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Hey
Despite their relative unpopularity (probably due to the difficulty of playing with them plus their rather OTT sadistic fluff - turns some people off - and apparently some people reckon they looks bad ...(? have Tau players looked in the mirror lately??)) are the DE really the dark horses for any 40k game and probably the most unbeatable (if played with any of the now well trodden almost 'loop hole' styled tactics) race in the game?

I currently play Daemons but played DE for about six years - and only lost one fight, which I must say was due to the worst dice roles I have ever seen myself role (I still remember the five 1's roled out of six dice when roling to save my Archon with Shadowfield). Now this is not to say that my experience alone is enough to reach any sort of conclusion, my base of diverse players and armies was very small (eldar, blood angels/black templar space marines, orks and tyranids(rarely)) but i've read around a lot about this and most DE players seem to have great records (some unbeaten in 30-40+ games), i've seen threads where people complain bitterly about them and so on.

So is there a method to beat them? I haven't had my old DE army shipped to me yet (living out of the UK right now for a few years) and might just wait on the new miniatures and codex. But i'm just curious. To some extent it might also be nice to see if tactics would need updating. I'm sure the new codex will turn the DE into putty and render them useless but until then...

The way I used to play them (this is seriously rough as I don't have a codex at hand nor remember a lot of what I did back them in detail):
1 Archon - suped up to the hilt with Shadowfield etc
1 Drazhar master of blades - body guard of Archon
Full incubi retinue of the Archon - all kitted out
2 x Talos
1 x full squad of Scourges (or Ravager) (kitted out)
10 (or more) x grotesques (usually led by Urien Rakarth or Haemonculus standard depending on HQ amount rules decided - if only 2 HQ allowed played Urien instead of Drazhar - grots without a leader = mad)
10 x Wyches (kitted out)
6 x Warp beasts with beastmaster (rarely ever played this)
9 x Mandrakes (infiltrated + kitted out)

This is a rough memory so no nit picking please.
The point here is after the 2xtalos, 1xravager, Archon+bodyguard+retinue combo very little else matters especially if using Grotesques. I found I had to allow friends to field a good 200+ (or more) points in their armies to get in fair fights (usually blood angels seemed to need this the most). Sometimes, in fact often I didn't even deploy web portals. None of this is 'arrogance', i played them well, and actually came up with the stategies and line up myself (only finding out afterward about the agreement of other players on this line up) but i'm not anything really great and was very young. We played the rules by the book, no cheating etc, it was just a very strong combo. I'm not even sure why it was so effective looking back, but I found it frustrated people and was hard to kill.

I think the big problem for players is that in close combat the 'Retinue' is simply borderline invincible (barring monstrous creatures maybe), they strike first almost always (never anything with higher initiative), they strike often (Drazhar and Archon alone could offload something like 13+ attacks if charging or more), they all use power weapons. Okay they have low strength, and toughness and besides Archon and his bodyguard chum everyone else lacks much armour (or were the Incubi in power invlunerable armour?? I forget, got a strange feeling they might have been, ouch). My point is that nobody was ever alive to strike back, so none of that mattered. I took out large Terminator squads with these guys without a response, I rolled to hit, I rolled to kill - they died. Of course with all the added waraear it got real ugly. The Talos then took care of anything bigger, they were fast, well protected, tough as nails and has a large number of attacks (potentially six). It has struck me as odd since I started collected Daemons that a mighty Great Unclean One (even Ku'gath) isn't as tough as this in tersm of actaull toughness values or strength (6 vs 7). The intiative was actually quite good for a monstrous creature (4), and they were all around 'tough guys'. I resent the comments they are just knock offs of wraithlord (is it wraithlords?), they look better and I think are just better all around. Nothing in common. So these things could take a lot of punishment from ranged and close combat and could quite easily bring down most enemy 'big things'.

Oh i used Reavers too (forgot about that) but they wre not that great. My point is that they seemed to go through most enemies like a knife through butter. If I was to get shot at it could go wrong quickly but usually that didn't happen - when your most commonly played opponent is a Black Templar space marine army carrying themselves a Vindicator (demolisher cannon anyone?) Tank you tend to learn to stary out of being shot.

So what are peoples thoughts? Was I and the other DE community people i've read abotu and spoken with just lucky? Or is there something almost imbalanced about the DE? In fact only a small percentage well (30 percent-ish i'd say) of those people claiming the DE were invincible even used a combo like mentioned above (most went for large wych fast attack armies with 3 ravagers backing up).

Anyways thoughts would be appreciated!

You must play against retards. If you waste points on Surges, grotesques, and mandrakes and you still win. Oh and BTW you can't have 6 warpbeasts.


DE are good, but half the units they can take are a waste of points.

Really, that's not all that powerful a list. Under 4th edition, it was certainly better, but now I think you'd have trouble. The elimination of sweeping advance means that your wyches and incubi will hit a squad, wipe it out, then stand around in the open and get shot to pieces by a competent opponent. That is, of course, if their paper airplane Raider doesn't get shot down on the way, due to TLOS.

Grotesques are decent against shooting, but no longer can really cover the guys behind them as well, and they still fold against dedicated combat units. Mandrakes I suppose are decent against weaker units, but not great against anything else (like a full tac squad, or 30-man ork squad). The combat-res rules cause problems for DE if they lose combats, as they'll tend to either win big or lose big. And Scourges? Really? Jump-pack troops with 5+ armor saves and move-or-fire heavy weapons (well, assuming lances)? Talos are kind of slow, if not deployed via WWP, though if they get across the board they can hit kind of hard.

Target priority is key in fighting DE in general, so if your opponents never learned what to shoot first or how to deal with your army then that's a problem. People who have studied the DE army or played it themselves have a much easier time of it, though it's still a game. I suspect your opponents never really learned how to play against you, although in the hands of a good player DE are hard to beat.

A lot of the changes to 5e really hit this army in a few of its weak spots without really improving it a lot. In 5e, a mechanized army would laugh at your pitiful amount of anti-tank and blow most of it off the board, only getting out to deal deathblows. 3 Raiders with dark lances and maybe the scourges does not anti-tank make in 5e. You're right that in combat, your uber-unit will kill a lot. Out of combat, though, it's not so great, and it will be shot at by a competent player to reduce most of its threat.

One of the advantages of playing Dark Eldar is that they're pretty rare. So people don't understand how the army plays and aren't ready for what happens. And don't realize that things like a Turn 1 charge is possible.

The biggest problem you run into with the dark eldar mega assault units is that if you kill the unit you assaulted you'll end up shot to death. What is the solution? Charge multiple enemies. However a smart oppenent won't let you get that multicharge off.

If nightshields made raiders obsure like disruption pods for tau it would be a different day. However, when any high strength weapon with a 42+ range you'll see raiders drop very quickly.

All that being said, because of the rarity of dark eldar they can be a very effective force.

I agree with the otehrs about the major weaknesses of this list (and DE in general) in 5th.

My two main armies are Mech Eldar and Gunline Orks, and looking at your list, I think I would have to be asleep for the first 2 turns for that list to come out on top.

The inability to sweeping advance has killed assaulty DE. A list like that back in 3rd or 4th would have been dvestating. Now, in 5th, your killer units will kill one enemy unit, then get shot to pieces...and that is if your papermache skimmers don't get anihilated first.

In 5th, DE do best when they fly around and pop targets at range. They are still a viable shooty threat, but their survivability as a CC army has been severely nerfed.

I wouldn't say that they're unbeatable, but DE are a solid, solid list from a purely rules perspective. As has been said, there's a lot of crap in the list, but you can use the good stuff to make a really devastating army.

Bugger it i'm rewriting everything I just wrote here [BIG EDIT]

Lots of comments I never saw.

I think the sweeping advance removal is pretty bad. But they can still stand some shooting punishment. Remember they are an army of elite specialists and special charactesr coupled with huge 'crap troops' numbers. The warriors can be vast in number and often contain lots of nasty little weapons, I found Splinter Cannons chief among them as well as blasters or lances. If they sit back and shoot, you can't JUST turn your guns onto the retinue and talos' - because you'll be shot to pieces.

A lot of the list is bad yes, but DE don't have much choice - but much say of IG is poor, in fact pathetic, but their 'super units' make up for it. I'm not sure their CC abilities are really all that nerfed, its not great, but not removed - remember they were simply unbeatable in 3rd ed with that, so it only means they are now 'pretty nasty'. I mean, if I knock out a big termie squad, or anything else like that for that matter and then get shot up a bit, assault again next turn, kill something else equally powerful and finally get shot to death the next turn, i've still taken out a lot if we play the percentage game.

I don't know about having to asleep in the first two turns to lose lol, i've played orks and found them rather crunchy! I mean their DE armour's patheticness is only matched by ork shooting! It is not like ork armour is anything to shout about either. In fact in a shooting match i'd just pack up and go home if I were orks, both armies armour is bad but DE weapons are better and they have much better BS. Mech Eldar may be a different matter altogether though. I think someone hit the nail on the head by stating the rareness factor of DE is their biggest weapon and 5th ed has still hit them hard. But for newcomers to the game or late 4th ed into 5th etc - if the DE are still a poweful solid army I think it shows how bad they wwere to face when the 3rd ed rules suited them so well. And that is when I played them. However most of my interset is in what i've seen other DE players say, not my own games. I totally forgot about the webportals for like 2 years! And they are crucial, still would be effective even now.

I play scourges by the way just because over time i felt that the ravagers got shot down too easily and lost therefore all their big guns, whilst scourges sat a long way back and there were lots of them. If you fire a lascannon at them, so what? It is a lascannon = dead ravager probably, hitting scourges, its just one dead scourge (lance) not three. So fielding them was always more effective, they may be paper armoured but they powerful weapons wise, its just the equivelant of the Devastator squad for space marines. I think it is just preference.

So i'm not sure they are unbeatable anymore, but even with the bad rule changes ,they are still i'd say one ofthe nastiest armies to fight, let alone if its your first time. Of course when not being too picky about the rules I played my specials like no tomorrow (they had great specials) and I enjoyed playing the Dais of Destruction - that thing was pretty tough.

Anyone played DE regularly and beat them regularly? I think that'd also be an intersting persepctive, with what army and how.

Slaanurglette wrote:Hmm
Interesting thoughts. As I said I played back in 3rd edition (did I say that - huh, no I didn't oh well). I never played 5th ed which is fairly new anyway.

Therein lies your problem. 5th ed killed both Eldar and DE assault based armies. The loss of sweeping advance in HUGE, as is the loss of skimmers only being glanced. Now that DE vehicles (opened topped doesn't last long now) can be pen'd no matter how fast they move, they have lost a serious edge. Throw in the loss of being able to sweeping advance, and your fast Raider assault units are now just cannon fodder. Eldar still have Jetbike Councils and AV12 WS with energy fields to help out, but the DE don't have that toughness factor.

Also, you opponent will know what to shoot at in 5th. Before, you could throw out tons of Raiders and make your opponent have to guess which one was the biggest threat... now you have to tell him what is in each transport. That makes knocking out the biggest threats really easy.

I don't know about having to asleep in the first two turns to lose lol, i've played orks and found them rather crunchy! I mean their DE armour's patheticness is only matched by ork shooting! It is not like ork armour is anything to shout about either. In fact in a shooting match i'd just pack up and go home if I were orks, both armies armour is bad but DE weapons are better and they have much better BS.

Again, you haven't played against the newest Ork dex, nor in 5th. Trust me, DE do not want to see 30-45 Lootas across the table from them, especially when they are backed up by killakans and shoota boyz - such a list the very deifinition of Torrent of Fire. Not to mention that pretty much the entire ork army has cover saves thanks to 2x KFF Meks. Sure, AN Ork cannot shoot...but an army of Orks is totaly different. In fact, a gunline Ork army just recently won the Las Vegas GT... Underestimating Ork shooty armies is a HUGE mistake

Indeed, as mentioned this army would have been really good in 4e, probably in 3e as well. It fails spectacularly in 5e against any army designed to take advantage of the the 5e rules and game changes. Of course, if your opponent hasn't seen or played against DE before (which is not uncommon these days), you can still do well. But the changes to how the game is played really, really hurts your DE in this edition.

Well...
Well that just sucks balls then doesn't it? lol
I had no idea it was THAT bad in 5th ed. I have played some orks in 5th ed but not a huge army. I'm sorry, Alarian are talking about 30-45 looted tanks???! I'm not talking Apocalypse games - or are lootas something else? I haven't played Orks enough to know the 'lingo' - some of that stuff just went over my head "2x KFF mechs" being one bit.

Yes sadly it was glorious in 3rd (and i've heard 4th) but not anymore then. Good job i'm collected Daemons I guess now ha! However aren't the DE due a release late this year (or 2010)? I assume (if they are not stupid) that in light of this kind of problem GW will release them like they used to be but updated for the new rules. I wouldn't like the army to change its personality nor how it used to be played but since they have the oldest codex currently (which is frankly disgusting of GW) and have not been updated for over a decade I guess anything they do will be better.

Still that somewhat kills the title of my thread - oh well. Maybe 'Did the DE used to be unbeatable?' would be better now lol. Also if we lose cool rules like taking prisoners (if they decide to 'child-friendlyify' the new codex of course, urgh I hope not, to remove the torture and fluff elements etc so the DE are now evil because they steal pirated songs of the internet) then it'll really suck.

So what would people recommend fielding for a DE army nowadays? I know it sounds odd but I still am struggling to shake off the fact that the 'old tactics' are void and that CC is pointless (i believe all of you when you say it, your info is more current than my knowledge) but when are used to playing a certain way for so long its rather demoralizing I guess.

Nobody talked about the use of the webportal by the way is that still useful?

Oh and what if you don't take raiders (i never really did). A lot of the comments here are aimed at a style I never used - so what about not using raiders which were always a liability? And what about hellions? I'm impressed about the Ork army winning too btw, shocked they are that good.

EDIT: Just read the first reply. Don't really think they were retards lol. And as I said most of this is based of other DE players games, general info etc. I think the answer has been given - you kill the DE by not updating their codex for a decade and updating the rule book instead :p

Slaanurglette wrote:Well...
Well that just sucks balls then doesn't it? lol
I had no idea it was THAT bad in 5th ed. I have played some orks in 5th ed but not a huge army. I'm sorry, Alarian are talking about 30-45 looted tanks???! I'm not talking Apocalypse games - or are lootas something else? I haven't played Orks enough to know the 'lingo' - some of that stuff just went over my head "2x KFF mechs" being one bit.

Lootas are an elites choice (usually fielded in squads of 10-15) that carry Deffguns, a heavy weapon with multiple shots, at S7 and a 48" range. They eat alive anything short of armor 14... be it infantry, bikes, vehicles, etc. Add in Shoota boys, who mathhammer out better in shooting that SM Tac Squads, and some Killkans and you have obscene amounts of firepower at your disposal. 45 lootas will on avarage get 90+, S7 shots per turn...it doesn't matter if you footslog DE, or use raiders...not much is going to live long.

KFF stand for Kustom Force Field, and it gives any unit with a single model within 6" of the Big Mek a cover save.

I'm impressed about the Ork army winning too btw, shocked they are that good.

Hehe, that was just a shooty Ork list....Really nasty ork lists run Biker Nobs or BW spam....You don't even want to hear about how good those lists are, since they are better than shooty Orks by far. Welcome to the current meta game, where Orks and Chaos are the top armies (possibly IG after next month).

Well,
Cos-bloody-mic about the lootas! That is simply insane. It is funny how when your own army has something nasty (like DE 3rd ed uber CCunits) you are cocky and think 'great!' but when the rubber band is on the other claw like with those lootas you think 'outrageous!' haha.
EDIT: No I really woulnd't like to know about the worse lists - sounds awful to me as it is! My wife was going to go for Orks and then at the last minute chose Tyranids instead (what swung it being an old friend gave us her 4000+ point nid army for free as she was going abroad and didn't want to take it with her)
Still she might go back to Orks, I talked her out of it lol telling her they were 'aright but not great'. This is one of my bones to pick though, I mean you can do research (i did a lot i thought), you can read sites and forums and check the website but there is little substitute for buying the codex which is 20 quid just for info, what if you don't like the army? Oh well back on topic - ish...


Oh well, Daemons seems pretty damned nice (lacking ranged attack mind you) throw in Epidemius and a horde of plague units and you are set - still though, 100+ S7 shots doesn't sound fun in any book.

However I do digress, more DE talk would be good, I might go start a Daemons discussion too now.

If you take no Raiders, you're going to have an even harder time. Like I said, your list posted has almost no anti-tank aside from Scourges/Ravager, and a single heavy bolter Dev squad shooting at it for a turn will likely do enough damage to it that you start losing lances. Gunlines would eat you apart. Smart players would feed you scraps and remnant squads for your combat units to munch on before shooting them again.

DE are hard to play in 5e, that's for sure. The WWP is a valid strategy, but the problem is what you use it for. It can get you close but your army is now designed for shooting, so being close isn't necessarily a good thing. A WWP unit, with Talos/Incubi/Wyches on a Raider in reserve, backed up with Raider squads with DL and 3 Ravagers with Dissies, might be a reasonable mix, though if the WWP squad gets wiped before they open it they're in trouble. Otherwise, the all-shooty DE list involves the raider fleet, with nightshields and hovering on the edge of the board to pound people. Here, HQs are Haemies with destructors - great against SM and hordes alike!

Hmm
well as I said - they are beaten by a lack of new rules and the tide sweeping apst them I guess. I'm kind of glad i'm not playing them nowadays if this is the face to them. I do wish GW would just release new codeces for each army at the launch of a new rulebook etc. I mean there is no excuse besides wanting more money - I can write a dissertation in 6 months - i'm sure a team can write a codex in 4+ years. Kind of pathetic really. Oh well!

Daemons it is.

Again though, loading DE Warriors up with Blasters, Splinter Cannons and Dark Lances, (in fact going almost IG on your ass with large numbers), coupled with ravagers, and some Blaster armed Reavers - would that be an okay strategy for 5th ed?
Just curious.

5 raider squads with dark lances with nightshieldss
3 wych squads with two shredder with nightshields and wych weapons in a raiders with nightshields and slave snars
3-6 Haemonculi with destructors riding with the wyches
and 3 ravangers with destructors

This list is pretty damn scary in 5th edition. Plus to make targeting even harder you can start a few of your raider squads outside of the raider in cover. Then the other player really has to think "do I shoot the squad, or shoot the transport?"

DE are just as powerful as they used to be, at least vs. MEQ; 5th just requires DE to play a bit more blanced and aggressively. Their hit and run tactics ahve changed to hit hard and fast, and hope that when you're done you have a couple more units left than your opponent does.

Swoop in (on raiders), spam your opponent with massive numbers of high strength, low ap shots. Your maneuverability should help negate cover saves, and the high amount of shots will will help overcome what cover you can't maneuver around. You should be able tyo effectively decimate large portions of your opponent's army just through shooting, and your uber assault HQ can mop up the rest, charging multiple units where possible. If it goes well, what little return fire there is shouldn't hurt so much. About this time your slower units (Talos, etc.), should be arriving to back up your weakened raider squads.

That all sounds a lot healthier!
Some of the wargear is seeming alien to me (nearly 7 years out of it) such as nighshields, can't for the life of me remember them. We have only had one codex right? lol. Funny thing is I played them well etc but feel so out of it coming back. I sometimes did go the shootier route - Splinter cannons were simply horrfic in large numbers. I found myself firing well over 100+ shots with them (i had a lot of warriors etc) to my memory, and those were stregth 4(5 maybe?) AP 5 I think or 4, either way that is a lot of firepower.

I will be interested to see what the new codex does with them, either restore their old 'heavy CC strike, ranged spraying of light but frequent firepower' or turn them into something else altogether. I think the new units will look great too, there are a couple of images in the new rulebook which may suggest as to their new appearance I think. A little bit eldarish but still they look sleeker and nastier. No clue of the rules though.
Could I have 6 Haemonclui by the way in that guys army list? I thought they were a HQ choice. I really should get my DE codex shipped to me lol.

Great morning laugh.

G

Slaanurglette wrote:That all sounds a lot healthier!
Some of the wargear is seeming alien to me (nearly 7 years out of it) such as nighshields, can't for the life of me remember them. We have only had one codex right?

Actually DE have had 2. There was an update to their codex, in 2002 I believe, Which either changed or added quite a bit of stuff. You'll know if you DO have the most recent by the little white symbol on hte cover that says 'second edition'.

For a good example of really strong DE tactics: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Stelek%27s_Dark_Eldar

There was a very minor update which made a Wytch army possible and added a few new wargrear and vehicle items, most of which were useless. It was like DE Codex 1.1. It's still a10 year-old codex.

Oh FFS lol, seriously out of the loop.
I thought a couple of terms didn't sound familiar etc. Since the front cover seemed the same etc (on the website etc) I didn't realise it'd changed. But if it was just a minor update then I don't feel 'quite' so stupid

I should have said some of the "updates" were decent, like the vehicle stuff. Still, it was just a few items and a couple of sentences were changed. Plus, they added a new worhtless item called a Nightmare Doll. Yeah, my Archon carries a widdle doll! What a putdown.

Everyone has gotten 1 or 2 or even 3 Codexes since the Dark Eldar's. Many of the older Codexes struggle with the game having been updated once or twice since they were written, DE included. My problems with Dark Eldar are the same since I played them back when they were new: Ugly models, half the Codex entries are not effective, and there are only a couple of good army builds (maybe only one, now-a-days). Still, they are cheap to acquire second hand.

I've been playing against a good friend of mine who runs DE and he basically runs a total gunline. Lots of skimmers with lots of dark lances and their blast templates, a few Talos for CC along with warp beasts, and tons of gunline warriors. With all the skimmers I have a lot of targets and with those dark lances he does extremely well for himself. Against bugs we both struggle and it's a real good match every time. Though the 'paper mache' raiders are indeed easy to drop, there's always a TON of them. Mobility is their #1 and they really can make a very effective mobile gunline if played by a smart player.

in 5th Mechanized DE is probably the way to go. Games do not last as long (sometimes) so being able to contest objectives quickly on the 5th turn is very valuable. Yes, raiders are paper, but even a squad of lootas can only kill one per turn... when there are 14 raiders on the table... one is just a drop.

I think WWP is the only way to play them competitively. 14 raiders are a lot but it is conceivable that you could shoot down at least 10 or even all of them in two turns.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:I think WWP is the only way to play them competitively. 14 raiders are a lot but it is conceivable that you could shoot down at least 10 or even all of them in two turns.

G

As someone who used to play WWP almost exclusively in 4th ed I can assure you that it is no longer effective in the slightest. The new TLOS and IC rules make it almost impossible to hide a WWP carrier effectively. In my first few games in 5th I was constantly forced to drop my WWP long before I was in position (often first turn), because, either I was in danger of losing the WWP or had already lost 1 of the 2. I have had great success in 5th ed with all Mech DE. The new vehicle destruction chart makes raiders alot harder to destroy (no longer destroyed 50% of the time on a glance yay!) and the new template rule means that 3 dissie ravagers can put some serious hurt on infantry. The loss of the sweeping advance kinda hurt, but I have managed to work around that with massed assaults (alot harder to avoid when your spreading out to avoid dissie blasts). I have done much better with DE since 5th came out then I did in 4th.

Heres some of my DE battle reports:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/232001.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/231323.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/224228.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218268.page

Despite their relative unpopularity (probably due to the difficulty of playing with them plus their rather OTT sadistic fluff - turns some people off - and apparently some people reckon they looks bad ...(? have Tau players looked in the mirror lately??))

You are comparing Tau models to DE? Tau might be too anime for 40k but at least the models aren't laughable. The Dark Eldar line is hideous with the rediculous helmets and silly blades on everything. If the models ever look as good as the artwork in the 4ed and 5ed rulebooks, then you will see a lot more people playing them.

As far as the actual topic -- my thought is they are competitive till they face Orks (or the new IG), but haven't seen them played much in 5ed.

Those Batreps from Gardeth are nice. Some good luck has really changed the outcome of some games there.

The units/combos in the DE list are hard as nails, when they do what they are supposed to be.