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Ive been playing Imperial Guard for about two years now and have decided to pick up some dark eldar as my new labors of love. Ive mail ordered the codex and a raider box set to start me off, but I have no solid ideas formed yet. My essential strategy as it stands now is to basically field 6 raiders with warriors give them their basic heavy weapons etc, the raiders with nets and the ability to fleet and form a fireline as my opponents approach. Once they get too close I open my portal and unleash my reserves of helions to tie up combat, shoot my warrior squads, fleet my raiders for 1-6 inches scoop up the warriors and back them up next turn as well and drop them off and basically play a mobile firebase styled army, esspecially considering helions cannot be tied up in combat.

Now unfortunately I have next to no knowledge of dark eldar tactics and cant even flaunt having played them before, so if anyone could give me even the most basic dark eldar advice etc id appreciate it.

How competitively are you looking to play?

Well built portal lists are one of the strongest builds in the game.

On the other hand, Hellions are some of the worst units in the game.

In terms of being competitve I think the best way to describe it is my guard army has a very good win ratio, but is boring as hell. I am fielding the dark eldar army to more importantly have fun.

Of course as always winning is nice, but with this army I could care less if it never won a single game. However even with this being said could you give me an example of a well built portal list, and possibly explain some of the basics to me if you could?

Dark Eldar portal lists look something like this:

Lots of foot troops, lots of vehicles, some killy HQ's, and Wyches (2 mounted, 1 not). If you can fit anything else in, some cheap heavy support like Talos or Ravagers are fine and dandy.

It's a bitch to play against. If you want a list, give me a points total and I'll pop you one out.

I'm kinda tired, so I'll post more in the morning, but it basically works like this.

Dark Eldar are basically a glass hammer. They pack staggering amounts of firepower and CC ability, but have absolutely no defensive ability whatsoever. Normally, this means that they require either first turn, or lots of terrain in order to keep their units safe. Portals are, to date, DE's best answer to this problem. By keeping the powerful, but squishy, units off the board, they can basically guarantee that your important units will not only get to the target unscathed, but have first strike capability. (an idea stolen from pod lists) Basically you need the following things.

-2 large warrior squads
-2 hamonculi with portals
-rest of points into your powerful stuff

Only the Warriors and Hamonculi start on the board. Your basic goal is to move them up as far as you can on the first 2 turns, and then deploy the portals. The warriors provide big targets that have to be eaten through before they can start attacking the Hamonculi. Ideally, the portals should be about 18 inches apart to give you the largest amount of potential area to deploy from. It also prevents them from blocking off a lone portal, which would leave you unable to deploy. After that, your big hitters come through the portal and cause as much damage as possible. You have several excellent choices here. (all these units should be in a raider)

Decked Out Archon+Grotesques: Basic combo, the grotesques force a fallback, and the Archon has 7 initiative. For some reason, people seem to think that the correct way to build an archon is with an agonizer. (which is inefficient) You want to build it with a punisher+animus vitae. After 1 kill, (and with some help from CC drugs) they will be wounding MEQs on a 2+. (so basically 5 re-rollable 3+ to hit, 2+ to wound, no save attacks)

Dracon+Incubi: Another anti MEQ group. Which you choose is mostly up to personal preference. (if you choose any at all) Give the Dracon a Agonizer+Splinter Pistol.

Wyches: Easily your most versitile and arguably powerful option. Give them wych weapons and plasma grenades and let them go to town. The Succabus will need an Agonizer.

*those are your primary assault options. Each one should make it into CC the turn they come through the portal, this is extremely consistent since the portal should be 12" past your deployment zone, +12 inches of raider movement, +2 inches of unload, +D6 inches of fleet, +6 inch charge, and you have yourself an insane amount of movement room.

Ravager: Eh, everybody has there own personally favorite version of the Ravager, I will let you come up with one your happy with. I personally don't bother with a night shield, as DE weapons tend to be ~12" shorter in range than most other races anyway. You basically want to just come out, try and get to cover so that your only visible to the unit your firing on, and blast away. (this actually isn't that hard if you use CC to block off lines of sight) Rinse and repeat.

Jetbikes: Jetbikes are, imo, lousy. But I have known people who swear by them, and max them out whenever possible. (usually above 2000 pts.) Can't help you much here.

Talos: playable, but fairly slow.


Most of your other unit options are going to be subpar choices. If you like hellions you can try them out, but they are underpowered for their cost. Usually players max out on Wyches and Ravagers first, then fill in the rest based on personal preference. I'll see what else I can remember after a good nights sleep.

Thanks Rain id really love to hear any other details you could provide me with and if possible possibly go into a little more detail of the specifics of for example why you would want to take one choice over the other. Overall your post thus far is exactly what I was looking for and was extremely helpful, thank you very much.

@Stelek, 1500 points-2,000 points

Edit: Also how does an army like this cope with a Nidzilla army or essentially multiple wound high toughness models, combined with swarms?

Here you go:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/206859.page#230051

You deal with Gojira lists by pummeling them with blasters, disintegrators, dark lances, and Wyches.

Running the Raiders over enemy units tends to annoy the gak outta the other guy. Oh sorry I ran over this unit, this unit, your IC, this unit, and with my sideways banana boat swipe I do believe I tagged this unit too.

Wait wait, that's just my first raider move. I have 6 more to go! Shooting? Oh just you wait. It's gonna be a long day....

OK, I have had my coffee and feel like I can now better answer your questions.

One thing I didn't mention (and has nothing to do with tactics) is how much you plan on moving the list around. DE are, for lack of a better word, an absolute b*tch to transport. For whatever reason, they decided to make huge numbers of flimsy, easily broken parts that stick out of models from weird angles. The Raider model is probably the worst. Not only are its neck and wings easily broken, but the stand doesn't even fit correctly in the raider! (the hole is to large) The primary reason I no longer play DE is because I was sick and tired of watching something break everytime I transported them to the store to play. Conversions, or a more durable substitute model, are your friend.

Now that that is over with..

The Dracon and Incubi build is basiclly a cheap, efficient way to beat up on MEQs. In fact is it your most efficient way. The problem is that the squad is only good against MEQs. Against any other target, you will probably gain more bang for your buck with Wyches. So if your fighting one of the numerous Marine incarnations, these are an excellent choice.

The Archon+Grotesque group is a little more rounded. The archon runs in, cleans out its kill zone, and then the grotesques force a fall back. The primary problem with this is that more and more armies are becoming fearless, negating the groups primary strength. Its still solid though, The Archon is scary to basically everything with toughness < 8, and grotesques are decent at walking through large numbers of basic troops.

Wyches are perhaps one of the games most unique units. There actually at there best when fighting other CC units, where there wych weapons really come into their own. The primary advantage of Wyches is versatility. They are just as dangerous to a wraithlord (agonizer and 4+ invunerable saves) as to Guardsmen. A second option is the cup of ??? (don't remember off the top of my head) that always hits on 3+ in CC. This is usually a bad thing, since your opponent also hits on a 3+ in CC, negating the halving of their weapon skill. The primary use here is against skimmers. Loaded up with haywire grenades, a group of wyches can put a suprising beating on an unwary Tau/Eldar player. Combat Drugs are usually hit or miss. Charge Range/Attacks/Strength are all nice, also remember that +WS usually means you hit on 3+, the other two are pretty terrible.

The Talos has almost fallen off the map. Stealth powerfists are everywhere in 4th, so it struggles to take down even one squad before dying. If your playing against someone who doesn't use powerfists or rending (basically no one) then the Talos can be decent.

As far as fighting Nidzilla, you basically can't take a better list. DE are the one list in the game that considers it a free win. You pack so many heavy weapons+agonizers that they just can't deal with it all fast enough. You do need to land an aggressive knockout punch however, if you let the game drag on they will eventually be at an advantage. Swarms you can either take out with disintegrators or splinter weapons, but usually you just want to ignore them if you can. Unless they are going to tie up one of your CC squads for the rest of the game, I suggest putting fire on units that are much more threatening.

I gave up worrying about my DE breaking a long, long, LONG time ago. When I redo the army, it'll be different that's for sure.

I use Wyches + Archon, the Grotesques do things I don't want them to. For example, against fearless enemies they do nothing...and against IG, I get shot at! lol

Talos has it's use, but you need to bring 3. Toss them into one enemy squad at a time, and they do awesome.

Indeed. My Gojira list isn't looking forward to being spanked. lol

My experience with nightshields dates back to 3rd edition. Basically people would forget about them choose to rapid fire a raider out of the sky and miss.
Not really effective though.

@Stelek I understand the composition of the majority of your army list except for a few things.

First off why the 3 Ravengers? I mean dont you already have enough DL's? Couldnt you better use those points for rounding off those wyche units to full strength and giving the last squad plasma's as well? Or more realistically I suppose taking 2 of them instead? I would just thing that giving yourself more bodies in the wyche units would be more valuable than a full three Ravengers.

Second I can see the fun to slave snares, but I dont really remember how they work, any chance you could clarify the rules for me a bit?

Again I know next to nothing about this, more or less just going on knowledge gained from other armies and what I feel is common sense, but if you feel different, why is the extra ravenger more important than full wyche units?

Nightshield army is a totally different flavor, but it can be successful....very much so.

The Ravagers do not have DL's. They have disintegrators.
You don't need more anti-tank fire. Lots of anti-infantry fire helps. That's what they are there for.

Slave Snares cause D6 S4 hits on units you pass over and take prisoners (more VPs). Since you never use them in a regular 'on the table' DE army because it only works if you move 12" or less, you put them in a portal army and you will often saturate the other guys army with so many targets he will have a hard time responding...and you get to use the slave snares.

Full Wych units are there to tie up forever. You don't want units tied up forever. You want them dead, or you want them reduced in effectiveness so you can continue shooting and eliminate them. Full wych units usually lose attacks and just end up costing you more points for little gain.

This is after all primarily a shooting army. It comes out, it hits hard, and if the other guy doesn't die; you do. Most of the time, other armies fold.

On what turn do you usually pop the portal, just because I cant realistically see 40 warriors standing up to three full turns of shooting without being massacred along with the portals on the IC. I know my guard army would blow them to pieces more accurately on the second turn and have room for more probably.

Also can you fire the DL on the raider along with using the snares? Also can you pass over multiple units and gain more attacks? (i.e. a guard player has three squads one behind the other with 2" inbetween squads. You move 11" Inches and pass over all three, do you get a d6 on each? Any other rules that go with the snares?

I fleet first turn, and drop second turn.

Yes you trigger the snares over anything you pass over, and it occurs in movement.

Then you shoot the weapons in the shooting phase.

IntoTheRain wrote: A second option is the cup of ??? (don't remember off the top of my head) that always hits on 3+ in CC. This is usually a bad thing, since your opponent also hits on a 3+ in CC, negating the halving of their weapon skill. The primary use here is against skimmers. Loaded up with haywire grenades, a group of wyches can put a suprising beating on an unwary Tau/Eldar player.

This is apparently contended. Just FYI.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/206732.page

If you think 40 warriors are too fragile, and you know there won't be escalation you can try this:

Requires: 1 Haemonculus w/ WWP. 1 raider squad with a dark lance. 1 raider squad with a splinter cannon. Both 5 strong.

the dark lance raider squad deploys out of the transport in some cover somewhere. The splinter cannon squad deploys with the haemonculus in a raider (obviously hidden). The other raider is nearby. Then first turn, move the raiders into an upside down V formation with the single haemy in the nook. The raider squad also disembarks, but make sure its 2" away so the haemy is an IC and can't be shot because the raiders are closer. If the raiders are shot down, they block LoS. Now you have an WWP that cannot be shot at.

What I would do if I fielded this tactic in a tournament is also take 40 warriors in the list, but keep them in the wwp in missions that don't use escalation or that don't have enough terrain. Never under estimate the power of 80 S3 AP5 shots. If you like, give the leader an agoniseor, and they aren't awful in cc. Theres also the safety net in escalation that you probably won't be facing your opponents full strength of fire pwer.

-Leo037

I still dont see how two raiders could withstand the shooting phase.

a.) If the get and explosion on both raiders its possible to kill yourself before they ever start shooting. Also depending on the explosion depends on whether or not a wreck is left behind to block LOS.

b.) If your warriors are in the WWP how in gods name do you keep your WWP safe? I mean against guard a tank /w heavy bolters or a unit of sentinels will make short work of your WWP.

c.) As a safety measure should I throw in a small unit of mandrakes for an extra meat shield if I need it, if not leave them underground until third and then surface them/ attack. Or will the warriors and 2 WWP be enough even against a tau/guard player?

Raiders moving fast are always glanced, so...they'd leave wrecks behind.

I don't understand B.

Don't understand C either.

Theres no real point explaining the above passage, mainly because I put a 1,000 point list (subbed in) through a test run with an ork player today. It came down to a minor victory, but I was very unhappy with a few things and how they performed. Heres what my list looked like.

HQ
-------
Dracon
-Poison Blades

Haemonculi
-WWP

Troop
---------
Warrior Squad x20
x2 Dark Lances

Raider Squad w/ DL
x5 Warriors w/ x4 Splinter Rifles x1 Blaster

Raider Squad w/ DL
x5 Warriors w/ x4 Splinter Rifles x1 Blaster

Elite
----------
Wyches x7 Wyche Weapons, Plasma Grenades x1 blaster
Succubus x1 /w poison blades
x1 Raider /w DL

Wyches x7 Wyche Weapons, Plasma Grenades x1 blaster
Succubus x1 /w poison blades
/1 Raider w/ DL

Heavy
-----------
Ravager 2x Disentegrator 1x DL

In hind site id probably drop the two DL's from the warriors and a total of 2x blasters (one from each) from the wyche's units and arm the raveger with 3x disentegrators, and the dracon with an agonizer.

As a note my disappointment mainly was due to my wyches. Granted I was playing orcs but after all the dice had been cast id be lucky to kill 3-4 orcs per squad a round of combat, and for several rounds id kill 0-1 orcs. I mean after the grenades etc they are like 15 points a model?? To their credit I forgot about their drugs, and would appreciate it if someone could give me a rundown on the process. Regardless is there alternatives to Wyches, such as bikes or something?

Wyches are difficult to use. They are pretty worthless againt horde troops unless you use them as a shock troop to finish off a squad.

They can tie up a squad of horde troops, but can be overwhelmed and not manage to do much but tie them down.

Elite combat troops in a ork army don't really exist, so you have to be content with tying them up. Fire them into the Ork hordes and forget about them. Everything in a inkie army is expendable, don't forget that.

My DE army that routinely beats 2k armies is built at 1250 points...and I have more stuff than you do. You must get all the cheap good stuff in your army before you go spending points on other things.

If you spend points on stuff that costs more than 8 points without getting all the troop slots filled, something is wrong with your build.

Build a core up, then add expensive units as you run out of places to spend your points on your basic troopers.

1.) Could you give me an explanation on combat drugs.

2.) Why then upgrade anything in the wyche squads at all if theyre throw away?

3.)Why take minimum squad sizes in raider squads if theyre suppose to be the backbone?

4.) What about taking some grotesques (in a larger point game) to bolster the wyches and go for a sweeping advance? Im sure your answer would be no because then they shoot you to bits as your no longer in CC, but than why not bikes?

In general id really like to make a CC version of a WWP list, isnt there some way to do this?

1) Sure, look on the table. If you are buying them, buy them only for a HQ by himself and use 2-3 doses per turn. They are stars, bright and fiery, then they burn out.

2/3) You need two targets on the board for every slot you use up, whenever possible. Both are fragile, but both hit hard. I have given up on large units in my raiders, especially given how ineffective everyone but the blaster guy is against MC and vehicles. So if you have a raider and dump the troops out, that's two targets. When you spring 9 choices out, that should be 18+ targets on the board. You focus your fire, do all the damage you can, and while any return fire will hurt--you should have crippled a large part of the other guys army.

4) Wyches are good. Everything else is shoddy really, they are too conditional to be of use against half the armies out there.

5) You can do a CC version of the WWP list without a problem. Run a Wych army. The problem is when you face a vehicle army and are built to CC. Your Wyches can't stay onboard the transports because you'll get annihilated when the raider goes down. They also can't afford to assault vehicles because bunching up makes you eat template death. They also can't just sit around, because if anyone even looks their way you will lose a ton of models to CC.

It's a very powerful army, but if you don't have a anvil (enemy ground troops) to smash your hammer upon; you lose. Simple as that.

To counteract even the most formidable mech armies couldn't you just run three ravagers with 3x DL's all raiders with DL and slave snares?

I mean even if you still were not comfortable you could take 2x DL in each 20 man squad of warriors for a extra push on the AT spectrum. If thats still not good enough, the succubus' would have agonizers (which although unreliable still have a 1/3 chance even if the tank moved 6" last turn.)

I just got done playing a shooty army and wanted to get away from the boring life of shoot/tie up combat/shoot some more/ tie up combat/shoot one more time. So if I were to do a CC portal list what changes would I have to undergo to make it possible?

Ok, i normally play DE.

Telos is a good way of sniping IC as you shoot the 6 closest targets (wounds can't be relocated)
Wyches are a great CC group, field them at max strength on raiders and pray you roll a 1 for there combat drugs (12" Assault move)
Ravengers, give em disintegrators.
Warriors - Minimum size DL squads, Max Size Splinter cannon foot sluggers.
Arcon - pure and simple, max him out (Shadowfield is a good option 2+ invun except for the fail its gone for the rest of the game)

1 problem with your list, its not WWP oriented which I think is vital to keeping DE intact. Also Talos kind of suck in comparison to what else you could be getting. Also wheres your anti tank?

Well a minor victory on your first try is nothing to be ashamed of.

Most of the problems you have are fairly obvious when you analyze your list.

1) You neglected your horde fighting weapons. So naturally your going to struggle against orks. You have 7 Dark Lances and 4 Blasters, but only 2 Disintegrators and no Splinter Cannons. At the very least, don't skimp these weapons on the raider squads.

2) Naturally, 7 Wyches cannot engage 20 orks. Soften them up to ~10 first if you can. But your right, remembering the drugs would have probably helped alot. The only thing you really need to remember is that the +1WS is a suprisingly big deal. Since most troopers are WS 2 after Wych Weapons kick in, your opponent will need 5s to hit you.

3) Right now, that Dracon serves no purpose. You don't need him to fufill the HQ requirement, he isn't going to kill much unless you deck him out completely, and he isn't buying you a squad of Incubi, so what is he doing? He needs to do something useful or you should probably dump him.

Accuracy by Volume wrote:1 problem with your list, its not WWP oriented which I think is vital to keeping DE intact. Also Talos kind of suck in comparison to what else you could be getting. Also wheres your anti tank?

Obviously you have never seen a Talos used right. Also, Splinter cannons are your friend ST4 AP4 Assault 4. 2 10 man DL squads will do the trick, and give them blasters, theres your anti tank weapons squads. Have DL on the raiders and Disentergrators on ravengers

If you wanted to do the witch cult WWP army you'd have to have some sniper squads start on table. Otherwise MECH armies are going to be too much for you. The down side to that is that it takes away from your troop choices. If you have to walking warrior sqads, two sniper squads, then you only get two raider squads. As a witch cult you just wouldn't have enough elite slots open.

BTW mandrake tend to piss off most Tau and Eldar players. But they're mostly a gimmick. Though it is nice to tie up some crisis suits for a few turns.

edit: correct me if I'm wrong but I thought splinter cannons were AP 5

@IntoTheRain-
1.) I always try to build my list as if I have no clue who my opponent will be so it was not geared towards any type of army, and also I overestimated the wyches. (it was not 7 on 20 it was 16 on 20 as I threw both squads into 1 unit and 2 succubus'). They did fairly well as on the third round of combat (1.5 turns) they reduced them low enough to flee and I sweeping advanced, followed by consolidating into the only two units I could.

2.)Unfortunatley the first unit was his nob's in 'Eavy Armor (4+ Save, 5+ Inv, 4+ Feel no pain). I reasoned to consolidate into them mainly because it was the only unit that my wyche squad #1 could, and if I didnt he would assault me next turn and get +1 for charge anyways.

Wyche squad #2 went into his Hard Boyz and in a combination of bade saves on my part and good ones on his, my warrior squad that assaulted into the combat outperformed the wyches.

3.) Thank you for the dracon advice ill deffinatley be dropping him.

@Freaky Freddy-
I understand the sniping ability is pretty cool, but im just not a big fan on spending that many points on a model that I can do that with any standard rapid fire gun. (Say a unit is 8" away from a rapid fire unit, you just back up 4" and rapid fire, as you can only kill models with 12" from your units, on the front models can be removed as casualties.) so whooptie gak. Talos other ability is being a 3 wound t7 behemoth that you would use to counter charge. Why would I want another counter charging unit instead of taking a ravager?

The only way I see talos being a feasible concept put to reality would be to take three as the sheer firepower combined with its ability to tip combats would be quite formidable.

I like the idea of them but I would have to run something like 2 humunc's with WWP and a bunch of 10 man squads with 2 DL at the very beginning in hopes of taking out any Mechs before my reserves came through the portal.

@gdurant- Correct me if im wrong but running a wyche cult army swaps the force organization by making your warriors/raiders elites and your wyches troops? If thats the case take 2x 10 warriors /w 2x dark lances each. One mob of 20x warriors plain and 2x humunc's with WWP have one behind the 20 man squad and keep the other by your DL squads just in case. I beleive that if you could minimize the threat to your skimmers during the first two turns you dont even necessarily have to push the WWP forward. I also dont think that 4x dark lances alone can do that. Any ideas on how to increase the armies ability to take out anti skimmer threats without deploying the whole army?