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Hi all,

I'm entering my first tournament after Christmas, I'll be playing Tyranids. I'm happy with my knowledge of most of the game and a lot of the loop-holes and tactics... EXCEPT for Dark Eldar. I know very little about them and it concerns me!

Obviously I'm not asking for anyone to read me out the codex or anything, but if people know of established strong 'tricks' and/or tactics that I should watch out for, please share. I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks all.

I don't know what kind of tyranid army you play. If you're heavy on the horded squads then really watch out for the disintigrators that raiders and ravagers mount (the two types of vehicles that the dark eldar have). They are the equivalent of a plasma cannon and can eat through the heaviest armed troops. Normally the dark lance is a major factor because an eldar squad can carry two of them for only 100 pts total and they are death to vehicles (because they cause all armor over 12 to be treated as 12), but since the tyranids don't have any vehicles... if you have a carni heavy force, however, dark lances could pose lots of problems.

Ok first things first.

Never assault/get assaulted by Wyches with Genestealers, In fact try not assaulting Wyches at all. In combat they half your weapon skill, have a 4+ inv save and other nasty effects. Just shoot their raiders and kill them at range where they are toughness 3 with a 6+ save.

Take down Ravagers (the one with three guns) at any chance you get. These will destroy hordes and mess around with MCs. Remember that venom cannon you should have to stun tanks? Well now you have a chance to actually kill stuff with it as all DE vehicles are open topped. Strength 10 will need a 2+ to damage a Ravager and then you pray for any result other than a 2 or a 3 (weapon destroyed and Immobilised as it has 3 weapons and shouldn't be moving too much).

The DE rely on mobility. Take this from them. Destroy their raiders. Almost every shooting weapon should be able to do this.

If they are running a Lord + incubi just kill the raider and keep away. They are not fleet and so will not hit your line unless you position badly. If you need to kill them just mass fire them to death. They are only T3 although they have a power armour save.

Get used to striking second. Even basic troopers have Initiative of 5

Remember the DE list relies on two things both linked to each other.
Mobility and Fear.

Mobility as they are prehaps the fastest army out there and Fear because of this mobility they can keep their opponant on their toes as an attack can come at any time from any direction.

Dark Eldar are immensely fragile. They can dish it out but can't take it.

Just take away their transports and have a feast.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ohh and check the Dakka articles. They have a really good tactica for DE that you should be able to turn on its head

Taking out the transports is easier said than done. People scoff at armor 10 open topped but a good DE player should be getting a cover save for his skimmers first round. Shooting the ravagers isn't necessarily the best move, they have armor 11 which makes them a lot tougher to kill and they don't transport troops. You gotta stop the transports. Once the transports have turbo boosted, it is pretty likely that the passengers can make assault even if you immobilize it since its already gone 24 in the direction it wants. The guys get out and move, possibly fleet, and assault. If you wreck it a pinning test can save you and wyches and warriors don't take explode results very well. Leadership is a huge army weakness. Knocking out the incubi raider is priority one as they don't have fleet.

If you're running lots of TMC's, you'll need to be a little careful. The shear number of S8 AP2 weapons a DE army can field is pretty impressive. You'll need to make sure you're using cover and terrain to best effect, or you'll discover you're losing 2+ MC's a turn.

Also, wyches remove all of your bonus attacks for scything talons in CC, and almost always pack a power weapon that always wounds on a 4+, regardless of toughness. If you're running a CC Flyrant, there are better targets for it than a unit of wyches.

Assume there will be the ubiquitous CC monster Archon. He's best to swamp with something small, then flood with attacks until the shadowfield fails. Then, he's pretty much done.

First off I'll 2nd checking out the tactica (link in my sig) as it does a breakdown of units and also of basic DE tactics. I, at least, always find tacticas of armies I'm fighting to be as good if not better then tacticas for my own army.

Tyranids are not in a generally happy place for dealing with DE because DE have a good answer for everything Tyranids do well. You are fast, but DE are likely all in fast transport skimmers and are faster. You are good in CC, but DE have some of the best CC in the game and also have Wyches, which excel at shutting down CC elites and Monstrous Creature battering rams. You count on big monstrous creatures, DE pack exceedingly cheap Str 8 AP 2 guns that come stock on their fast transports. Argueably your best option is to swarm, but DE are very good at shooting and Tyranids are not the best at soaking up small arms fire.

In general with DE you can expect the Air Force/Raider Rush build. This will involve a large amount of their transport skimmers and can be focused on being gunline (a'la the Tau), a short range shooting force (like fragile faster Marines) or a CC rush force (semi mech Ork if you will). Generally speaking the armies will have a bit of flavor of two of the three possible focuses. DE also have a few stranger builds that you might see - Webway Portal and Army of Shadows. These can be spotted easily because very little will ever start on the board. These two builds focus on Deep Strike or Reserves - with WWP including the ability to drop a template on the board that can act as your opponent's board edge so he can deploy mid field. Generally you will be happier to see these as both lists are a bit more CC oriented which should give you a helpful edge.

Everyone else has had some good advice thus far. Generally speaking you want to try to de-mechanize them as fast as you can. Otherwise a smart DE commander will be able to pick his assaults and prevent you from ever getting a hold of his squishy units. Ravagers (3 gun "heavy" skimmers) will usually feature triple plasma cannons. They will eat up hordes like nobody's business and if you are horde heavy they are a primary concern. If you run Nidzilla heavy your primary worry is probably all the transport skimmers - as they will all be packing the Str 8, ap 2 dark lance that they can move 12" and still fire. There are also likely to be either small squads of 10 footsloggers with 2 lances and/or some smaller 5 man squads with 1 dark lance. Expect to see 12+ of these dark lances in an army at 1750 (expect to see easily 20 or so as the points go higher). A gunline DE army will sit back and pepper you with lances and plasma cannons as you advance, and will probably send out a small assault force to harry you and assassinate units that can shoot back.

Also, be aware of another common tactic, which is the gunboat. It will be a transport that will glide around firing a handheld short range dark lance (12" range) as well as rapid firing with lasrifle equivalents and a 24" range assault weapon that shoots 4 str 4 shots. A true gunboat build will include quite a few of these, and working in concert with the Ravagers and the dark lances on their transports they will work hard to pour fire into your swarms and execute them before you can get off charges. When facing gunboats you want to try to lure them in with something and hopefully have a countercharge unit that can strike back (hard) or manage to pop their transport with your shooting (for Tyranids harder then for most armies). Exploding vehicles are great for you since usually there are not a lot of troops inside their transports and the explosion will practically wipe them out for you. Warrior squads will often have a HQ paired with them known as a Haemonculi. This HQ is a bit tougher then their regular warrior and will usually be equipped with a pair of poisoned weapons as well as a flamer that has a d6 value for its ap rating, so it can often just eat through armor as though it isn't there.

Dealing with Wyches is, as advised, about shooting them. in h2h they shut down special abilities and have invulnerable saves. Versus shooting they are toughness 3 with a 6+ save. Shoot them and be done with it. Hopefully blow up their transport to soften them up first. Wyches will also usually be carrying the hand-held dark lances, so be aware they are a potential ranged threat and often have a variety of special effects to boost their combat effectiveness. They will be faster then you and will have a power weapon that always wounds on a 4+ so Carnifexes really want no part of them.

The HQ is another shoot it if you can unit. As noted, the best option is to blow up his transport (which will be hard as usually it will be well hidden with cover and will often have a piece of wargear on it that adds inches to range measurements to the vehicle - Ravagers also often have this wargear). Generally the HQ will either be in a skimmer transport with what basically amounts to a squad of high initiative Space Marines with power weapons or he will be on a jetbike with other jetbike riders. In either case expect the Lord to have a 2+ invulnerable save and the ability to generate upwards of 4-5 str 4-6 power weapon attacks on the charge with the option of re-rolling to hit. If he's with bikers expect them to also have hand held dark lances.

Basic advice is to shoot Elite and HQ options and to assault Troop options and, of course, to blow up all vehicles. Try to keep your units together enough to support each other as DE love to lure out their enemy and isolate and attack. If you take their vehicles you can slow them down enough to shoot them up or swarm over them. Also, expect your Carnifexes to eat a lot of firepower as DE bring a lot of anti-tank, and that's basically what your Carnies (and Tyrant) are going to be since you don't have vehicles. I think it'll probably be an uphill battle (As a DE player I rather enjoy getting to face the bugs, as I feel their army is poorly built to oppose ours) but it can be done as long as you can keep pressure on the DE player and manage to de-mech him enough to slow down his ability to outmaneuver and reposition around your army.