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I have recently purchased some Dark Eldar as I am sick of my previous 40k army and am not guaranteed of weekly fantasy games.

I have at my disposal the following models

HQ:
1x Archon
1x Haemonculus
1x Lelith Hespirax

Elites:
5x Incubi
some potential kabalite trueborn

Troops:
20x Wyches
36x Kabalites

Fast attack:
6x Reavers

Heavy support:
2x Ravagers
1x Razorwing

Transport:
2x Venom
4x Raider

the only built models are lellith, the archon and 16 kabalites.

My biggest question here is about equipment. I was originally thinking dark lances on raiders and ravagers and a disintegrator cannon Razorwing. I was also planning on running heat lances on the bikes and a unit of blasterborn. However I have realised this may leave me very vulnerable to MEQs and also fliers. Any feedback, such as advice on things I may be missing in may army/ options I may not have considered, would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently playing mostly with a small group of friends up at WW due to being at uni in nottingham during term time.
A the armies which currently exist within this group are as follows:
Tau
Necrons
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Daemons
Space wolves (although they aren't usually there)
and as of recently Tyranids.

I figure poison and missiles should happily mess up the Tyranids and the daemon's player is a Khorne enthusiast so I should be able to stay out of range and shoot him in the face a lot. Tau I figure I will try to get to one side of their army and try to get the Wyches and Incubi in the fight once I can safely get close enough. However I am still not sure how to deal with the Necrons and marines.
I think there are currently 3 players with flyers at their disposal. One of these is the Necron player and I think one of the others may be the tau player.

I think this is fairly comprehensive information. I would be appreciative of any advice/feedback. Especially on the equipping of the Razorwing, and the ravagers, as one of the ravagers is now sitting half constructed on my desk.

I would gladly help make a list if you give me a point level to work up to. As a rule always take lances on boats, what you gain from the disintegrator does make up for what you lose, like popping other transports, insta deathing, and a chance to take out a landraider. But I do agree that usually disintegrators are best on the razorwing so you aren't tempted to shoot tanks when your lovely missiles will mess up infantry, if you feel you NEED AA then use it as a voidraven instead.

Then you have to decide if you want to include Lilith, because that will shape your army. If you take her then I assume you play for fun and want to include lots of wyches, if you don't then you can make a nasty, but rather unfun for the other player, shooting beat down list. Hybrid lists can work, but they are suboptimal, but if you want I could make a list that works. Welcome to the dark side

The points values I am likely to play are probably going to be 1000, 1500 and 2k (although I think I may need some more stuff for 2k) I am not opposed to doing "counts as" with lellith but I got her mostly for the idea of pitting her vs tau in close combat

edit: I am very much in favour of making a list which would be very un-fun for necrons as I am sick of dying horribly to them with my previous army

edit2: I am very grateful of your offer for help Alex

On is it now, be back with a list for each point level, hope you enjoy.
Hq
Archon with blaster 75pts

Elites
4 trueborn with 4 blasters in a venom . 203pt

Troops
5 kalablite warriors w/ blaster in venom 115 pts
5 wyches w/ HWG in raider.120
5 warriors with blaster in raider w/ lance. 120

Heavy support.
Ravager
Ravager
Razorwing with D/L.with Flickerfields. 365

998pts. 18 dark lance shots, 36 splinter shots at 12 inches with haywire for big tanks and missiles for hordes. I know I said that you should go dissies on the razorwing, but I just noticed you have little AA apart from hoping for 6's and the dark lances will help pop the odd flyer while missiles will still obliterate hordes.

Will makes other lists later...I got to go the dentist

Thanks for the list yeah my worries about AA are mostly due to the necrons as their doom mobility due to flying transport and damage from high doomscythe :/

Actually, the problem with necron air force is simply that, mobility. On necron turn 2, you could easily turbo boost your entire army into his deployment zone and force the flyers to go straight over your head! If you say within 18 inches of a flyer, he has to fly over you, or you wont he be in his front arc. The best defence against necron air force is to target what he has on the bored and use the inherent dark eldar speed to simply ignore his flyers all together. Any 1k match where he uses night and doom scythes leaves him very under manned on the table, by which you should easily over power 500pts of his army with you 1k pts before the rest of his troops even hit the field!

If that is the case could I not just use the razorwing as anti infantry?

You could, but are you tailoring for necrons, or an all comers list? If Necrons, sure go AI, every one of there infantry units would die like flies except wraiths, but you have ample lances for them. But if its all comers then think about your local meta, are there fliers? Are they flyers you cannot ignore (Heldrake) or would be easy kills (Other Eldar) or do you need more ap 2 (Dark angles all termie army, Gk termies and such). Its really a meta choice that effects that more then anything.

Well I haven't played in a bit due to it being the holidays so I'm not there at the moment but I think I am correct with the following

DA: Bike list, maybe a land speeder or 2 and I think a couple of dreads for support

Tau: mostly infantry spam. I think a couple of tanks and a riptide. I suspect he bought the flier with the new update.

Necrons: From what has been said I think they are shifting towards infantry but they had been fielding tonnes of tanks. a monolith is almost guaranteed.

Nids: They are a new member of the group and I haven't seen them play yet.

Daemons: Not played against them in 40k yet but I have gone against them in fantasy. They field mostly khorne there I think they bought a battleforce, Skulltaker, Soulgrinder and a special character of some form. Absolutely obsessed with khorne though.

GK: Mostly mechanised infantry iirc and some termies.

I think the tau player is going to start a speed freaks Orks army too I think.

Edit:
As I am selling my old marines, I got tired of the lack of mobility of wolves, the DA player will soon have another dread and some more termies, incuding some assault ones.

Would it be a good idea to invest in more mechnised kabalites with splinter cannons or some mechanised splinterborn? The other unit I was thinking of getting was scourges but a bit hesitant due to the points cost.

I really dislike scourges, they are simply inefficient. While you don't pay more then what you get, what you get isn't efficient. Splinterborn or even simple warriors are more effective splinter per point. I would suggest using splinterborn as the list I mentioned has a lot of it's AI in a fragile razorwing. If you really want to use up a fast attack slot then use your reavers. They are a great, efficient unit that is the best source of melta for DE (21 inch melta death range) as well as being brutally good at killing off tau pathfinders/battlesuits. oh, an the tau flyer is rubbish, a flyer more fragile then ours! A razorwing would mince it if both shots hit. That's a really DE friendly meta because 3 lists make use of high T, 1 uses high av and the other is just expensive marines in shooty metal boxes. You should go on a rampage!

So the bikes only pose a threat due to being a bit more mobile then? GK I am looking forward to lances vs them. Just worried about the sheer number of shots I'll need to get past the 3+s and the fact that necrons just don't die


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey as a point of interest this was the 2k list I had been working on when I bought the models, realised after that I had 16 extra kabalites on top of what I was buying and the haemonculus was sort of a spur of the moment purchase so I hadn't added that in. Does this look reasonable or horrendous?


+++ 2k DE list5 (1947pts) +++
+++ 2000pt Dark Eldar 6th Ed (2010) Roster (Primary Detachment)) +++

Selections:

Dark Eldar 6th Ed (2010) (Primary Detachment) Selections:

+ HQ + (160pts)

* Archon (160pts)
Blaster , Combat Drugs , Huskblade , Kabalite Armor, Plasma Grenades, Shadow field, Soul-trap


+ Elites + (406pts)

* Incubi (223pts)
Incubus Warsuit
* 3x Incubi
3x Klaive
* Klavex
Demiklaives , Murderous Assault , Onslaught
* Venom
Flickerfield, Nightshield , Splinter Cannon


* Kabalite Trueborn (183pts)
* 4x Trueborn
4x Blaster
* Venom
Flickerfield, Nightshield , Splinter Cannon


+ Troops + (800pts)

* Kabalite Warriors (180pts)
* 8x Kabalite Warrior
8x Splinter Rifle
* Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon
Splinter Cannon
* Raider
Dark Lance, Nightshield
* Sybarite
Splinter Rifle


* Kabalite Warriors (180pts)
* 8x Kabalite Warrior
8x Splinter Rifle
* Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon
Splinter Cannon
* Raider
Dark Lance, Nightshield
* Sybarite
Splinter Rifle


* Wyches (220pts)
* Hekatrix
Agoniser, Plasma Grenades, Splinter Pistol
* Raider
Dark Lance, Nightshield
* Wych with Wych Weapon
Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
* Wych with Wych Weapon
Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
* 7x Wyches
7x Plasma Grenades, 7x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon


* Wyches (220pts)
* Hekatrix
Agoniser, Plasma Grenades, Splinter Pistol
* Raider
Dark Lance, Nightshield
* Wych with Wych Weapon
Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
* Wych with Wych Weapon
Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
* 7x Wyches
7x Plasma Grenades, 7x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon


+ Fast Attack + (156pts)

* Reaver Jetbikes (156pts)
2x Heat Lance, 6x Jetbikes


+ Heavy Support + (425pts)

* Ravager (125pts)
Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield


* Ravager (125pts)
Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield


* Razorwing Fighter (175pts)
(Aerial Assault, Deep Strike, Night Vision, Supersonic)
Disintergrators (x2), Flickerfield, Monoscythe Missile (x4), Nightshield, Splinter Cannon

Great start, but I think I can slim it down in places. Oh, and I think its against forum rules to post individual upgrade points like this, and the rules made to hard to read. I hope anyone who was going to offer help new those rules and way ^^

First, love your Archon, that's me exact build but I think you went over bored with the incubi. I don't really like demi klaives as I think a normal klaive is more then enough to kill a marine sergeant. You will want a klavex to soak up the challenge so the Archon can fight, but you really don't need the klavex powers. The powers are only worth it on a lage unit of at least 7, up till them there just not worth the points. Also your venom doesn't need nightfields and neither do your wych raiders. The way I see it is that they want to get close to unload there quarry, they are already going to be close enough to make nightshields worthless. Have nightfields on shooty units because you don't need them with assault units.

Not really sure you need the Sarbarites, being you have a high leadership 8 anyway, but that's a preference choice. Kabalites are fine, a great start to the army. Wyches, unlike most, I still like. I think they are still good as assaulting and are resilient in combat. Though personally I don't like the points we have to spend on an agoniser, they're powerfist points for basically +1 strength! My preferred Hek load out is either a cheap an reliable venom blade or a power mace for added strength and still have some AP. Reavers are great, you didn't fall into the blade vane upgrade traps. Next point is a yet another preference point, on flickerfields. Remember that you get a 5+ cover save just for moving so say are flickerfields worth it? They give first turn protection, but so does nightfighting or LOS blocking terrain, and they protect you against tau somewhat. Oh, and drop nightfields on the flyer and replace it with flickerfields as he only gets his jink save if he, well, jinks. Meaning hitting on 6's, we don't like that when we can get a 5+ save without jinking anyway. Im not sure how many points that freed up, but other upgrdes you might want to look into is having one wych squad get haywire grenades for a little extra AV if you think you need it. Or maybe give a succubus or haemonculi to go with one of the wych squads. The haemonculus grants feel no pain off the bat, mitigating explosions a bit, while the succubus with agoniser (only place I would suggest it...ever) is as effective as 12 (!!!!) wyches on the charge against marines (wyches need 36 attacks to make 18 hits to cause 6 wounds for marines to fail 2 saves. While succubus have 6 attacks to hit 4 times to kill 2 marines) and also mitigates explosions by allocating on to her extra wounds. Other then that, great start!

okay dropping the upgrades you mentioned has put the total down to 1802. Adding haywire puts it at 1842., adding a succubus puts me at 1927. a haemonculus with scisorhand and liquifier whoud go to 1917. although I guess 22 points can be dropped from each of those seeing as I would be losing 1 wych with special weapons in each case.

any thoughts on making it a dual FOC list and including a haemy and a succubus?

If your thinking of going duel force org then then that might change things...you could have more ravagers! But since you don't have the models it would be best to stick to 1999+1 (2k without duel org) unless your gaming group is already doing it, because then they would start doing it with maybe a more optimised list then adding a haemonculas but if your going duel force org anyhow, you might as well The most competitive dark eldar lists are usually duel org with 6 ravagers (!!!) with minimal wrack in venom troops backed by eldar allies with a jetseer for both guide and prescience as well as warwalkers and either a wraithknight or prism. Those are the absolute epitome of both codex's rolled unto 1 mean army. By the way, what are your previous 40k armies? I might be able to come up with some fancy out of the box ally ideas

What do you think I should do with the remaining 73/ 83 points?

Hmm, this is always the hard bit ^^ Maybe re-upgrade to agonisers, I don't like them because theyare a few points to much, but points is exactly what we need right now. Also maybe some cluster caltrops on the reavers to do some serious damage when positioning for a melta shot. And splinter racks on Kabal raiders for re-rolls on your splinters, there, that must be about right

I was thinking last night after mentionning this, I could convert 1 unit of warriors to trueborn with carbines and an extra splinter cannon for 80 points. What do you think of that for an idea?

I'm thinking you would be very light on the troop front, especially since your likely to be sending both the wyches straight for the enemies best units ^^

So it would be better to keep them as troops for objective purposes?

I also noticed that agoniser is always wounds on a 4. bearing it mind the wyches are probably only going to be hitting MEQ level survival at maximum would it potentially be worth going for a standard power weapon instead in case I get a 3 or is it worth the extra points for the chance of tougher enemies and a little more reliability?

I'm saying it would be a risk, and it would leave you under manned for objectives. But its also an increase in fire power that is considerable, so I would say its a preference choice. I would prefer them as troops, you might prefer to simply table the enemy and dam the objectives. Your choice, your army ^^

Am I right in thinking you can only fire snapshots if you move more than 6"? If so how do you usually do movement? is it rush to cover slightly out then cruise and shoot or what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How about shock prows on the wychs' raiders?

There is never really any need to rush to cover, getting a 5+ just for moving is usually enough. It could only be better in are terrain, which of course if its there, go for it. I try to get at max range first (24 for warriors) as quick as possible, even if first turn they have to snap shot. But splinter racks mitigate snap shooting a bit and you can fire the 6 shots on the cannon instead of 4 (your snap shooting anyway, so Why not?). Then you loiter at either max range or rapid fire range. On shock prows, I don't find them worth it. Old edition you could use them as a raider torpedo when turbo boasting, but now you can only move 12 inches and that caps it at strength 7, not great while against infantry most of them have some sort of fearless or high leadership, tank shocking them is pointless. Or at least, that's how I see it. On agonisers the reason I don't like them is when not on the charge, you kill 0.75 of a marine. For 20 points. Marines could get a lightning claw for that, or a power fist, and they just over shadow it soo much. By power weapon I meant either Mace for high strength and easy wounding, or axe in a haemonculi unit for AP 2 (4+ followed by FnP is surprisingly durable) In all honesty the best choice is the venom blade, best 5pts your likely to spend.

So rush to max range, stroll to rapidfire, then dakka them down. What are fast skimmers limited to these days then,12" move like everything else?

The remaining of that 25% of the marine wouldn't be very happy

We can move up to 12 ignoring all terrain but we have to snap fire, if we move 6 we don't. Easy, but if you think your going to do a lot of snap firing then make sure you take splinter racks.

Any guidance as to where I should drop points for the 1500 list?

Drop 1 Wych Squad, The Bikers and either Trueborn or Incubi unit. You still have plenty of AT if you drop Trueborn and if you drop incubi, drop a single wych and the Archon can go chill with his B*tches.

Thank you for the help. Unfortunately it'll be a month before I get to test the list but once I do I will let you know

How worried should I be about CSM allies for the daemon army? I think he uses a hell drake and obliterators to cover obvious daemon failings and add another ridiculous flier to the table :/

If you have a Lelith model, I strongly suggest you play her as a regular Succubus.

Succubus, once fully kitted out will find it hard to break 100 points, which makes for a cheap and effective HQ.

Her stat line is also pretty awesome, initiative being through the roof, even high for DE

Lelith the same may be feasible, however she doesn't get combat drugs!! Although combat drugs are pretty useless the majority of the time, the do help in some circumstances, better than nothing!!!

Nice collection though.

I think I need more kabalites...

Okay, I'm looking into a case for my army thus far. I think I will get a kaiser 4 from "KR Multicase" but I still have 3/4 of a KRU of space it the tray I think. that could house 4 venoms and a razorwing, 8 venoms or 120 infantry ( venoms/1 razorwing is about equal to 60 troops).

Any advice on what would give the best options for expansion?

I think so far I will have 16 spaces free for more infantry.

EDIT: I have purchased the case, decided to go for space for 6 extra venoms, 4 extra bikes, 2 extra barges and some extra troops.