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Hey folks!! Merry Christmas.

To date, I've played two games with my Dark Eldar. I used 1850 points in both games - Raider spam Kabal lists with an Archon HQ; you can see my lists HERE.

Notes from the games I've had that could use feedback:

1. Dark Lances haven't impressed me. I think my dice rolls might be the root cause of the problem, but when my entire army shoots at a Land Raider and doesn't do anything...I start to wonder. Given that my army list is centered around spamming dark lances through the raiders and through 5 man warrior squads....this is problematic.

2. Small warrior units: My warriors haven't come under fire much, because they're tiny 5 man units. Since the dark lance is a heavy weapon, their raider either has to stay still so that they can fire, or I have to start them outside the vehicle, or drop them off - not a lot of optimal solutions there, and I've been dropping warriors off in cover for static sniping positions. Back to #1 though, I haven't had a whole lot of luck getting dark lances to work - and taking a squad just to get the dark lance in it (because that's really all that's firing the whole game) makes me second-guess their utility.

3. Ravagers: My three Disintegrator Ravagers are hellacious, ridiculous, and destructive. Thought I would share.

4. Reaver jetbikes - I have a squad of three of them, with two blasters - their role being to roll up the table super fast and kill a tank. It seems like I turbo-boost them up the table, they fire at a tank and miss/do nothing, then are out in the open / exposed and subsequently get annihilated. I don't like it.

5. Formations: As a mechanized ork player, my vehicle footprint is very small - I bunch everything together and smash it into the enemy. I've tried both with DE: spread out for wide threat radius, and bunched together to move together. I'm not sure what makes more sense.

6. Wyches vs. Warriors - having experienced running a kabal and having terrible luck with dark lances, I wonder if I shouldn't switch to a wych cult?

It's interesting that you don't mention the success of your wych squads when discussing the rest of your list. If you're considering running a wych cult, better ask yourself how the wyches have fared. In my experience, they don't cut it well enough to justify using them much, so the kabal has been my standard.

You've hit the same wall I have running DE...people mech up more, and lances are only mediocre at killing armor, so you need to really go all out with them....but of course that negatively impacts your army in other areas.

Your dark lance has about a 7.4% chance of blowing up an AV12+ vehicle in the open. Your 15 lances at 1850 isn't going to cut it against any seriously mechanized opponent. Sure, you'll get plenty of stuns, weapon destroyeds and such, but if anything gets to shoot back, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose something in return...DE die very easily.

The toughest call I had to make in my list was to drop the disintegrators on the ravagers...like you said, they are incredibly effective, but if you keep them as is, you lose 9 potential lances...a significant percentage of the total available in the list. This is also where you start to really see the effects of codex-creep over the years...compare a 3 DL armed ravager against an IG vendetta and decide which is a better bargain. Still, the fact that DE can still be fairly effective shows how powerful they were originally.

Reaver bikes, as you mentioned, are pretty lackluster, too. You hit the nail on the head...lances don't kill vehicles reliably enough, so anytime the bikes get close enough to fire at something, there's a good chance they'll fail, and they'll easily fall to whatever small-arms the enemy has available that doesn't have any other targets available.

DE don't have any other answers to armor, unfortunately. Assault won't work, and the only real shooting weapon available is the dark lance, so you have to get creative and take them wherever you can. Each HQ retinue can have 2, along with one on the raider, so there's another potential source. It's often counter-intuitive, because the HQ is kitted-out for assault, but if you can't crack enemy armor open, there's nothing to assault anyway. I think of the HQ as the mopping-up element after the DL spam (I cram 30 into 1850) knock out the major threats. They also act as a counter assault element to quickly destroy tough targets that appear in my face (podding marines, for example).

My wyches have come up against Demons, orks, and chaos marines so far and done well for it. My wyches boil into combat, keep things busy for turn, and my Archon and his Incubi show up to end things.

Dashofpepper wrote:My wyches have come up against Demons, orks, and chaos marines so far and done well for it. My wyches boil into combat, keep things busy for turn, and my Archon and his Incubi show up to end things.

Indeed, Wyches can win combat very slowly. If they got into cc then they better should stay there.
I always give them Wych weapons and the Succibi trophy racks for boosting leadership.

However, a Librarian with nullzone can be a pain for Wyches.

As an ork player who's prefered enemy is DE, thing of Wyches as Nobz - Get them in there and expect them to kill effectively, just stay away from combats that slow them down. (Wyches vs Nobz, the longer the wyches were in this combat the worse they fared). Talos, everytime I've seen them have been effective and a shifting raider sweep is awefully effective. From what I've seen, splinter rifle thingys are nice troop killers.

Splinter cannon, you mean. Although massed splinter rifles do some damage by sheer weight of numbers, not exactly a situation you want to rely on.

You may want to swap out some of your 5 man in a raider DL squads for 10 man foot squads, since you can take 2 DL in a foot squad and you'll have the raiders free to carry other things, or to free up the points in general. I tend to have equally bad luck with DL doing damage.

Talos, in my experience, work well against heavy vehicles and independent characters if you can give them a little backup and you manage to keep them out of shooting. Their long range wildfire attack while on route can be surprisingly effective and catches opponents unexpectedly. Don't rely on it.

I haven't played large or tournament lists, only focused on the smallish fluffy one I play and learning all the kinks and tricks of it, so I'm not much help I'm afraid.

Morgrim wrote:You may want to swap out some of your 5 man in a raider DL squads for 10 man foot squads, since you can take 2 DL in a foot squad and you'll have the raiders free to carry other things, or to free up the points in general. I tend to have equally bad luck with DL doing damage.

i will note that 10 men with 2 Lances and five men in a Raider with one lance and one lance on their Raider is the same number of lances and the only way you can "free up" Raiders by not taking them in Troop slots is if you physically have a lack of Raider models.

Dash, as far as your current woes go and going only by the information presented here I have the following thoughts. I'd love to hear which armies you've fought against with your DE.

1. If Dark Lances aren't working too well for you in your current number, then as Grimaldi noted (though I disagree with his 30 Lance build...2 retinues with 2 Lances each in Raiders?) taking more Lances is a solid solution. Also, be aware, like Necrons, sometimes all we need to do is dismantle a vehicles movement/shooting for a turn. 4 shaken and stunned vehicles are superior to 1 destroyed and 3 unharmed vehicles in my opinion.

2. I was wondering how you'd react to mini snipers coming off of Orks. With as many mini snipers as you're running your optimal move is to try to gunline your forces, which says keep the mini snipers in their Raiders and keep the Raiders as a static firing line with the Ravagers. Wyches and Incubi will be used as counter chargers in this situation. On the flip side, since you comment about how you have a desire to keep moving the Raiders perhaps you should conisder flipping over to Gunboat builds with your Raiders. Now, this is slightly problematic because it will decrease the number of Lances in your build (though there are solutions, some troops could become full Sniper Squads and some Ravagers could go 3 Lance to compensate). A Gunboat is a more mobile firebase for your Warriors and Splinter Cannons and rapid fire help offset the loss of Dissies on Ravagers.

3. I have yet to meet a DE player who didn't love Ravagers. As per issue #1 above you might wish to consider trying a 3 Lance Ravager in your army to see if that helps your tankbusting needs.

4. I use minimized RJBs the same way you describe (though I have played them enough my emotional response to their percentage chance to pop/disable a tank is better methinks). Their optimal use is to be used as a cheap distraction unit. I will note perhaps your placement of them needs some work, as they shouldn't be open to too much of the army. On the flip side, perhaps you don't need a distraction unit like this in your army. If you were upgrading to gunboats dropping the RJBs would certainly help you afford the more expensive Troop slot. As an alternate, if going for a more gunline concept Warp Beasts can serve as a fairly affordable countercharge option.

5. It depends on what DE style you're playing and also upon what you're fighting. I'm afraid there's no true hard and fast rule for DE deployment. Overall if I'm going first I spread out, and if I'm going second I bunch - but there's lots of games where I might do something different depending on what type of opponent/army I'm playing against. I can say that Gunboat builds should deploy forward and gunline builds should deploy towards the backfield.

6. Overall the general consensus on Wych Cult is that its biggest weakness vs. Kabal is tank busting. So if you're having trouble with popping vehicles now you might find your woes magnified in the cult as they have a harder time fielding lances and use blasters and 3 lance Ravagers primarily. I'll also caution that two games is still well within the territory of learning a new army in my opinion. If Wyches seem good to you and Lances meh you might want to try floating in a third elite slot of Wytches to the army and see how that affects your dynamic - you might be wanting to play a more assault oriented/short game DE list then your current build.

Thanks for the feedback Thor.

I definitely agree that two games puts me squarely into the "still learning the army" category. With Orks, I know what a squad of 12 boys can handle from experience,where Ghazghkull is best used, when to assault and where...

Dark Eldar will take me some time to learn and get acquainted with. Your observation that switching to a wych cult would deprive me further of anti-tank is astute...I didn't even think of that. For now, I'm going to stay with the kabal until I learn it. I did order warpbeast squad; I've got a beastmaster and 5 beasts waiting for me at the FLGS when next I get there (hears Clthomps cheering in the background). If anything, putting in warpbeasts and taking out the bikes is an option, and I think kicking my wyches from 6 up to 7 or 8 would be an option too.

My Archon squad has suffered - I throw the Archon and Incubi into close combat with someone elses' HQ+ retinue - I fought a Chaos Lord and also Kharne last time; After the Archon goes (and he failed to kill the IC because of invulnerable saves), the IC mulched up my Incubi. It was an expensive loss, probably a noobie mistake on my part not asking what the initiative of his models were, power weapons, how many attacks, etc.

I haven't been playing as a gunline simply because I've gotten used to playing Orks - rush up and beat on stuff. Thus far I've been maneuvering my ravagers around 6" in the backfield (or moving up to mid-center to keep range on things I need to kill), and skipping my raiders around 6" at a time....which is pretty pointless now that I think about it. My wyches and archon have swept 24" across the board first turn, and prepped for an assault on turn 2....again, that's ork mentality. I need to start using them as a counter-charge unit and keeping them in the back I guess? I'm wary of having wyches sitting around waiting to get shot at though....

Orks are a broadsword and DE are a stiletto. You will need some time to adjust your concept of how to attack what with which units.

Right at the moment your list is fairly comfortably built to use the Wyches/Incubi as either counter chargers or an assault force depending on what your opponent's army and composition is. (the old mantra of assault shooty armies and shoot assaulty armies holds true as a basic way to read this situation). All your troops are very much kitted out to be gunline and when fielded with lances need to be treated as (a mobile) gunline. Also, remember that after they have dropped off the Incubi/Wyches your empty Raiders are a very potent tool to help gunline DE. You can turbo boost or move them to help block LOS or cut off access paths between terrain. Doing this can help cut off parts of the enemy force and allow you to focus fire with the lances on other targets. When using Wyches as counter chargers usually I'll either hide them behind terrain (if possible), hide them behind the gunline Raiders so they get a cover save if the enemy wants to try to pop the Wych Raider first, or I'll just keep turbo-boosting them around in the backfield to generate an intrinsic cover save (the least optimal option, but any port in a storm)

As you noted, moving your Troop Raiders 6" is basically pointless. You should either have the squads inside the Raiders and keep them stationary, or have the squads outside of the Raiders and move your boats 12". If the squad is inside you can move 12+" as well, but should only do so if redeployment of the extra lance will make a difference in the new location or if it's near the end game and you need a troop option on an objective.

The Kharn squad was better work for Dissies (to kill) or for Wyches (to tarpit). Incubi do not like things with power weapons and better initiative then they have. As you noted, it's important to be on top of power weapons and initiative (it's pretty true that when I play Orks usually my first question to an opponent is how many attacks a unit generates, when I play DE the first question is always what initiatives they have)

Very informative discussion my friends! As a new DE player myself this has been very useful. I wanted to ask the both of you this: How to haemonculus fare with you? As my amazing girlfriend has said: "They're evil, you can't use them anymore."

Once people see what they can do the become targets, and since they're 3 independent characters it's a bit more difficult to get the kill point since they're in 3 different squads.

What I wanted to ask is where you put them in the army (if you use them). I've been sticking them in with footslogging warrior squads that have blasters/splinter cannons. The haemy is armed with destructor/scissorhands and the succubus has poisoned blades as well, giving me 5 poisoned attacks or 7 on the charge and I try and get them in against gaunts/shooty ork squads/small units of marines where their high WS & I help put them on top.

Do either of you have any other advice as to where they can go?

My haemonculi have destructor/scissorhands as well. I have two of them, and they go with my wych squads. If I take a third, it will go with a third wych squad.

Grunt_For_Christ wrote:What I wanted to ask is where you put them in the army (if you use them). I've been sticking them in with footslogging warrior squads that have blasters/splinter cannons. The haemy is armed with destructor/scissorhands and the succubus has poisoned blades as well, giving me 5 poisoned attacks or 7 on the charge and I try and get them in against gaunts/shooty ork squads/small units of marines where their high WS & I help put them on top.

Do either of you have any other advice as to where they can go?

My advice for Haemy placement can be found in my DE tactica (link in sig).

Generally when I personally play them they are with Raider Squads in Gunboat setups as this is an optimal location since both Haemys and Gunboats operate optimally at short range to allow the use of both the blaster and the Destructor to mesh with the Splinter cannon and rifles in infantry killing duty.

I think the OP has hit upon an important fact about lances, they have serious problems taking out armor. If you have to take more then this tells me there is a basic problem afloat.

I have read Thor's DE tactica and found it very enlightening... DE should be played as a mobile army that uses the raiders as gunboats. It's not all about rushing into close combat as soon as possible. I think this is the best way to play the army.

G

I'm not going ot touch upon what every has already commented on but I have a few suggestions which haven't yet been touched.

First of you mention formation which is very important to DE. Alpha strike is key of you can get it. One tactic that has worked for me in the past is if I don't get the first turn and I'm not playing DOW I throw everything in reserve. I know its dividing your forces, but since you are bring so many different units to the field you can still pack a strong inital punch. This works especially well against drop armies. In addition, in this case, you have the luxury of seeing your opponents deployment, allowing you to focus your forces where they are needed. Being able to concentrate your army's fire against or run away from the greatest threat is a huge asset due to our mobility.

Also if you do decide to remove your disintigrators, then I suggest using those points to equip your ravagers with nightshields. Always being out of melta range is quite helpful for those little gun boats, and an 33% chance not to be hurt by meltas is is allot better than hoping your opponent rolls snake eyes.

Lastly, I know I'm in the minority here, but I really really think incubi are vasty overrated for what they do. Back in 3rd ed they were great but now they just get slaughtered, espcially in the point range you are playing in. The archon himself is a monster but the bodyguard is a waste of points. I'd either put him on a jetbike and ditch the animus viate or toss him into a unit of wyches. At least they can survive being hit by power weapons and can still go first most of the time unlike Inucbi.

Well....I've got another 1850 game tomorrow; I'm going to tactically revise what I've been doing to use my same list as a gunline. I'd like to sub out the RJB for warp-beasts, but I don't have the models yet so I'll cross that bridge later.

I would consider putting horrorfexes on all the raiders. Pinning enemy squads is a very useful ability of a raider rush list.

Lances are funny things. I played against a 9 russ list in my last tournament and destroyed 8 by the end with a similar number of lances to yours. The next game my opponent had 4 chimeras and I destroyed one by the end of the game. I find it always takes twice as many as you think you need. I usually put a blaster into every troop squad for extra lance fire.

I too am not a big fan of incubi. They tend to mash something, but if you get them in against the wrong opponent they go down pretty easily. I prefer 8 man wyches overall with two blasters in the squad.

I generally run an archon with punisher on a jetbike, with a 4 man 2 blaster bike squad. The bikes need to go for rear shots if they are going to be effective. In your list, I'd probably drop them from your list. I turbo boost mine up a flank first turn, then split them from the archon when I get a chance to tank hunt.

I use warpbeasts as well and they aren't as bad as a lot of people give them grief for. They're big problem is target selection. They are fast and with all your raiders are very likely to get where they want. They are best as a backup for wyches. Mine tend to hit what they want and then go down during the combat. They are good for softening something up a bit before they drop, but with t3 and no real armour save, anything that swings at them will tend to take them out. They have an 18" + fleet change range so they are faster than people expect.

Finally starting everything in reserve is a very good strategy. With your list, much like your orks, you need to isolate parts of the enemy and destroy them. You can't go 1 for 1 with the enemy. You need to overwhelm one side first, then go after the remainder.

You also might want to consider starting very few of your 5 man squads in the raiders. start some of them in nice terrain to snipe from and use the raiders as PT boats.

Something that I have struggled with is that my DE HQ units should be troop killers, not Elite Unit Killers. I think your tooled up Archon with incubi is overkill in this respect. I'd recommend dropping the reavers and getting a dracon with drugs, antogonizer, and plasma grenades and putting him in with the incubi instead. This was your archon can go off on his own and destroy smaller troop units himself. Plus now you have 4 close combat threats instead of 3.

Disintegrators and Wych Squads take out the elite units; the dracon/Incubi & Archon take out troops.

Dark Lances are a little tricky to use I've found. If they shoot at AV 12 or better they only have a 7.2% chance of destroying the vehicle per lance shot, this drops to 3.6% if the vehicle is in cover. However, most of the time I am trying to get any result but immobilized to stop the vehicle from firing next turn, when this is the goal a dark lance has a 27% chance of being effective, per shot. This means that target priority is HUGE! Try to eliminate the biggest threats that are not in cover first when shooting with your lances.

One build to try is switching one ravager to 3 dark lances, vehicle squadrons hate these.

If you are frustrated trying to damage armor with a kabal, you'll be swearing a lot more with a wych cult, trust me.

Hrm....

An Archon/Dracon on a bike would be T4 - making that 2+ invulnerable save more potent. Then again, the Archon would be by itself in attacking those troop choices, meaning that he's going to take a lot more wounds. I'm not sure the trade-off is worthwhile?

I wouldn't even put him on a bike, just put him with a wych squad in a raider and he can either support the wych squad, or go and kill a combat squaded tac squad. Plus by having the archron by himself or teamed with the wyches he can take advantage of fleet, something he can't do with incubi.

A bike lord is quite potent (and currently a mainstay in my lists of 1750 or above). You can always build up a bike squad to accompany him in his assaults, though that does become expensive it does create an exceedingly potent h2h force on the table.

He can work fine on his own, you just have to be mindful of what sort of troop units you attack. full mob of Boyz would be a bad idea, a tac squad however could be an ideal target. Overall I prefer to have my bike lord set up with a accompanying squad of bikers equipped for h2h combat as there are a variety of armies out there where splitting a bike lord off on his own tends to make him too vulnerable in my opinion (basically any army who has very large and/or combat oriented foot troops - Orks, Nids, Space Pups, ect.) Against smaller, elite foot troop armies and against more shooting oriented troops (like Eldar and Tau respectively) he can operate on his own quite functionally.

Running gunline I'm not sure I'd want to use a bike lord, however. His unit tends to be either expensive or fragile (or both, sadly enough) and he really ought to be getting up into combat as soon as possible since he's useless sitting on the backfield and he want to do his charge forward with a good number of additional targets to threaten your opponent with. This does not make him an optimal countercharge unit to sit back with your lances, and since your current build isn't very short range or assaulty I'm not sure if you have the target saturation I'd want when fielding a bike lord.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

asugradinwa wrote:I wouldn't even put him on a bike, just put him with a wych squad in a raider and he can either support the wych squad, or go and kill a combat squaded tac squad. Plus by having the archron by himself or teamed with the wyches he can take advantage of fleet, something he can't do with incubi.

What do you see as the advantage of a Dracon/Incubi squad and an Archon/Wych pairing as opposed to Archon/Incubi and Dracite/Wych?

Dracon/ w 5 Incubi will be killing around 6-7 T4 models at I5 on average, a great troop or terminator without stormshield killer.

The Archon, if paired with incubi, needs to stay with them and can't engage other units on his own. While the offensive output of Archon & 5 incubi is greater, the ability to have the Archon engage other units is better.

Pairing the Archon with a wych squad does a couple of things:

1. It gives the Archon a raider to go where he wants.
2. If you decide to keep the Archon with the wyches he more than doubles their effectiveness against most targets.
3. He is able to use fleet with the wyches or by himself, he can't with incubi.
4. Because of fleet & combat drugs he can potentially move at least 19" a turn if needed to attack troops.

There is nothing wrong with a Dracite with wyches except that they are not incubi. I think that running a fully tooled Archon with Incubi is limiting the effectiveness of the Archon; of course I'm still learning the ins & outs of Dark Eldar myself.

asugradinwa wrote:Dracon/ w 5 Incubi will be killing around 6-7 T4 models at I5 on average, a great troop or terminator without stormshield killer.

I certainly agree here.

The Archon, if paired with incubi, needs to stay with them and can't engage other units on his own. While the offensive output of Archon & 5 incubi is greater, the ability to have the Archon engage other units is better.

This is an inherent retinue issue (though retinue does have some inherent benefits for ICs, such as ability to actually not be targeted separately during h2h combat - which makes your Archon safer and more likely to survive longer into the game)

Pairing the Archon with a wych squad does a couple of things:

1. It gives the Archon a raider to go where he wants.
2. If you decide to keep the Archon with the wyches he more than doubles their effectiveness against most targets.
3. He is able to use fleet with the wyches or by himself, he can't with incubi.
4. Because of fleet & combat drugs he can potentially move at least 19" a turn if needed to attack troops.

Hmmm...
1. He also gets this with the Incubi. So I don't see any particular advantage/disadvantage here
2. Agreed - but it raises the question do you want that effectiveness raised? To my mind Wyches are for tarpitting - I don't want my Archon involved in tarpit actions. Also, I like my Wyches to occasionally attack things that a Punisher is of no real help in fighting, so I wonder why I'd want an expensive Punisher Archon with Wyches.
3. That is true, an Archon with Wyches is faster then an Archon without them. However, putting a Dracon with Incubi slows down the Dracon and prevents the Dracon from being the superior Dracite.
4. I'm too dumb to figure out where this number is coming from. 6" move (12" in Raider w. 2" disembark) + 6" fleet + 6" assault or 12" assault via drugs = 18-24" (26-32" out of a Raider). I will agree that Incubi are limited to a 20" assault range out of a Raider, but I don't see that as a painful cross to bear considering you can turboboost round one and have the ability to assault anywhere on the board pretty much by turn 2, no matter where you started. Incubi are "slow" but they are only slow compared to some of the stupidly fast units that DE can field, to every other army they are still fast.

There is nothing wrong with a Dracite with wyches except that they are not incubi. I think that running a fully tooled Archon with Incubi is limiting the effectiveness of the Archon; of course I'm still learning the ins & outs of Dark Eldar myself.

I was offering Dracite with Wyches as an alternate to Archon with Wyches. My challenge is that I feel the Archon with Incubi performs better for what Incubi are meant to do. Incubi are meant to saw through troops, and the Archon's additional attack and Punisher focuses on performing that task. His higher initiative also will allow him to better single out and duel ICs in troop squads before they can get a chance to tear into Incubi, allowing the Incubi to unload into the troops. To my mind Wyches are built to tear down elite h2h troops via wars of attrition, and I don't see the value behind adding something as beefy as an Archon to that mix (especially if he's left with the Punisher, as then he'll tend to shred the units too quickly and leave the Wyches exposed to shooting or he'll be next to useless if the Wyches need to charge a MC).

Downgrading an Incubi Lord from Archon to Dracon is perfectly fine (I do it all the time) but to do this in order to add an Archon to a squad of Wyches doesn't seem optimal to me. Also, if I'm having a Lord run around on his own I'd rather have it be Wych Lord (like a Dracite), as that way when the Shadowfield fails he'll still have a 4++ save in h2h.

Dashofpepper, you certainly have a lot of help if you want to play Kabal - I like the suggestions posted so far.

From your experiences it seems you are following a natural progression - many people play with bikes and min/max squads in the beginning but it looks like you figured them out for what they are worth and already you are completely mechanized (some new players like to use foot squads - not my cup of tea though).

However, you are noticing the need to punch armor and you do not seem to have any problems with the wyches - I haven't read any of your battle reports but even from your mention of your previous army I can tell you are just not finding the "zen" with your list. I think even you can recognize that the balance isn't quite right using kabal units in your play style and you are trying to put your finger on it - that's your inner "wych" calling and it doesn't seem anyone here uses them frequently. I am not saying the Kabal advice you are getting is wrong - its quite good. So if you still want to want to wrassle in trying to get a grip on Kabal lists then by all means, continue on your search for a good list.

If you want to hear some wych cult advice for 5th edition that I think might suit your playstyle then pm me and I can offer some ideas - personally I think you are ready to make the switch (and yes, wych cult can deal with armor just fine ).

A wych cult isn't out of the question, but its too soon in my progression to sort out if that's the move I need to take.

On a sidenote, I had another game last night. This time I was determined to play a gunline appropriately. The dice gods decided that we were going to play annihilation with spearhead deployment. I got to go first. I dropped all my raider squads (mini-snipers) into terrain to snipe, and put my raiders and ravagers a bit back from my deployment line.

My dark lances predictably failed me on turn1, doing a lot of nothing. Something I should have considered was that I was playing against IG, and he wasn't going to come to me, so I shouldn't have set up a gunline and dropped off all my mini-sniper squads, who would pretty much spend the rest of the game wishing they were in range to do anything. As a result, I didn't start turbo-boosting my wyches and archon up to the front unil turn2, for a turn3 half assault - my second wych squad didn't make it.

Eventually, I did blow up his tanks with dark lances - I'm a big fan of preaching as an ork player how statistically ineffectual lascannons and everything else are at taking down ork vehicles protected by a KFF, and a dark lance isn't a railgun. I *did* take the advice that I'm looking for shaken/stunned at least and controlled my fire. IE, my first shot at a leman russ gave it shaken. I had to resist the urge to keep shooting at it with other raiders because the purpose was served - it was out of the game for a turn.

I also discovered that my Archon as a troop killer is a...concept that needs further exploration. I piled my Archon+retinue into a squad of 30 conscripts. They have a commissar who has the stubborn special rule, so they aren't affected by negative leadership modifiers. I'd kill 8-9 of them, and he'd strike back and I'd lose one or two models. Except then he's still at L10, and in case he fails, he can shoot a conscript and re-roll. I probably shouldn't have assaulted them - I have much to learn about how to play DE still.

I did end up winning the game; he didn't have enough tanks to be honest, and didn't bring enough tanks specifically because I was playing this list. He brought swarms and waves of foot-slogging IG with some Ratling snipers and two tanks; a Leman Russ and another vehicle killer.

I'm going to sit down and seriously ponder an archon on a jetbike - although I do realize that will make him susceptible to dying much easier. Maybe the problem is that I haven't had the chance to smack into terminators and MEQs and ICs yet where I can appropriately mix the strengths of my lord and retinue.

Did you give the archon a shadowfield? I can't tell you how many times I've seen Morgrim's Archon survive because of that thing.

the nice thing about an archon on a jetbike is that the jetbike gives him +1 T and +1 S, combine that with the punisher and tormentor helm and he's S5 or S6 with drugs. 5 Atacks on the charge, 6 with drugs. Most of the time he doesn't need to take the +1 s drug. He becomes a reasonable vehicle killer. THe trick of course is keeping him from getting sniped. You want to keep him away from wraithlords, dreads, tarpits that put out lots of attacks, and TMC's, but everything else is fair game, as far as I've found. I take a 4 or 5 man reaver squad with him and turboboost them. This should get him into 2nd turn charge range unscathed.

I generally lose him because of ODing on drugs, or losing the shadowfield on the first roll. I like to use him alot in this way. As mentioned above, a stripped dracon is a good choice to run with the incubi if you want them too.

the_ferrett wrote:Did you give the archon a shadowfield? I can't tell you how many times I've seen Morgrim's Archon survive because of that thing.

My archon absolutely has a shadowfield.

Fair enough on waiting to try Wych Cult.

How did the Wyches fair? Are they working for you?

Do you use them in tandem? Separately? Start on the board? Reserves?

Very curious on their success - the rest was predictable.

What was it that made you win?

Wyches have done well - I use them to tarpit and hold things up, and they've done it well.


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Wyches have done well - I use them to tarpit and hold things up, and they've done it well.

I put them in transports, and have started them on the board in every game so far; I keep them together. Thus far, none of them have actually lost their transports, but that's certainly rather situational.

5 man warrior squads oh god what is this I dont even.
I am of the opinion that they should be at least 10 man, as they dont get shot to hell by anything as nasty as a squad of guardsmen.

I would also buff those wych squads up. The problem dark eldar have is they lack any survivability. So your raider asplodes and the wyches die to a tac marine squad with boltguns. There goes your hand to hand. unless you wanna charge me with 5 warriors.