's an ork army with big huge crowds of greenskins, the wyches are going to get the pain token to tar pit as effectively as possible against some big bad nob squad or something. On the flip side, if it's say... Blood Angels MSU razorback spam, I know my wyches will be fine picking up a pain token on their own from a 5 man assault squad. So first turn, I'll deploy the wych raider next to the Haemonculus/Scourges unit, then embark the haemonculus on the raider (so he can use the raider to hose down infantry with a liquifier gun after the wyches disembark) and leave the pain token with the scourges. It does make them far more survivable than they usually would be.
46751
Post by: Akroma06
Underpowered? What are they running then? DE can handle most builds.
HQs are mainly Haemonculi with Liquifier Guns, Vect, and either Baron or Duke. Haemonculi gives free FNP and Vect steals the int on a 4+. Baron is ok with beasts but I just haven't been sold yet, while Duke Sliscus makes wych cults nasty. HQs are pretty weak but can support the army quite a bit.
Troops...wracks become troops with a haemy and a 3 man squad can babysit a home objective. Hellions become troops with Baron but I really don't like them. 5 man squads of warriors w/blaster in a venom w/ 2 SC taken around 5 or so is a lot of anti-infantry. Wyches can be decent if give a haemy, hekatrix w/ agoniser, and a razorflail. The haemy stays behind while the girls run out and have a PW that needs 4+ and a razroflail rerolls to hit and wound. Put them in a raider for the extra DL.
Elites...2-3 4 man squads of blaster born that is trueborn with blasters in venoms like the warriors. The other "good" elites are Incubi but beware going through cover or into squads with too many power weapons. Leave those for your wyches.
HS...Ravagers. 3 of them with 3 lances w/ FF. In fact you need FF on all vehicles. Razorwings look nice and are ok if you go with a lot of DL. As in 10 man warrior squads with a raider. If you choose to go that route drop the DL for dissintegrators and trade up for the SC. Voidravens are ok if you want that extra punch of S as it is one of the few weapons that have a higher S than 8. Talos/Chronos do great in Cities of Death games but otherwise Ravagers.
Fast...Beasts are scary when taken with 5 Khymerae and 4 Razorwing Flocks, Reavers are good in groups of 3 with a blaster or heat lance since they can "hop" away, a tactic I saw someone use was 9 reavers with the D6 S6 upgrades (x3) and just flat out the whole game. Scourges are my favorite especially with a WWP on a heamy. They can run out of that portal with heat lances (2 in a 5 man squad) and pop a tank, then they can survive bolter fire by getting armor saves. Then running 2 with DL in a ruin can make for a small "sniper" squad.
Most other things I wouldn't worry about since they are either too expensive or just not that good...or both. There are two competative builds and a lot of semi-competative builds.
The semi-builds would include, Wych Cults, DL-Raider Spam, etc.
The competative builds would include Venom Spam and WWP. Having tried both I would have to give the edge to venom spam with just the scary number of anti-infantry shots.
43229
Post by: Ovion
Yeah, 3 Wrack squads are great for parking on objectives, and are a nice cheap way to get a venom.
I like to give them a Hex Rifle to take potshots with while they do it though.
DE don't really care about your Toughness or your Armour Value, most things are much of a muchness, with 80% or so of our stuff hitting on 3+, wounding on 4+, glancing on 4's / 2-5, penning on 5+, /6's etc.
It honestly leads to a reasonably.. samey gameplay though.
I've been running a list at 1500pts that's
2x Haemonculi (Liquifier Gun, Venom Blade) + 3 Grotesques (Ab w/ Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun) in Raiders (Flicker Field, Night Shield)
2x 10 Wracks (Ac w/ Venom Blade, 2 Liquifier Guns) in Raiders (Flicker Field, Night Shield)
2x 3 Wracks (ac w/ Hex Rifle) in Venom (Splinter Cannon)
2x Talos (TL Liquifier Gun, TL Haywire Blaster)
1x Razorwing (Monoscythes, Lances, Splinter Cannon, Flickerfield, Night Shield)
To bump it to 2000 is another Haem+Grot in Raider squad and another Hexvenom.
The razorwing drops missiles on things, but generally people ignore it to focus big guns on the 2 Talos walking towards them (people seems afraid of a S/T7 DE MC for some reason) which gives the rest of my stuff carte blanch to move in.
And it's pretty much always the same - deploy in cover (hiding mostly to limit enemy fire / very them into kill lanes) > move into position, (drop hexwracks on objectives / float them around, move raiders towards soft targets if available, preferably with cover for everything), shoot stuff, assault stuff, kill stuff, repeat. Honestly got bored of it atm, am currently thinking of silly lists to do for giggles and to serve more challenge - like a horde warrior army (150 Warriors / Trueborn? lol.) and some more varied fun things and/or focusing on my Tau more for variety.
Should make a Deathstar list with Vect and maybe Drazhar with a squad of maxed Incubi in the Dais and just slam them at things.
38926
Post by: Exergy
Hoss wrote:has anyone tried this with scourges (i havnt yet but want to) get 5+ of them in a group with a haemonculous with a hex rifle, leave the haemy first turn and take the token then proceed to do your scourgey business while the now naked haemy takes pot shots, or is that just waaaay too overcosted? i know its not competitive in any way shape and or form, but hey, it would give the scourges a double 4+ vs small arms fire and force your opponent to try to whittle them away through those saves, or shift some heftier firepower their way to take them down, and then they even have the 6+ invuln, far short of reliable, but hey, its something, and it will still net you FnP vs heavy bolters and such.
i also love the scourge models and have ten of them, i certainly think they are a dangerous unit that can not be ignored, but, like many DE units, are expensive and fragile.
or maybe skip the hexrifle and have your HQ pile into a raider with some wracks or something if you think that it is a waste of points. many players can justify paying the price tag to hook a haemy up with wyches, but what about other fragile units that would love FnP on the first turn? has anyone experimented with this tactic?
one other thing to add here, something i struggle with a lot for some reason, and i think it belongs in a beginner tips thread. in the heat of battle, it can be easy to forget power from pain (for me at least) and i will often times do myself out of acquiring pain tokens thanks to the order of how i shoot my units. a perfect example: the other evening i played against a gray knights player and decided that turn one, if nothing else, his tricked out dreadknight was going to be removed from the table. so, i proceeded to shoot ravagers, blasterborn in venoms, and anything else i could at it. my error occurred when the dreadknight had 2 wounds left and i shot with the three blasterborn in the venom first and managed a wound, then mopped up the final wound with my venom. duh! vehicles dont get pain tokens...this venom and its crew were taken out in my opponents following shooting phase (by melta so FnP wouldnt have made a difference, but still!) and if it had been another form of destruction, they may have lived, let alone resulting in more models surviveing the explosion from their transport being blown up. maybe its just me, i would consider myself a beginner, probably only played a dozen or so games with my DE (miraculously havnt lost one yet) but shooting order can really make a difference, especially with power from pain
while you could put a haemi with them to give them FNP i find it best to use their long range firepower to get their pain token. Blast things with venoms until they are near dead and then hope your scourges finish them off. A squad of 10 can have 4 spinter cannons, thats 24shots to hopefully put the pain on something. I have been running my talos with splinter cannons to do the same thing, get a pain token at range.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Today I fielded an Archon with Agonizer, Shadowfield and Combat Drugs. She was awesome! She was fielded with wyches and together they wiped out two squads of Necron warriors and a squad of Necron Destroyers.
I also fielded the Duke today as an HQ... he was okay. He did give the better roll for combat drugs, which was helpful, and he was deployed with 20 warriors with 2 splinter cannons, so the wound on a 3+ was also nice.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Does anyone one here live anywhere near Highway 400 and Langstaff? If so, we have a good consistent group of mature players coming out through the week and every Sunday at Legends Warehous (legendswarehouse.ca). You should check it out... we are having tournies and a league. Always looking for new blood!
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
What type of load out do you guys think works best against Imperial Guard Tank Spam? I tend to try NOT to use a spam list when I play, because I like to enjoy the many different facets of my Dark Eldar army... but I ran into tank spam recently and I really wasn't prepared. Any thoughts?
8911
Post by: Powerguy
In my experience the only way that Dark Eldar can deal with AV12 walls is with assault units which can hurt vehicles. Lances are incredibly inefficient against AV12, and even if you spam them as much as possible (even to the point of tailoring) you just end up in a messy brawl which you rarely win due to your lack of survivability. Against AV11 massed S8 does just fine, and obviously against lists which spam AV13 (Necrons and BA) or AV14 (Land Raider lists) it cleans up.
In short against Guard your Lances/Blasters probably aren't going to be enough to get the job done alone. This doesn't mean you stop taking them (you still take 3 Ravagers + Scourges/Lance Trueborn/Blasterborn) as you ideally want to open some vehicles up early so your Venoms can actually do something, it just means you need to bring Beasts, Wyches and/or a big unit of Hellions to create a balanced TAC list. Most of the time Guard won't be able to stop these units before they get at least one assault off (its the Rapid Firing Plasma and massed Lasgun fire which kills them), and they are either going to do a big chunk of damage to a static line of vehicles, or force him to keep moving and at least partially drop his firepower.
43229
Post by: Ovion
Haywire everywhere!
Wyches with Haywire 'nades, Scourges with Haywire Blasters, maybe even some Talos (I love Talos )
I mean, 3 Ravagers and 3 squads of wyches with Haywire Grenades in raiders should in theory take out 6-8 vehicles a turn.
This should have the added bonus of being reasonably well balanced against most enemies.
56704
Post by: Lucazi
DE is my first army as I am somewhat new to the hobby but I wouldn't have it any other way. Out of about 15 games or so I have only lost 3 times. I'm happy with those numbers
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Okay...so I am entering a tourney in two weeks and it is an 1850 point tourney. I have always played 2000 points and I am having difficulty finding a good balance for possible annihilation and objectives missions. I need scoring units, but I dont want too many easy kill points on the table. Any thoughts or opinions? Your help would be appreciated.
27186
Post by: Darth Badguy
This is really specific & maybe inappropriate thread, but I love the hellion & scourge models. Can you guys think of a semi-competitive hellion troops w/ scourge support list at 1500?
42002
Post by: Kharrak
I'm actually surprised many (but not all) dislike hellions - they are good for what they do.
A potential 24" assault, three attacks on the charge at str4, likely having followed a barrage of 2 poison shots per model. A unit of ten is going to deal just under 7 wounds as they fire in, and then another 7-8 wounds on the assault. If you toss the Barron in, that's 5 str6 attacks on the charge. AND they have Combat Drugs.
I know that many dislike them since they tend to be targeted as a squishy option amid an army of vehicles, but they have stealth, which helps a surprising amount.
33527
Post by: Niiai
Mind you do not need to build the 3 ravagers, 3 4 trueborn in venom list with dark eldar. How-ever: With dark eldar it is really important that your entier army works as a whole. Dark eldar are so fragile that it is not good to make an ufocused list.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
So any ideas regarding the 1850 list to be balanced and ready for both assault based, creature based and tank based competitors? Automatically Appended Next Post: Darth Badguy wrote:This is really specific & maybe inappropriate thread, but I love the hellion & scourge models. Can you guys think of a semi-competitive hellion troops w/ scourge support list at 1500?
Your thread is perfectly appropriate. I started this forum so people could ask questions, talk strategy and get assistance and offer advice regarding Dark Eldar armies. Your question falls within that target. Automatically Appended Next Post: Does anyone else use Hellions? I have not yet, but I would be interested in hearing your expert opinions for and against. AND I really need advice on the 1850 list as mentioned above.... (by the way, I do not have any Hellions yet). Automatically Appended Next Post: I was thinking about going with all wych squads (to both deal with assaults and tanks - with haywire grenades), webway portals, a venom of Blasterborns and for heavy, maybe a Talos (or 2) and Razorwings (or Ravager and Razorwing)...
37700
Post by: Ascalam
I use small hellion units for snatch and grab.
Assault into an existing close combat and hijack their uber character.
Zooom off with him, and drop onto a nice empty exposed part of the battlefield.
His turn, he will kill them off. If he doesn't you can Hit and Run away.
Your turn, you then fill him full of lead, without his ablative wounds unit to soak them for him..
I've used this tactic often, and it's a lot of fun, especially when you visualize a hellion board attempting to tow Ghazzy through the sky Automatically Appended Next Post: Talos are pretty good, but slow. They work best through WWP insertion.
Razorwings are damn pretty, and great for making infantry units DEAD DEAD DEAD (4 missiles, disintegrators and splinter guns... tasty!) but are fragile. They rarely last that long.
Ravagers are all around awesome. Best armour in the dex, and firing 3 DL/Dis cannon at 12'' move
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Yeah... I like the sounds of the hellions... I love playing different and I love frustrating my opponents ... The grab and hit and run maneuvers both sound awesome.
55314
Post by: Ghawhaar
The best way to use Razorwings is to put them in reserve. As long as you can get an infantry unit in the open on the turn they come in or before, it is dead. I run mine with the shatterfield missiles. 4 large blast str 7 shots, with rerolls to wound is insane. Every unit I have shot with it has either been completely wiped, or only had one or two models left. I have wiped lychguard, 30 man crusader squads, and even wraiths.
43229
Post by: Ovion
See, I rarely keep my Razorwing in reserve, and it's generally pretty survivable. To the point I'm considering buying a second. I also run mine with 2 Lances / Splinter Cannon / 4 Monoscythes, so it's a versatile hunter - invaribly it looses its missiles at whatever (or sometimes even saves them for later! D then goes for either vehicle or TEQ hunting. That said, I also have 2 Talos, 4-5 Raiders and 2-3 Venoms (holding a mix of Wracks and Grotesques) so I have a good number of reasonably tough threats to confuse them, and they tend to target the Talos over the Razorwing..
55314
Post by: Ghawhaar
Do you run flickerfields on the razorwing? Or just keep it in cover from movement or terrain? I have terrible luck with my stuff getting shot, unless it has that save.
42002
Post by: Kharrak
As a flier (well, fast skimmer at the moment), it would be tough to get cover saves for the razorwing. As such.. Flickerfields are a necessity.
43229
Post by: Ovion
Sorry, forgot that - I run flickerfields and nightshields.
And in my local store most tables have at least 1-2 pieces of terrain that'll give the Razorwing cover.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
I usually run 2 Razorwings with night shields and flicker fields, and a Talos. The Talos usually is the primary target for my opponent, but it means at least one Razorwings survives the turn. I usually start in reserve with full Null deployment, which also confuses people. I do deploy on first turn in dawn of war... Allows me to get web way portals deep into enemy territory or near objectives. I am thinking of running 2 Talos and 1 Razorwings. I also just ordered 20 Hellions. They should be fun!!
Does anyone know if the Baron has his own model? Or do I have to create one??
37700
Post by: Ascalam
There is no model as yet.
He's not hard to convert though
11988
Post by: Dracos
Massaen wrote:lonekthx wrote:The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.
As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.
Irony! Its the other way around for most!
The succubus is good - but is not a force multiplier. She kills around 2 MEQ a turn (not allowing for combat drugs) and thats great bang for buck... but a haemy with a liquifier will do just as well and gives a pain token to a unit. Combine that with a cheaper cost and 3 per HQ choice... you can see how good he is now yes?
There are a couple problems with your analysis.
First, the the haemy makes the unit lose fleet. No problem, keep him in the vehicle/separate from squad when they get out fine. But you have decreased the hitting power of the unit.
Second, the kills a haemy gets do not add to combat results. This is very important. An extra 2 wounds average, before combat drugs, can really swing battles.
I don't find the force multiplication you are attributing to the Haemy to be necessary. You can get FNP still without him, but there is no picking up a CC beast mid-game. The succubus really is a cheap CC boss.
Haemy is also a solid choice. For me personally, after I started using the succubus I never looked back. She outperforms her point value so often its just silly.
38926
Post by: Exergy
Kharrak wrote:I'm actually surprised many (but not all) dislike hellions - they are good for what they do.
A potential 24" assault, three attacks on the charge at str4, likely having followed a barrage of 2 poison shots per model. A unit of ten is going to deal just under 7 wounds as they fire in, and then another 7-8 wounds on the assault. If you toss the Barron in, that's 5 str6 attacks on the charge. AND they have Combat Drugs.
I know that many dislike them since they tend to be targeted as a squishy option amid an army of vehicles, but they have stealth, which helps a surprising amount.
they dont have stealth, the baron does. Taking hellions without the baron is criminally stupid as they are not troops and dont have stealth.
With the baron, a big unit can be alright, but its not going to solve all problems.
56704
Post by: Lucazi
I personally have hellions being the absolute last thing on my dark eldar mind. I do very well with my army as it stands and i enjoy the reavers tactics more
21596
Post by: DarthSpader
my 1850 tournament list... i tok first this last weekend using it, undefeated on the day.
hq: baron
6x 5 warriors w/ 1 blaster, venom
3x 4 trueborn, w/ 4 blasters venom
beast pack w/ 3x razorwings, 4x kymarae, 3xbm
3x ravager w/ff
=1848
my 3 games where vrs 2 blood angel players and a necron army. pretty much tabled the crons and one of the BA, and won the second BA game from sheer speed and objective grabs. the beasts owned everything, and the worst they got was having the baron fail his save and get force weaponed, and i lost a few khymarae. otherwise they just curbstomped whatever they hit.
as for bikes.... yea they are good distraction units... but way to expensive for such a distraction/suicide unit. 22 pts a model base is horrible, and you almost need a unit of 6 or more, otherwise you loose one and the unit runs. my exp with bikes is that they just never do what they are supposed to.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
DarthSpader wrote:my 1850 tournament list... i tok first this last weekend using it, undefeated on the day.
hq: baron
6x 5 warriors w/ 1 blaster, venom
3x 4 trueborn, w/ 4 blasters venom
beast pack w/ 3x razorwings, 4x kymarae, 3xbm
3x ravager w/ff
=1848
my 3 games where vrs 2 blood angel players and a necron army. pretty much tabled the crons and one of the BA, and won the second BA game from sheer speed and objective grabs. the beasts owned everything, and the worst they got was having the baron fail his save and get force weaponed, and i lost a few khymarae. otherwise they just curbstomped whatever they hit.
as for bikes.... yea they are good distraction units... but way to expensive for such a distraction/suicide unit. 22 pts a model base is horrible, and you almost need a unit of 6 or more, otherwise you loose one and the unit runs. my exp with bikes is that they just never do what they are supposed to.
What would you recommend for an 1850 list if I only have 2 venoms, 3 Raiders and 1 Ravager?
I do have beasts (lots of khymerae and clawed fiends, but no Razorwings), lots of wyches, Incubi, Wracks, lots of warriors, homonculi, a few jetfighters, a few talos, etc. Your help would be appreciated. Also, just out of curiosity, you run Baron with your Beasts? How does this benefit or hinder the squad or him? Thanks.
42819
Post by: Starless Night
You can make razorwing flocks pretty easily. I just took the spike blade bits from the vehicle kits and glued them together such that they resemble bladed boomerangs. I then use the spears as a sort of stem to keep them up. 1 spear usually kept up 2-3 individual birds. Then put them on some 40mm bases. Total cost for making 5 razorwing flocks should be $5-10 as that's how much bases cost.
Couple that with my hellion beastmasters and LotR Khymerae (wargs). I spent about $70 for five beastmasters, ten khymerae, and ten razorwing flocks. And seeing as all are 100% GW models, they are legal in any GW tournament.
54380
Post by: Dark eldar elite
Okay.. I have a tourney coming up at 1850 points... and I just got 20 Hellions put together... any advice?? Should I try them in the tourney?? What number is good to have in a squad? Should sargeant have Agonizer or Stun Claw? I never used them before and I don't really know how effective Hit and Run is either.... never saw it happen before. Any advice or comments would be helpful. Thanks.
37700
Post by: Ascalam
I use a small group of hellions with a stun claw helliarch as a suicide unit.
Hit and Run is very effective with DE (it's I based... ork hit and run bites) and with the Stunclaw you can drag an IC off with you out of a combat, dropping yourself and him elsewhere on the battlefield. If he then kills your hellions on his turn's assault phase, or if you Hit and Run out of the combat at the end of said phase, he'll be left stranded and alone, prime shooting fodder..
A full unit of Hellions, especially with the Baron, isn't bad either, if short ranged. A volley of poison followed by a nice vicious assault. Against marines and anyone else with high toughness and/or good armour, pick small units to menace, as the return assault will be lethal to your fragile hellions.
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