Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Rafss wrote:
What Kabal obsession do you most often choose? Last time my favorite obsession is Poison Tongue. In fun games I use 20 Kabalite Warrioirs with 4 Blaster/Shredder in deep strike.

I always play Black Heart b.c my kabals are always 3 Ravagers lol

At least Scions have the better morale based Trait. Who cares about forcing a -1LD when all casualties are just double?

IMO all moral is pointless in 40k.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
IMO all moral is pointless in 40k.

Well yeah it is but at least the Scion one is more likely to have effect.

Rafss wrote:
What Kabal obsession do you most often choose?

I run Kabal of the Obsidian Rose. I was primarily attracted to them for their stratagem Failure Is Not An Option, which, granted, I don't get to use all that often. As my army shifted from an infantry horde to transport-mounted, I realized that the Flayed Skull obsession would probably be more advantageous, but I kept using the Obsidian Rose rules, because when you've always played with 24'' blasters and 18'' shredders, it's hard to go back. Also I put rose imagery on my vehicles when I painted them, and I prefer to stick to my theme.

Plus I like their fluff -- their obsession with perfection, the tale of Aestra Khromys' coup, etc.

.

Gonna agree with Flayed Skull. It's the best Kabal. Now that trueborn are gone there isn't really any need for anything else (since obsidian rose was best for boosting ranges of things like shredders). Foot slogging isn't really a thing with us as it's just too fragile. I mean maybe if you want long range blasters but honestly vehicle mounted heavy weapons just do everything better.

Honestly I think Obsidian rose really missed an opportunity with heat lances. Imagine if I could take scourge under the kabal keyword. There would be so much you could get out of that. I mean just taking obsessions from our phoenix rising book would've been great.

I hate how anything in the mercenaries keyword just sucks harder and harder. At this point unless all mercenaries get infinitely cheaper there is no value in even taking them. Even scourge and mandrakes are losing seriously value in an army here.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
At least Scions have the better morale based Trait. Who cares about forcing a -1LD when all casualties are just double?

I agree here that trait seems like a perfect fit for Drukhari. I know that morale tactics aren't particularly loved be everyone but I do face a lot of armies that it could be used against. Imagine if in PA one of our Kabal traits we could pick was "every kill counts as 2 for morale purposes" instead of all the gakky melee things they gave Kabal. Couple that with PGL and a detachment of coven with the stacking to -3 LD trait and we could have some awesome synergy to really hurt armies that aren't morale immune. It may not be "the most competitive thing in the world" but it'd be fun to play with I think.

So, I'm just about to finish painting the last of new Incubi, and I was wondering if anyone has had any success using them, or has any advice on how to maximise their effectiveness?

I'm aware of their limitations, and am not expecting great things, but they are lovely sculpts and it would be a shame not to use them.

Very random question - do you think it would be possible to build a Dark Eldar army akin to a Dark Elf army from WHFB (back before Age of Sigmar obliterated them)?

 vipoid wrote:
Very random question - do you think it would be possible to build a Dark Eldar army akin to a Dark Elf army from WHFB (back before Age of Sigmar obliterated them)?

What did said Dark Elf army consist of?

Niiru wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Very random question - do you think it would be possible to build a Dark Eldar army akin to a Dark Elf army from WHFB (back before Age of Sigmar obliterated them)?

What did said Dark Elf army consist of?

Different armament - splinter pistols. But otherwise, should be doable.

 vipoid wrote:
Very random question - do you think it would be possible to build a Dark Eldar army akin to a Dark Elf army from WHFB (back before Age of Sigmar obliterated them)?

In Cities of Simgar you can easily. I play Cities and BoC, my Cities plays like DE actually. Its rather OP too... no one likes to play against my Cities list so i play my BoC mostly.

Here is a run down of the units, there are a couple more that i play for super combo buffs (Like a Hurricanum, its a big mage hero with a +1 to hit aura that does 3 Smites a turn and i give it a relic to give it +4" and fly, with my TE buff it moves 17" lol) I howevery play with LOTS of Scourgerunners and Shadow warriors they are basically a mix a Ravager and Venom and the Warriors are basically Mandrakes without the MW's.

Let me know if you need more help, as this is the only post i am making in this DE thread.

I'm grouping them by how buffs and Keywords work, in AoS you can have as many keywords in the same army as you want, as long as they share 1, and all these units has the Cities of Sigmar keyword (b.c they are in the CoS book) so all the other keywords are just there for buffs. Basically a Hero with <Keyword> has a buff that gives to unit with <Keyword> but can still play with any other unit, you just might not use its buff is all.

Melee hero, gives units bonus attacks and can give +1 to wound via shooting > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elves-Black-Ark-Fleetmaster
Fast moving shooting unit (like a venom) > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elves-Scourgerunner-Chariot
Kabal shooting guys > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elves-Darkshards
Kabal melee (works great with the Fleetmasters ability) > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elf-Black-Ark-Corsairs

Another melee hero, pops out of no where in fight phases > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elves-Shadowblade
Mandrake type of unit, DS and shoots > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Shadow-Warriors

Big AF melee hero > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elf-Dreadlord-on-Black-Dragon
Incubi type of unit, hits very hard > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elves-Har-Ganeth-Executioners
Dragon riders, the tough unit for defense in certain cities, or damage unit in others (they either are off or defense not both) > https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dark-Elf-Cold-One-Knights

So it'l look something like this, NOTE: This is only 1600pts so you still have a lot of room.


Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar

LEADERS
Black Ark Fleetmaster (60) - General
Assassin (80)
Dreadlord on Black Dragon (300) - Lance of Spite & Shield

UNITS
3 x Scourgerunner Chariots (150)
3 x Scourgerunner Chariots (150)
10 x Shadow Warriors (110)
10 x Shadow Warriors (110)
20 x Black Ark Corsairs (160) - Vicious Blade & Wicked Cutlass
20 x Black Ark Corsairs (160) - Vicious Blade & Wicked Cutlass
10 x Darkshards (100)
10 x Darkshards (100)
10 x Executioners (130)

This list would have the Fleetmaster buffing the Corsairs, with some Chariots for heavy shooting with fast movements kinda like Ravagers or RWJF without fly, the Darkshards for shooting chaff and holding objectives. The Shadow Warriors are going to DS into cover (they love cover) and just shoot anything they can then in any fight phase the Assassin can jump out, you can do this to help them fight, or just get him into cover with a free DS. The Dragon will runn up with some Executioners as a heavy melee unit, you might want another fast moving melee unit to go with him, like Drakespawns or Melee chariots (tho they both are slightly over costed, they still work well). You have 400pts more to fill out anything you want.

About my lists, i play with 15 Scourgerunners and 40 Shadow Warriors with 4 support heroes, my Traits are basically Flayed Skull. It basically plays like i have 40 Mandrakes (but better) and 15 Venoms with 1 Dissie Cannon and 1 Splinter cannon (no joke that is what they are). My "fun" list has 2 Assassins, only 6 Chariots, 20 Warriors, the big Dragon hero and some Drakespawn Knights. The Dragon hero is really fun to play actually.

Final Edit: Sorry about the edits, the more i added the more i needed to make it more readable as i can't place my thoughts correctly sometimes, i have a writing/reading disorder (well a couple) that effects words i use, i get words mixed up, and it was really hard for me to type this out. So sorry for all the edits.

Wow, thanks for all that information, Amishprn86.

I feel kinda bad, though, as I was actually more interested in the opposite - making a Dark Eldar army that resembled a WHFB army.

However, you've actually piqued my interest with regard to Age of Sigmar. I've got a few more questions I'd like to ask but I'm aware it's off-topic so I'll do that via pm.

Did anybody else hear about how much Tau got a boost. I was thinking my upcoming list would handle Tau but their BS un-needed boost might make it pointless anyway. Dunno why they had to boost Tau. At this point any mediocre Tau player could probably beat all Dark Eldar players and lists and i'm super salty about this.

I dunno if my Wracks in raiders w/ dissies with dark technomancers boost and mortal wounds on a 5+ when charging would help even if the raiders charged in first to soak up shots. I mean 30 wracks charging a riptide could mostly take it down by themselves but handling all those drones and everything is also gonna be tough.

I guess i'll just have to see. Might take a month or two to get everything I need though. Perhaps if I use more venoms I can shoot down the drones easier but maybe mandrakes or something could do a better job of that. I'll have to think about it.

vipoid wrote:Wow, thanks for all that information, Amishprn86.

I feel kinda bad, though, as I was actually more interested in the opposite - making a Dark Eldar army that resembled a WHFB army.

However, you've actually piqued my interest with regard to Age of Sigmar. I've got a few more questions I'd like to ask but I'm aware it's off-topic so I'll do that via pm.

PM sent

flamingkillamajig wrote:Did anybody else hear about how much Tau got a boost. I was thinking my upcoming list would handle Tau but their BS un-needed boost might make it pointless anyway. Dunno why they had to boost Tau. At this point any mediocre Tau player could probably beat all Dark Eldar players and lists and i'm super salty about this.

I dunno if my Wracks in raiders w/ dissies with dark technomancers boost and mortal wounds on a 5+ when charging would help even if the raiders charged in first to soak up shots. I mean 30 wracks charging a riptide could mostly take it down by themselves but handling all those drones and everything is also gonna be tough.

I guess i'll just have to see. Might take a month or two to get everything I need though. Perhaps if I use more venoms I can shoot down the drones easier but maybe mandrakes or something could do a better job of that. I'll have to think about it.

Honestly, i haven't looked and don't really care, GW is a run away train at this point and i'm just playing local friends without PA and mono book rules b.c we all are tired of it right now. BUT i know the local Tau players are very hyped, so i guess its good?

For what it's worth the main Tau player thinks it's good and needed even though his tau were already crushing my dark eldar.

I wish I could play some games with friends that excluded some stuff. Don't know why they had to buff marines and tau so much. Soon enough this will resemble 7th ed 40k again where my dark eldar got blasted off the field mostly by turn 2 vs tau regardless of line of sight or not. It's not that bad yet I think but then I never faced new tau, new space marines or new sisters of battle so this all might change. Who even knows what they did with GSC.

Honestly the raider/dissie spam list you showed plus wracks that do a mortal wound on a 5+ to charge are probably the only way we can remain halfway decent. At this point it's probably the only competitive thing we can do.

Question:

I am a big fan of mechanized armies. I normally play with 3 Raiders filled with 10 warriors, splinter racks.and as Flayed Skull.

I then always run 3 Venoms with 5 warriors, blaster or shredders and Obsidian Rose.

I am flirting with trying the 3 Ravagers as Black Heart with a camping Archon and a warrior screen. Black Heart isn't my favorite as I never roll 6s for saves and rarely use Vect.

What opinions are out there on going more troop mechanized vs Heavy blasting with Black Heart in Casual games?

I like the redundancy that MSU in transports bring to Drukhari. It feels thematically 'right' that you can laugh (cackle?) off the loss boats , as there are plenty more where they came from, and there is nothing super valuable that your opponent can specifically target.

Triple Dissy Ravagers with a Black Heart WotLM Archon are clearly both very effective and competitive, but I don't like having multiple Kabals, hate the idea of a footslogging Archon, and I find Ravagers an absolute pain to transport.

I dunno if I could go with kabal outside of flayed skull at this point. I might do it for dissie ravagers though flayed skull gives them speed and takes away enemy cover saves. Venoms however just seem to need the cover save negating ability and the re roll 1s to hit. If I could take both kabals with one in a smaller kabal I'd go for warriors in venoms with flayed skull and dissie ravagers with black heart.

I want to do warriors in raiders with some nice special weapons but I think in points cost there are more effective things you can do.

That said I don't play super casual and I might actually play semi competitive fairly soon (or however competitive mono dark eldar can get right now). For that reason you might want to do things a bit your own way if you want to go casual.

 Da-Rock wrote:
Question:

I am a big fan of mechanized armies. I normally play with 3 Raiders filled with 10 warriors, splinter racks.and as Flayed Skull.

I then always run 3 Venoms with 5 warriors, blaster or shredders and Obsidian Rose.

I am flirting with trying the 3 Ravagers as Black Heart with a camping Archon and a warrior screen. Black Heart isn't my favorite as I never roll 6s for saves and rarely use Vect.

What opinions are out there on going more troop mechanized vs Heavy blasting with Black Heart in Casual games?

In casual games I've generally avoided taking more than 2 Ravagers (sometimes I don't even take 2). They're effective but I find them pretty boring as they're little more than a turret.

I like using a lot of Warriors as I'm an old-school chap and I like my armies to actually look and feel like well-rounded armies. I used to play exclusively Poison Tongue but recently I've started to flirt with Flayed Skull instead.

Also, I used to take a mix of Raiders and Venoms but I've gradually come over to only using Venoms.

The thing for me is that I rarely have much use for the extra transport space Raiders provide. Yes, I can fit a 10-man Warrior squad in them, but I don't want to take 10-man Warrior squads. I think both of our Heavy Weapons are garbage (the last thing I need are extra Splinter shots and the Dark Lance costs way too much on a unit that suffers the normal penalty to move and fire), so I'd want to just take 2 5-man squads. And then I'd just want to put them in their own transports so that I'm not concentrating my resources.


Anyway, I'd say ~5 units of Warriors in Venoms has worked reasonably well for me so far.

Ok, I like what has been said...a clear split between casual and competitive gaming is very helpful.

I'll save the Ravager play for competitive play and stick to what I like for casual.

I also love the visuals of Drukhari......While I have and play all four of my Venoms in each game, nothing pleases my eye more than the Raider barge. I hope they come out with more variations of it.

Ravagers really aren't so broken that you should feel bad for using them.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Ravagers really aren't so broken that you should feel bad for using them.

I'd have to agree with you. Ravagers are good but not including them often makes things an uphill battle. Disintegrator ravagers are only good because they fill a role most dark eldar units don't have. They have good range, kill MEQ units well without endangering themselves, the strength is in a good middling zone, ap is pretty good, they can actually benefit from archons boosting them (unlike non-flayed skull mounted infantry) and damage for volume of shots is nice (dissies aren't great vs tanks but are ok and given invulnerable saves on some tough vehicles it's probably the better choice). Also against infantry with invulnerable saves dissies tend to negate just enough armor that the invulnerable save gets used.

Also if anybody thinks ravagers are too OP keep in mind both ravagers and razorwing jetfighters got cost increases and the jets didn't even need em. Thats also 2 of the 3 units we have that can use dissies. I mean I preferred void ravens anyway but the jets didn't need a base points increase regardless of loadout. Keep in mind talos remain under-costed and you can take up to 9 of them in 2k pts! Yeah let's nerf ravagers though even though you can only take 3 in 2000 pts.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Ravagers really aren't so broken that you should feel bad for using them.

Just to be clear, I don't think they're broken (especially compared to stuff like Marines). I just think they're a rather boring unit to be taking 3 of in a casual game. Shooting tends to be the least interactive phase at the best of times but at least Warriors in Raiders/Venoms generally need to manoeuvre around a lot to get within optimum range whilst not leaving themselves too exposed. Ravagers are often little more than turrets that just pivot each turn to blow something off the board.

What's more, taking the Black Heart Spearhead typically means using the Archon with Labyrinthine Cunning and Vect's Poetry Recital, who does nothing all game except stand in one place, buffing the Ravagers. An efficient use of an Archon, for sure, but hardly a fun one.

 Da-Rock wrote:

I also love the visuals of Drukhari......While I have and play all four of my Venoms in each game, nothing pleases my eye more than the Raider barge. I hope they come out with more variations of it.

IMO Dark Eldar have the best range of any army when it comes to aesthetics. I think the basic Kabalites and Wyches are close to perfect. There's plenty of variety, they're fully customisation - not only with parts from their own kits but also with parts from other kits in the range - and they're nicely detailed without being over-designed. I think Scourges are still the best winged-infantry models GW has ever made, and (in spite of being old and Failcast) I still adore the Mandrake aesthetic.

 vipoid wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Ravagers really aren't so broken that you should feel bad for using them.

Just to be clear, I don't think they're broken (especially compared to stuff like Marines). I just think they're a rather boring unit to be taking 3 of in a casual game. Shooting tends to be the least interactive phase at the best of times but at least Warriors in Raiders/Venoms generally need to manoeuvre around a lot to get within optimum range whilst not leaving themselves too exposed. Ravagers are often little more than turrets that just pivot each turn to blow something off the board.

What's more, taking the Black Heart Spearhead typically means using the Archon with Labyrinthine Cunning and Vect's Poetry Recital, who does nothing all game except stand in one place, buffing the Ravagers. An efficient use of an Archon, for sure, but hardly a fun one.

 Da-Rock wrote:

I also love the visuals of Drukhari......While I have and play all four of my Venoms in each game, nothing pleases my eye more than the Raider barge. I hope they come out with more variations of it.

IMO Dark Eldar have the best range of any army when it comes to aesthetics. I think the basic Kabalites and Wyches are close to perfect. There's plenty of variety, they're fully customisation - not only with parts from their own kits but also with parts from other kits in the range - and they're nicely detailed without being over-designed. I think Scourges are still the best winged-infantry models GW has ever made, and (in spite of being old and Failcast) I still adore the Mandrake aesthetic.

What else are you going to use points on though? There's only so many Kalabites you can take before THAT is boring. The complaint is equivalent to saying taking three Predators or Tyranofexes is boring for the list. Main difference is neither of those armies are automatically brought down not taking those units, whereas Kabals have the absolute necessary need for those points to be used on Ravagers.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

What else are you going to use points on though? There's only so many Kalabites you can take before THAT is boring.

Covens? Wych Cults?

Or are we talking about a Kabal-only army? If so, yeah, your choices are a lot more limited. Though you could still take, say, a couple of Ravagers and then a Razorwing or Voidraven just to mix things up a little.

You've also got Mandrakes, Scourges and Incubi to consider. Probably not the most competitive choices, but surely one of the main benefits of playing casually is that you can relax a little and play around with units you wouldn't use in more competitive games?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The complaint is equivalent to saying taking three Predators or Tyranofexes is boring for the list. Main difference is neither of those armies are automatically brought down not taking those units, whereas Kabals have the absolute necessary need for those points to be used on Ravagers.

I would have to disagree with that. I've never taken more than 2 Ravagers with my DE (often only 1), and I've still won far more games than I've lost.

 vipoid wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Ravagers really aren't so broken that you should feel bad for using them.

Just to be clear, I don't think they're broken (especially compared to stuff like Marines). I just think they're a rather boring unit to be taking 3 of in a casual game. Shooting tends to be the least interactive phase at the best of times but at least Warriors in Raiders/Venoms generally need to manoeuvre around a lot to get within optimum range whilst not leaving themselves too exposed. Ravagers are often little more than turrets that just pivot each turn to blow something off the board.

What's more, taking the Black Heart Spearhead typically means using the Archon with Labyrinthine Cunning and Vect's Poetry Recital, who does nothing all game except stand in one place, buffing the Ravagers. An efficient use of an Archon, for sure, but hardly a fun one.

 Da-Rock wrote:

I also love the visuals of Drukhari......While I have and play all four of my Venoms in each game, nothing pleases my eye more than the Raider barge. I hope they come out with more variations of it.

IMO Dark Eldar have the best range of any army when it comes to aesthetics. I think the basic Kabalites and Wyches are close to perfect. There's plenty of variety, they're fully customisation - not only with parts from their own kits but also with parts from other kits in the range - and they're nicely detailed without being over-designed. I think Scourges are still the best winged-infantry models GW has ever made, and (in spite of being old and Failcast) I still adore the Mandrake aesthetic.

So the big difference between ravagers and a lot of other units is you can have only 3 ravagers and they're not that hard to take out in comparison to other vehicles from other armies. If you think ravagers are boring turrets I can only imagine your opinion of tau riptides and most of the tau gun-line overall. Lord knows stealth suits and ghostkeel movement are about as much as tau have to do aside from shooting. Guard are just a gun-line too mostly. At least dark eldar are often a moving gun-line with some inability to remain completely a gun-line and options for melee and the ability to leave melee if we somehow survive (vehicles and reavers can do this).

Actually ravagers sometimes have to move around to stay within range to some degree. 36" range when starting within 12" on your table side means there's always gonna be a part of the board you can't easily touch without moving and then intervening ruins also effects this or anything preventing LOS. This doesn't even include the other deployment types. I'd use these more if each 4x6 table at the gw didn't have one side forced into the wall thus giving at least 1 person a really uncomfortable deployment in some scenarios).

The best range of models? I disagree. We have raiders and ravagers look almost exactly alike, our planes almost fit the same roles currently. All of our same looking models like trueborn, and bloodbrides as well as 2 types of haemonculus (masters vs secondary heroes) met that chopping block in skyrim before the dragon was helpful enough to save the dovahkin to which he eventually killed the dragon as thanks. Then we had like 4-5 interesting and new characters that would've given more identity and personality to dark eldar as a faction (I heard the hellion hero actually made hellions worth taking) but they got the chopping block without receiving a model. Even vect our faction Leader has no model? That'd be equivalent to killing all but 2 special characters in a tau army. No far sight or shadowsun but you get an ethereal leader. Oh and all the other heroes? They decided to go on retirement leave. That is dark eldar treatment of special characters. Also every time we get a revamped model we didn't need (incubi) it's usually at a cost of taking out something infinitely more valuable like trueborn. The model wasn't even that bad. You could've just fixed up the ugly af grotesques finecast models and made those plastic. I honestly know people that convert just because those models look crappy.

I like the army and stuff but instead of putting beloved units on the chopping block add new ones or new weapons types or something. The singular thing we got since 5th edition was I think new wracks with the ossefactor (which the gun itself currently sucks in 8th) and they made the void raven. I guess they couldnt cut off every cool thing 5th promised us even though they keep trying to. Compared to what dark eldar lost I find this bs.

There's also the diversity of the beast units nobody uses, some archons retinue which have limits and people probably still don't use mostly, hellions nobody wants to touch and all the mercenary units people aren't sure are even good enough without obsessions boosting them. Scourge and mandrakes are probably the only decent mercenaries and in many cases im not even sure scourge are good enough.

Give us a new unique vehicle, a more elite and hulking mandrake the size of a grotesque, make a super heavy vehicle and/or monster from covens. Scourge exist from coven altered dark eldar. Even wracks are altered by covens. How hard would it be for covens to alter dark eldar in other more interesting ways that are more graceful and count as kabalite units, wych units or mercenaries. Maybe give dark eldar wych ladies spider bodies or forms of snakes. Wyches catch a lot of beasts. How hard would it be for a haemonculus to be like "what if I allowed your wyches to get modified with these thermal vision eyes to prevent your enemy forcing negative modifiers on your shooting or melee?" I mean aside from having a gajillion types of gases and things that effect a person's mental state at best we get what? Incredibly wimpy phantasm and terrorfex grenades. Also where are the sniper rifles. Only acothysts and haemonculus get them and they garbage right now. Same goes for husk blade, shadow field and the archons overall which got nerfed into oblivion.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

So the big difference between ravagers and a lot of other units is you can have only 3 ravagers and they're not that hard to take out in comparison to other vehicles from other armies. If you think ravagers are boring turrets I can only imagine your opinion of tau riptides and most of the tau gun-line overall. Lord knows stealth suits and ghostkeel movement are about as much as tau have to do aside from shooting.

I mean, there's a reason I don't play Tau.

Anyway, to reiterate, this is just how I play. I just find 3 Ravagers excessive in casual games. I'm not trying to claim that Ravagers are overpowered (I don't even think the recent point increase was necessary, tbh) or that you should feel bad for using them. I consider them functional but not particularly interesting or exciting (especially in a BH Spearhead).

For me, casual games are where I want to be trying out all manner of less effective (but usually more fun/flavourful) tactics. Or messing around with units I wouldn't bother with in a competitive game.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Guard are just a gun-line too mostly.

I don't know, I play IG and my Tallarn army moves at almost Eldar speeds.

Though I'll freely admit that that's likely not the norm.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Actually ravagers sometimes have to move around to stay within range to some degree. 36" range when starting within 12" on your table side means there's always gonna be a part of the board you can't easily touch without moving and then intervening ruins also effects this or anything preventing LOS. This doesn't even include the other deployment types. I'd use these more if each 4x6 table at the gw didn't have one side forced into the wall thus giving at least 1 person a really uncomfortable deployment in some scenarios).

In my experience, terrain has a negligible impact on LoS in 8th. Unless you're literally putting concrete bricks on the table, most terrain has gaps, holes, windows or somesuch that allows LoS to be drawn through it.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

The best range of models? I disagree. We have raiders and ravagers look almost exactly alike, our planes almost fit the same roles currently. All of our same looking models like trueborn, and bloodbrides as well as 2 types of haemonculus (masters vs secondary heroes) met that chopping block in skyrim before the dragon was helpful enough to save the dovahkin to which he eventually killed the dragon as thanks. Then we had like 4-5 interesting and new characters that would've given more identity and personality to dark eldar as a faction (I heard the hellion hero actually made hellions worth taking) but they got the chopping block without receiving a model. Even vect our faction Leader has no model? That'd be equivalent to killing all but 2 special characters in a tau army. No far sight or shadowsun but you get an ethereal leader. Oh and all the other heroes? They decided to go on retirement leave. That is dark eldar treatment of special characters. Also every time we get a revamped model we didn't need (incubi) it's usually at a cost of taking out something infinitely more valuable like trueborn. The model wasn't even that bad. You could've just fixed up the ugly af grotesques finecast models and made those plastic. I honestly know people that convert just because those models look crappy.

To be clear, I was merely talking about the aesthetics of our existing models.

If you want to instead talk about scope, then our range is indeed extremely limited - especially in the HQ section (with, as you say, swathes of characters removed, along with a great deal of wargear).

Please don't for one minute assume that I am happy with our current lack of options. I have spoken many, many times about the absurdity of splitting our army such that each of our subfactions has just 1 generic HQ choice. Why can't Archons and Succubi take Scourge Wings or Reaver Jetbikes? It wouldn't even be hard to justify model-wise as you could easily kitbash HQs by mixing a couple of kits. Why is it that the Kabalite and Wych kits are only allowed to support one unit, yet my IG-infantry kit can support about 12 different units?

I also completely agree that Incubi were probably one of the models least in need of an update. And whilst Drazhar was old, at least he still existed and there were options to kitbash a better one. Meanwhile, if you want an HQ with any mobility options at all you have no option besides 'use Eldar instead'.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

There's also the diversity of the beast units nobody uses, some archons retinue which have limits and people probably still don't use mostly, hellions nobody wants to touch and all the mercenary units people aren't sure are even good enough without obsessions boosting them. Scourge and mandrakes are probably the only decent mercenaries and in many cases im not even sure scourge are good enough.

Indeed. All the things Phoenix Rising and Chapter Approved could have fixed but didn't bother with. Because that sort of fix is apparently reserved for Marine armies.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Give us a new unique vehicle, a more elite and hulking mandrake the size of a grotesque, make a super heavy vehicle and/or monster from covens. Scourge exist from coven altered dark eldar. Even wracks are altered by covens. How hard would it be for covens to alter dark eldar in other more interesting ways that are more graceful and count as kabalite units, wych units or mercenaries. Maybe give dark eldar wych ladies spider bodies or forms of snakes. Wyches catch a lot of beasts. How hard would it be for a haemonculus to be like "what if I allowed your wyches to get modified with these thermal vision eyes to prevent your enemy forcing negative modifiers on your shooting or melee?" I mean aside from having a gajillion types of gases and things that effect a person's mental state at best we get what? Incredibly wimpy phantasm and terrorfex grenades. Also where are the sniper rifles. Only acothysts and haemonculus get them and they garbage right now. Same goes for husk blade, shadow field and the archons overall which got nerfed into oblivion.

In terms of Mandrakes, I'd prefer to see a Mandrake HQ. Maybe a pseudo-psyker with some tricky abilities, or some form of assassin.

I am heavily biased on that point though.


Anyway, I agree also about the Archon. I've always hated the Shadwfield mechanic, but this is the edition where the rules really do seem out of whack with the rest of the game. It seems like a 5++ with a -1 to hit (like Mandrakes have) would be a far better way of representing it. But if nothing else I wish we at least had the option of a regular 4++ instead. And really all of the Archon's weapons seem very weak for what is ostensibly a glass-cannon.

As you say, there are so many things you could do with Dark Eldar but it seems the designers just aren't interested in them, and nor are they prepared to accept suggestions from those who are.

You definitely don't need ravagers even for kabal only forces, though I'll mirror Vipoid and disclaim that I am not saying they are bad or anything but there are alternatives, especially for casual play since ravagers are very one dimensional and you will have more fun for longer with variety. There is a strong argument to take either or both of the fliers instead if you want mobile armored AT. Then you can always swap to dissy raiders from running venoms. You might get less gun per point compared to a ravager with raiders, but you get way more wounds and raiders generally have benefits over venoms that are hard to notice on paper, namely their larger profile which is very useful for blocking.

For casual games I generally take a single ravager at lower points (I think the game is much better at 1000-1500) and I'll try to take one of each flier and the other AT is on my infantry and transports. I have yet to find myself needing more AT and this gives my army a ton of variety which makes it fun for both me and my opponent, whenever I spam ravagers and razorwings the game just gets really samey and boring especially over time. You also future proof your army since your just another CA or codex/edition change away from anything being nerfed into the ground and it sucks much worse to gamble on multiples of one thing when they happen to be hit.

I'm not a fan of Ravagers, and for my own games (which are admittedly on the casual side), I get my anti tank on the Kabal stuff from a Blaster and a Blast Pistol in each Venom.