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.

I'm primarily a Dark Eldar player, but I use the Air Force method: everyone in a raider, nothing starts on the table that can't move 24". Is it possible to have a successful army that doesn't use raiders? What about raiders and ravagers?
I don't want to hear about fluke battles, or battles against crap opponents. I want to know if it's possible to have a take-all-comers list without transports.

The biggest issue with the Air Force method is transporting the raiders. They're frustratingly fragile :(.

Thanks in advance.

Ultimately you are going to need your greatest asset which is the raider. It is one of the few army books that for viability sake really revolves around being highly mobile.

Well, you can get foot slogging warrior squads that carry a darklance IIRC. You could park them all on your objectives backfield and then march upfield with something that will stay alive...and as dark eldar there isn't much that you have that will stay alive. You may want some Reavers, ravagers, or some kind of supporting units to help you out.

If you go footslogging though you could make some good use of a Talos. Its the highest toughness in that army, and could also be a good countercharge unit.

Can you make a footslogging dark eldar list that will win some games against some opponents...yes.

Can you make a footslogging dark eldar list that will win games in a competitive environment....no.

At the end of the day t3 and 5+ save just dont get the job done.

The biggest problem with foot sloggin DE that I have had in the past has been leadership. Because there are no real ways that you can up the LD in squads, as soon as you have to test they will fall back a little bit less that 50% of the time on LD8. I dont mind their save because in this edition it is a lot easier to get cover.
I agree with you about transporting the raiders and ravageres... thankfully I have one case that carries all 13 of my vehicles .

HQ
Dracon w/retinue of 10 warriors + 2 dark lances 135pts
Dracon w/retinue of 10 warriors + 2 dark lances 135pts

Troops
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts

Elites
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts

Heavy
Talos 100pts
Talos 100pts

This set of unit are the inital thought -- not the final product. That is why they are an odd point value total.
I play a horde ork army, and I can tell you that dealing with 100+ models can be very difficult for people to deal with. With cover being in abundance, its not hard to get those saves when needed.
That would give you enough dark lances to crack any 'mech army out there. 16 dark lance shots per turn will clear the board of LRs, Russ', etc...
Unlike an assault ork horde army, you would not be needing to move all your models forward every turn, making it possible to play a game in 2 hours.

The 8 squads of dark lances provide support for the 45 wytches that are your core assault. The 2 talos act as additional support for the assault force.

Has anyone ever tried this?

Played it, no. Played against it, yes. I played against a army like this in a small tourney using a borrowed eldar list and I nearly tabled the poor kid.

Foot dark eldar just don't work. Imagine what happens if its a Dawn of War deployment....

Oh and scourges are just ugly bad....one unit costs more then 2 warrior squads without any extra survivability.

gardeth wrote:Played it, no. Played against it, yes. I played against a army like this in a small tourney using a borrowed eldar list and I nearly tabled the poor kid. .

Was that a valid test? If it was a borrowed eldar list and played by a kid?
For example, a kid at my FLGS plays a horde ork army just like mine, but my win/loss ratio is a scale of magnitude higher than his.
Playing a borrowed army is always a disadvantage, as you don't know how to utilize the units like your own.

I hear you on the Scourages -- the heavy weapon ones come in very pricy. I was thinking of what you could use at Anti-Horde. You could also do flamer templates in 3 wych squads to get similar results -- and for a cheaper cost.
The biggest weakness with a footslogging DEldar army is they don't scale well. Pushing to 2000 or 2500 gets very difficult to pull off.

I also updated my earlier list to give some ideas I was thinking of -- mostly in the adding of more wytches

labmouse42 wrote:HQ
Dracon w/retinue of 10 warriors + 2 dark lances 135pts
Dracon w/retinue of 10 warriors + 2 dark lances 135pts

Troops
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts
10 warriors w/ 2 dark lances 100pts

Elites
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts
15 wytches w/succubus + Agonizer 178pts

Heavy
Talos 100pts
Talos 100pts

This set of unit are the inital thought -- not the final product. That is why they are an odd point value total.
I play a horde ork army, and I can tell you that dealing with 100+ models can be very difficult for people to deal with. With cover being in abundance, its not hard to get those saves when needed.
That would give you enough dark lances to crack any 'mech army out there. 16 dark lance shots per turn will clear the board of LRs, Russ', etc...
Unlike an assault ork horde army, you would not be needing to move all your models forward every turn, making it possible to play a game in 2 hours.

The 8 squads of dark lances provide support for the 45 wytches that are your core assault. The 2 talos act as additional support for the assault force.

Has anyone ever tried this?

This list looks like it would be fun to play, if I had all the models.

1500 pts (points may be off, going on memory)

Dracon squad as above + pistol + power weapon + terrorfex 161
6 sniper squads 600
3 10-man wyches + wych weapons + 2x shredder + plasma grenades + succubus w/Agonizer 564 (the 15-man squads above were 223pts)
Warp Beast pack 75
Talos x1 100

1500 pts, 108 models. That would be a fun battle... Someone sell me 30 warriors real cheap.

Iago has it right.
I tend to play with lots of troop squads, because I don't have very many raiders. Generally your large troop squads will turn and run long before they get shot below 50% size. Usually I'll have a squad of 20 lose 3 guys first turn and run off the field before they get a chance to rally. Once you can get away from your table edge, they become a bit better.

It does tend to intimidate your opponents when you place over 100 dark eldar on the field. Having no vehicles is not a bad tactic now with everyone going so mech. I'd just make sure that I had blasters in all your squads so you have some anti tank moving up the field with your wyches.

greenskinned git wrote:Usually I'll have a squad of 20 lose 3 guys first turn and run off the field before they get a chance to rally

A regular dark eldar squad has a leadership of a 8, meaning a 9+ needs to be rolled on 2 dice for them to run off, or a 5/18 (~28%) chance to bolt off the field.
On missions when your troops are by the table edge, and they have to make those checks it can be very dangerous.

greenskinned git wrote: I'd just make sure that I had blasters in all your squads so you have some anti tank moving up the field with your wyches.

Are not dark lances good for anti-tank? What do you put in your warrior squads?

Dark Eldar have the fastest assault vehicle in the game short of a landspeeder storm. They have low leadership, poor armor, poor toughness, and you want to keep them out in the open?

Saying, "I'll have plenty of cover, it's 5th edition" is one thing. Depending on cover for your entire army (without using a KFF) is a whole different warp beast. Unfortunately, though, nearly every basic weapon in the game ignores your armor saves, and what's worse is that they also wound you on a 3+ more often than not. Yes, you only have a 28% chance to break, but if you're making that break roll on each of your squads every shooting phase, you'll be off the table by the top of 3. It's not at all hard to deal 25% casualties to a squad of 10 guardsmen.

Broken Loose wrote:Dark Eldar have the fastest assault vehicle in the game short of a landspeeder storm.

That is irrelevant to the discussion of the validity of footslogging DE. Just because option A is good, does not negate the possibility of option B being good.

I would also argue against a leadership of 8 being low. A 5 leadership is low, a 7 is lower than average. In the world of 40k, I would suggest that an 8 is average.

Broken Loose wrote: They have low leadership, poor armor, poor toughness, and you want to keep them out in the open?

Again, respectfully, this is not a logical argument. Your using a strawman arguement -- suggesting that you would keep your entire DE army out in the open.
While you cannot rely on cover, its not difficult to get. Even screening your models with your own models grants cover. Consider the following, where X is a warrior and L is the DL

xxxxxxxxLL
....xxxxxxxxLL
........xxxxxxxxLL

In each case, the dark lances are not blocked from the enemy models, yet the dark eldar unit will receive cover from incoming fire.

You also assume that if a squad breaks, its going to be destroyed. This is not true. There are rules for rallying. Only on dawn of war missions are your units in risk of running off the board on turn 1.
You are also assuming that every squad will be making break tests every round. In the list I suggested there are 11 squads -- few armies can make each of those take a break test every round. You can only fire at one squad a turn. Blanket statements like "Your army will be tabled by turn 3" do not seem realistic.

Tanks are the best solution to deliver the kind of hits that would be required to drive the army off the table as you suggest, but do you expect them to get many shots off with 16 dark lances firing at them every turn? The role of the dark lances is to elimiate armor/transports to allow the wyches to do their job. As the game comes to a close, the warriors run up and grab objectives.

I am not saying that army would be without its flaws and weaknesses, but I am saying that in the era of 'mech and armor, it would probably fare better than expected due to the number of dark lances and assault troops.

The trick with the dark lance squads is that they should never be moving. Yes you have lots of lances, but footslogging orks are going to over run you. Generally with a footslogging squad there are two common configurations...
1. Sniper squad - 10 guys two lances. I put blasters in my squads but thats a personal thing.

2. Advancing type squad. Sybarite with agonizer, 2 splinter cannons, 2 blasters, and 12-15 normal guys. This squad can move forward, has a bit of punch in HTH, and has some decent firepower.

My typical list has 4 sniper squads who don't move, and one or two of the second type of squad, to give some anti horde and move forwards. The sad truth I find in tournaments that I go to, is lots of time the game will end due to time around turn 4 or 5. If you don't have the objectives around turn 4, it's often too late to start trying to claim any with your sniper squads.

It's just past experience for me, but I find it rare that a squad is totally destroyed. Generally my squads break and run after they have to make a few checks. Wyches on foot melt away to any kind of firepower thrown at them. If you have some terrain, the original posters list can be ok, but it's a risky list. If you have experience with dark eldar, it can definitely work, but the wrong match up of terrain or opponent and you are going to have a tough slog of it.

THe last time I went to a tournament with my heavy foot list it was something like this-
Tooled Archon with punisher on jetbike
4 sniper squads with 2 lances, 2 blasters
2 20 man squads - sybarite, 2 splinter cannons 2 blasters
4 reavers - 2 blasters (escort for archon)
5 reavers - sybarite with agonizer, 2 blasters
3 talos.

It did ok. I was purposely avoiding raiders and ravagers for heavy weapon target denial. My first game I ran into a land raider crusader with blessed armour, and just couldn't crack it for 4 turns. My reavers job in the list was to have something fast to get deep into the enemy zone if I needed to contest. I would run this list again, it was pretty fun for me, and people were shocked to see so many warriors on the field. Like I said though most of my losses came from squads breaking and running. THe sniper squads don't usually move, so tend to remain near my board edge. THe large squads can hold out longer if you can get them away from your table edge.

Oh and finally, it might look like you have lots of dark lances, but experience and bad dice have taught me, it takes twice as many dark lances as you think it should to take out anything. :(

greenskinned git wrote:Oh and finally, it might look like you have lots of dark lances, but experience and bad dice have taught me, it takes twice as many dark lances as you think it should to take out anything. :(

QFT

Thanks for the insight, it was very enlightening.

A DE army hardly works without Raiders.

What you could try is to a Haemonculi Coven army:
6x Sniper squad (10 Warriors with 2 dark lances)
3x Talos - for counter-strike
3x Grotesque squad in Raider
3x2 Hamonculus