DE designe to kill MEQ's?

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**Lordhat**

My roomate plays DE. Having switched to SM's from Necrons I can't seem to beat him with a "take all comers" type list. When I played the 'Crons we went about 50/50, but now he usually just massacres me. So is it just me or a re the DE simply designed to kill SM's?

**Blackmoor**

It has a lot to do with your army, and your friends army.

There are several different Dark Eldar builds, and a whole lot of Space Marine builds, so it is hard to know what the problem is without more details.

I will say as a general rule that Dark Eldar are fast, but fragle. They have the ability to do very well against static, shooting marines.

**Saldiven**

Agree with Blackmoor. I've played DE, and they do tend to do very well against most MEq lists. The biggest thing I have trouble with when fighting SM's are landspeeder squadrons (have lots of anti-tank, but with glance only, it is tough to knock them down) and indirect whirlwinds. The marines themselves, including the HQ's, termi's etc, are pretty much a cake walk. DE have access to a lot of AP 2 weaponry and power weapons. My standard 1850 DE list has 25 AP 2 weapons and a good number of power weapons.

I have noticed, however, that as codex creep continues, my DE seem to do less and less well in tournaments. I'm still carrying about a 66% record, but 2-3 years ago it was closer to 80%.

Sal

**ninjajuicer**

I don't know if the problem you are describing in one of codex creep. Some of the new releases (Eldar and Templars) have actually been powered down relative to their 3rd ed incarnations. Space marines got more powerful, but their 3rd ed codex was a horrible joke.

What I think has happened is that the current 40k metagame has moved in the direction of incredibly mobile forces. SAFH marines have been supplamented by lists relying heavily on deep strike. Iron warriors have been joined by a variety of daemonbombs. Stand and shoot Ulthwe Eldar is dead, only the mech variety remains.

When dark eldar lose some of their mobility advantage, their utter lack of ability to take damage becomes a serious liability.

I think playing games at 1850 also negates some of their mobility advantage, because a cunning enemy can "saturate" every lane of fire with multiple las/plas squads on a 6x4 board or field so many deep strikers that the DE player has no where to hide.

**Lemartes**

DE generelly do very well against mech sans heavy assault cannon variants. Heavy assault cannon builds with tank hunting terms can do a real number on DE. That shouldn't be a problem to much longer as it looks like assault cannons are going to get exnayed.

**fourganger88**

Raider based armies have access to the excellent Disintegrator weapon, which is one of the most effective anti-MEQ weapons around, especially on a Ravager with 3 of them.

**thehod**

DE is a 3rd edition army and they were made immediately after the 3rd edition Marine codex. The DE codex has a nasty tendancy to be anti-marine but now that 4th edition any armies can almost match the speed ofd a DE army and with each codex the army does get slowly obsolete.

I will say that the mechanized armies DE welcome to play with their anti-tank goodness

**Lordhat**

Posted By Blackmoor on 01/28/2007 3:12 PM
It has a lot to do with your army, and your friends army.

I'd say it has more to do with my experience with my list as opposed to his experience with his; Any variations on either of our parts comes out the same.

He doesn't run WWP's or whych lists (though he usually does run at least one unit of whyches.) Without the WBB 3+ just goes bye bye too fast against his DE.

**kradhoso**

mechanised DE died with entanglement rules in 4th ed

the only real competitive way to play them now is with a WWP (IMHO)

it's also one of the toughest army to master, as any mistake you make can cost you the game as all your units are paper thin.

I haven't played against mech tau or eldar recently, but I think those armys are more of a challenge than marines ones.

as for marines, LS tornadoes and whirlwinds can be a pain in the ass, termies are a big joke as their 2+ saves are pretty useless. I would fear more of an army with 6x 6 marine squads with HB and plas than anything else. bear in mind that any close combat option for marines are plain bad compared to what DE can have (ie wyches, incubis, HQ units, Talos).

outshoot them to oblivion and you will win. and remember, you dont need a lascannon to kill a raider. enough of heavy bolter fire is great, ACs are optimal.

**Lordhat**

Entanglement hurts, but skimmers are the new Rhino of 40k; Include a free lance weapon on every one and they just get better. Mech DE dead? Far from it.

**thehod**

Entanglement hurts badly but you learn to play with it and learn to use cover a whole lot more than DE used to in 3rd.

Mech DE is still very deadly and a WWP army is far too unreliable for my tastes as a DE player. I managed to get 3rd in Adepticon Gladiator that had 8 skimmers in the list very heavy on the Mechanized and I have learned that I cant rely on my armor like marines or special equipment to keep my skimmers alive like the Eldar or Tau.

You give a good player a Mech DE army and a few games to get good with them and he can wipe the floor with most opponents.

**Lemartes**

I agree. DE can wipe most opponents up if in the hands of a competant player. DE are terrain dependent though which usually isn't a problem if at least 25% of the board is covered in terrain. If the terran is sparse they have a hard time with thier raider rush. First turn is usually a huge factor and is very favorable to DE when they can go first in most missions. One of the few armies that can be in assault in one turn which is refreshing as very few assault armies are making it in 4th edition.

**kradhoso**

WWP stops getting unreliable when you protect your carrier well enough. usually 3 talos and a 18 strong warrior squad fills this role pretty well, and they have more uses than just protecting you haemonculus.

WWP also attenuates the disadvantage of going second, as your important units don't get shot off the skies on turn 1, plus it helps a lot against escalation.

I also had parking lot problems with mech DE, as even with a 25% cover table finding space to hide 8-9 raiders is kinda hard (even more since skimmers no longer block lines of sight, that is, unless i am sorely mistaken)

The other problem with mech DE i see is that you spend almost half your points on non scoring transports. add that to the fact that killing 6 warriors and the squad also becomes non scoring, and you may have trouble in objective games...

@ thehod : if you have success with mech DE, good for you ! I had some trouble winning with it and decided to go another way...now i consistently win