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.

If been having success using Duke Sliscus lately. The two dice for combat drugs and the option to deepstrike has been throwing my opponents off of their game.

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

OK, so Archons are fairly standard, they can be cheap or expensive, have a hell of a statline and can take a lot of fancy gear.
Haemonculi are the bread and butter of my lists - up to 6 HQs? That give pain tokens? that have liquifier guns / hex rifles? yes ple ease.
Don't know about the Succubus, but probably something along the lines of a more combat orientated wychy archon I assume.

As for the special characters:
Asdrubael Vect - He's big, he's bad, he's the granddaddy of the Dark Eldar as they are today - he's incredibly expensive for what he does. Fun though.
He's not bad, but tbh in games under say... 2500pts he's a huge point sink for what he does. If you add in the Dais, it may be another ravager, but it can't take upgrades and it's forcing you to take at least 80pt squad, generally you want something decent to go with your high priced dude, so it's gonna be 200pts+ extra, making a flying 800pt+ target.

Lady Malys - honestly, I don't know much about her but she seems ok for fun games.

Drazhar, Master of Blades - I always loved the Drazhar character, pretty much always took him in my archons retinue back in the day. These days, ideally, he wants to be at least 30pts cheaper for his abilities, or boast some sort of invunerable save (like a 5+), but hey. Fun to use, really expensive.

Lelith Hesperax - Don't really do the Wych thing, so again don't really know about her. Converted the model into an Archon though

Urien Rakarth - The father of pain suffers from a similar problem to the rest of the DE characters, Special Character Tax, in that he costs a lot for what he does. He's basically just a Haemonculi with some cool toys (though no liquifier gun or hex rifle... :() He falls over in combat almost as fast as a regular Haem, the lack of invun save is crippling on these expensive characters. Ultimately, unless you really, really want to spend a ton of points to get Str6 Grots, the 3 Haems you could buy instead is far more useful.

Duke Sliscus the Serpent - This guy is awesome. He's reasonably priced for a DE SC, he's got nice rules - the upgraded venom blades, the combat drug boost, upgraded posion for a squad, confering deepstrike to all your vehicles for free, reasonable armour saves etc. For a Wych list, deepstriking list, footlist, dakkalist or a combination of the above, he's a reasonable choice for a HQ.

Kheradruakh, The Decapitator - I love mandrakes, love their background, love their models, etc, but they suck overall. To expensive and underpowered. The Decapitator is better, but his lack of independant character, having to go into reserve and no being able to assault the turn he arrives means he gets to sit in the middle of nowhere and get shot.

Baron Sathonyx - He's cheap and effective from what I'm told, but I've never used him myself. Goes well with a squad of Hellions or Beasts.

Thanks... good info to consider. I am heading out to play right now... I may have to add a few new HQs to my list for fun.

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

I would list them as follows:
Competitive

Hamonculi are the best overall as they are cheap and buff your units with pain tokens.

Lots of people like the Baron, going first is good, often worth 100 points anyway. Stealths and the strength to take on tanks are added bonuses

Archons can be tooled to kill ICs and usually will grind out a lot of dead marines

Vect is an expensive beatstick

Semi Cometitive

Drazhar is ok, but for nearly vect's price why not get vect.

Urien is fun, he makes Covens lists much better. He isnt bad, jsut not that good either.

Lady Malys is fairly good, redeploying is good but DE usually have so many units moving d3 of them doesnt do much

The duke has a bunch of abilities, but you have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs.

Noncompetitive

Lelith isnt very good, beatsticky but str3 and not much way to rectify it.

Truly Awful

Khuzar the decapitator is perhaps the worst character in the game. Absolutely awful

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

I run, (Almost Exclusively) Duke Sliscus:
Placed in a building with 20 kabalites, most often armed with 2 splinter cannons, gives them anywhere form 30-48 shots, hitting and wounding on 3+. This has tormented Tyranids, Monsterous Creatures and Terminators to no end.
My Wyches have become Tactical speacislists, now that the Duke has given them a Choice in Combat Drugs. (=1 strength fighting Necrons and Marines.Great, Oh look a 6? Well now, combint that with the Pain Token I have from the Hammy I have in that squad And that means Furious Charge AND Feel no pain- yeeeehaaaw!)
I have pitted him against a charging pack of Terminators and won, thanks to the twin Poisoned blades that ignore armour on 5-6, and his own 2+ invul.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Exergy wrote:

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

I would list them as follows:
Competitive

Hamonculi are the best overall as they are cheap and buff your units with pain tokens.

Lots of people like the Baron, going first is good, often worth 100 points anyway. Stealths and the strength to take on tanks are added bonuses

Archons can be tooled to kill ICs and usually will grind out a lot of dead marines

Vect is an expensive beatstick

Semi Cometitive

Drazhar is ok, but for nearly vect's price why not get vect.

Urien is fun, he makes Covens lists much better. He isnt bad, jsut not that good either.

Lady Malys is fairly good, redeploying is good but DE usually have so many units moving d3 of them doesnt do much

The duke has a bunch of abilities, but you have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs.

Noncompetitive

Lelith isnt very good, beatsticky but str3 and not much way to rectify it.

Truly Awful

Khuzar the decapitator is perhaps the worst character in the game. Absolutely awful

I have no idea what " Have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs" Means by this. At 150, he is a great Finds! Lets wieght it out: Archon cost with blast pistol, Shadowfield, Combat drugs, Power weapon, (Lets just comapre that to the Twin Venomblades to simplify what their cost would be.)and Ghostplate Armour .: Already at 135-140, (Don't have my codex handy this second. Shadowfield is 30 or 35 pts?) Now what points price would you put on the Following: 2 dice for Selecting Combat Drugs? ( I'd say another 5pts per squad or character is reasonable). Deepstriking all your Vehicles? I think in Vehicle upgrades that saves you 10 points per ( Again, no codex in reach). Extra toxic Poison for 1 squad? Lets say that is a 2 points per model upgrade. By these calculations we can start seeing a price nearing 240-250pts. But he comes in at 150. Best bang for your buck imho.

Well, all good info. Today I fielded Lelith Hekatrix. She was truly amazing. She and her wyches actually wiped out a small horde of Space Wolves (3 separate units, 1 of which had all power weapons) in game 1, and ended holding my objective. In game 2, her wyches died miserably, but she was able to assist in wiping out 2 squads of Imperial Guard, and ended the game in good position to jump on anyone trying to get to my objective. She was very fun to play... and everyone seems very scared of her.

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

I do like lady malis. But I am super fond of the archon, I normally forgo haemies, and Vect is too expensive for my taste. ESPECIALLY with as prevalent as str 6+ is.

worldwarme wrote:
I have no idea what " Have to pay the points for all them and the only really good one is rerolling combat drugs" Means by this. At 150, he is a great Finds! Lets wieght it out: Archon cost with blast pistol, Shadowfield, Combat drugs, Power weapon, (Lets just comapre that to the Twin Venomblades to simplify what their cost would be.)and Ghostplate Armour .: Already at 135-140, (Don't have my codex handy this second. Shadowfield is 30 or 35 pts?) Now what points price would you put on the Following: 2 dice for Selecting Combat Drugs? ( I'd say another 5pts per squad or character is reasonable). Deepstriking all your Vehicles? I think in Vehicle upgrades that saves you 10 points per ( Again, no codex in reach). Extra toxic Poison for 1 squad? Lets say that is a 2 points per model upgrade. By these calculations we can start seeing a price nearing 240-250pts. But he comes in at 150. Best bang for your buck imho.

What I mean is of all his wargear and rules. The only good thing he brings to the table is rerolling combat drugs.

Well yes, you have to pay for the blast pistol, the ghost plate, combat drugs, and his weapon. You have to buy things you might not want.

Blast Pistols are ridiculously expensive, ghost plate is fairly expensive as well especially for a model with 2 wounds(one of which is going to be the 2++ from the shadowfield)

He isn't an archon, he has less attacks, less wounds, less WS, less BS, less Ld, and less inititive. He might as well have the statline of a Hami at this point.

Deep striking Raiders is largely useless. even for free I would almost never do it.

His poison isnt that good either and forces you to deploy him in a squad of warriors or trueborn. Worse if you want to get a splinter cannon in the warrior squad you have to deploy them on foot. I call having to deploy CC characters in fragile shooty units a large disadvantage. I think the duke actually gets better if your army has no trueborn or warriors in the army so he can deploy where he likes. Trueborn should carry DL or blasters, warriors are only mediocer even with the 3+ posion. Venoms are better AI and warriors are best as small units with a blaster.

Rerolling combat drugs is awesome, but how awesome depends on how many units you have with combat drugs. If you were running: an archon with CD, 3 units of bloodbrides, 6units of wyches, and 3 units of hellions then yes I think the duke is a MUST have. But who runs that?


The duke is a CC character, he is meant to be in CC but he doesnt do a very good job of it. An Archon with CD, husk blade, and shadowfield will beat him every time and costs 15 points less. For what its worth, an archon with CD, a venom blade, and a shadowfield will beat him and costs just 105.

TBH Exergy, Trueborn with Splinter Cannons (especially with the Duke) rip things to shreds. Dakkaborn in a Dakkavenom is 20-24 shots, which is ultiamtely damn effective.

Having 1 in 3 squads of trueborn as this is an unexpected and very deadly threat, especially if the bulk of your infantry are say, wyches or wracks and you lack ranged firepower.

Ovion wrote:TBH Exergy, Trueborn with Splinter Cannons (especially with the Duke) rip things to shreds. Dakkaborn in a Dakkavenom is 20-24 shots, which is ultiamtely damn effective.

Having 1 in 3 squads of trueborn as this is an unexpected and very deadly threat, especially if the bulk of your infantry are say, wyches or wracks and you lack ranged firepower.

I covet my elite choices more than you I guess. I would rather take more venoms. 2 venoms is 24 shots that can move 12 and shoot 36. Dakkaborn in dakkavenom have to stand still to get that many shots at that range.

Trueborn squads. I run about 4 of them in a venom with pure blasters (2-4 venoms in all).

Blasters chew up tanks. Remove FNP and finally insta-kill most units (Copters, Nobs, Tyranid warriors, Zoanthropes, Typhus).

Use the venoms cannon to mow the infantry and the truborn to shoot from the vehicle at the gooey insides of a terminator.

edit: Don't underestimate nightshields too.

Last night I had a god roll game where I saved about 80% of my vehicle pens with the 5+.

Exergy wrote:What I mean is of all his wargear and rules. The only good thing he brings to the table is rerolling combat drugs.
Well yes, you have to pay for the blast pistol, the ghost plate, combat drugs, and his weapon. You have to buy things you might not want.
Blast Pistols are ridiculously expensive, ghost plate is fairly expensive as well especially for a model with 2 wounds(one of which is going to be the 2++ from the shadowfield)
He isn't an archon, he has less attacks, less wounds, less WS, less BS, less Ld, and less inititive. He might as well have the statline of a Hami at this point.
Deep striking Raiders is largely useless. even for free I would almost never do it.
His poison isnt that good either and forces you to deploy him in a squad of warriors or trueborn. Worse if you want to get a splinter cannon in the warrior squad you have to deploy them on foot. I call having to deploy CC characters in fragile shooty units a large disadvantage. I think the duke actually gets better if your army has no trueborn or warriors in the army so he can deploy where he likes. Trueborn should carry DL or blasters, warriors are only mediocer even with the 3+ posion. Venoms are better AI and warriors are best as small units with a blaster.
Rerolling combat drugs is awesome, but how awesome depends on how many units you have with combat drugs. If you were running: an archon with CD, 3 units of bloodbrides, 6units of wyches, and 3 units of hellions then yes I think the duke is a MUST have. But who runs that?
The duke is a CC character, he is meant to be in CC but he doesnt do a very good job of it. An Archon with CD, husk blade, and shadowfield will beat him every time and costs 15 points less. For what its worth, an archon with CD, a venom blade, and a shadowfield will beat him and costs just 105.

You have not used him much have you...

For his price, the stat line is solid (worth 55 base at a guess) and with gear his a very well priced. His stat line is much better than a haemy and more than a match for most IC's. Deep striking is the SINGLE BEST option he gives. its a 5pt upgrade per vehicle for FREE but a better version of the item! The tactical flexability is huge.

Given you have to have troops, 9 warriors in a raider with a blaster and duke are cheap, scoring and he can just bail out and leave them while he goes where you want. I commonly do just that. 16, 3+ posion shots for 81 points is gold!

For the record - you don't reroll the drugs, you roll twice and choose the result. Thus if you roll a double, tough luck, I think the drugs are the weakest part of his rules forcing you to add units that don;t benefit the other 2 rules he has.

As for beating sliscus everytime - consider for a second how good his weapons are... 2+ to wound, ignore saves on 5+... its better than an agoniser - much better. All the flexability of the venom blade with all the killyness of the agoniser. He is very good in combat against all but the toughest of enemies and lets face it, if they can kill him they can kill any other archon you care to build thanks to the 2++ shadowfail and T3. Also consider that while the 135pt archon you listed is pretty good - he is focused on 1 thing - killing characters. Sliscus can pop tanks, kill infantry, slug it out with most IC's AND gives massive army wide changes.

Point for point he is perhaps the best IC in the book

I've had a Mawloc do it's underground deep-strike thing into combat with Sliscus before. The guy was going on and on and on about how it was going to wreck him, and his squad.

Sliscus took no wounds and killed the Mawloc.

@ Exergy:
Again, I am in complete agreeance with Massaen. I suppose its all about what kind of army you are Fielding and what kind of army you are playing against. Nonetheless, I win considerably more than I loose with my Duke list, and in the last 6 or 7 games I have played, he has only died once. I find his stats are more than enough to get the job done. His 2+ Invul and poison ( 5-6 no armour save) have helped him kill monsterous creatures, countless marines, terminators and Necrons/ Necron Lords.
I don't like deep striking my vehicles , but I like knowng that if a situation came up where it would serve me well to do so, I have that option, (IE turn 4-5 , my raider with wyches finally come on in an objectives mission.) But , hey, if you don't like him , you don't like him. Me, I still think he's the best character in that army and well worth the 150 pts it costs to have him.

Whoever says DE arnt competitive are bad and havent played any competitive game of 40k in their life.

Archon/Hemoncs for pain tokens

Trueborn in Venoms for Anti Tank, Venoms anti infantry
Witches in Raiders to assault what falls out

Raiders to blow more stuff up

Dark eldar elite wrote:Any opinions on who the best independent characters are in the Dark Eldar list? I have used Archons, Homonculae, Vect and Lelith. I was wondering if anyone has played with The Decapitator, or Dhazar or Urien Rakarth (sorry if any are spelled wrong... don't have codex in front of me). Let me know your thoughts.

I use Drazhar often, If not every battle I play.... He is a monster in CC. Most people wont use him because he is so pricey, and lacks a inv save. But so far he has never failed me and has killed more than his points cost every battle.

Just be sure to get im in CC asap, and attach him to some incubi, I usaully have a squad of about 4-5 with him.

Agreed. Drazhar is a force to be reconed with. Glad somebody is representing him. I used him once, in one list, one game and loved how well he preformed. Expensive, for sure, but fun to surprise an unfamiliar opponant with.

Ovion wrote:I've had a Mawloc do it's underground deep-strike thing into combat with Sliscus before. The guy was going on and on and on about how it was going to wreck him, and his squad.

Sliscus took no wounds and killed the Mawloc.

anything with a shadowfield can potentially kill anything. you can string together a lot of 2++s together. Happens to me about as many times as my shadowfield shorts out on the first wound.

Except its not just the Shadowfield. Its initiative, charging with several attacks, good Weapons skill and a set of Duke Blades. Sorry , but 2+ wounding is better than 4+ Agonizng in his case. But I have praised Duke enough, and its clear that Exergy will not be swayed. Thats the great thing about DE. There is a lot of HQ to choose from. Another one I like is Urien Rakarth, although in order to really take full advantage you should have some Grotesques and/ or at least some wracks. ( I really need to get an abundance of these two units in order to shock my club at Duke's absence).

worldwarme wrote: There is a lot of HQ to choose from. Another one I like is Urien Rakarth, although in order to really take full advantage you should have some Grotesques and/ or at least some wracks. ( I really need to get an abundance of these two units in order to shock my club at Duke's absence).

I kinda want to start an army of the Covens.... Urien would be a great choice , I should test him out to see how well he does.

The nasty part of Drazhar is one of his abilities that lets him move after piling in. This means you can arrange it so he is the only one in base to base with the opponents scary IC, then dart away preventing him from attacking. I have done this, won combat, then wiped the squad, negating an IC that would otherwise have beat me up.

the ability works even better with large squads, say a mob of boyz with a powerklaw nob, move out of the 2" engagement bubble of the nob and stomp on a bunch of the boyz instead (its even better too, because these large squads usually can't fully "pile in" so you can hit the unit in an area with a lower model density and you'll have less normal attacks to worry about in return as well).

The key to Draz is to NOT be with a unit of incubi when you charge - that way the darting strike rule can be really used to your advantage

The Duke has always brought me good luck, by far the most all rounded IC

Well, that was a great discussion about ICs. It appears that the main ones of favortism are the Duke, the Archon and Drahzar. I personally like Leltih and Vect. I have never used the Duke or Drahzar, but I will certainly do so very soon. I like to get a feel for all of the characters.

So, what about Scourges? Does anyone like them or use them? I sometimes field a small unit of 5 or 6 with splinter cannons and shardcarbines. Tends to do well against Tyranids. Any thoughts?

The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.

As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.

lonekthx wrote:The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.

As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.

Irony! Its the other way around for most!

The succubus is good - but is not a force multiplier. She kills around 2 MEQ a turn (not allowing for combat drugs) and thats great bang for buck... but a haemy with a liquifier will do just as well and gives a pain token to a unit. Combine that with a cheaper cost and 3 per HQ choice... you can see how good he is now yes?

I find Scourges a bit expenssive, but a nice asset to have in some kists. Those shard carbines are awsoem. I have a squad of 10, but I don't field them that much, just because of what else I can get for those points. Still , I love the look of them en masse. Great models!

I think Scourges are a better choice than Jetbikes (IMO). Cost the same but you can get 1 more special weapon per squad than you can with the bikes.

I'm fond of using reavers in tiny groups (in non-KP missions anyway) as assassins. 3 bikes with one special weapon.

A small group can hide as it zooms about, pop out of cover to nuke a tank or IC (if he's standing all alone) and then vanish again.

I use scourges as a highly mobile firing squad, usually. Move into position one turn (like the top of a building, for example) and unload 4 dark lances or heat lances into something the next. I also use them tooled vs infantry as flying dakka, moving around units pelting them with shots.. Depends on my list.

Ravagers are good. I like to run at least 2 in my non-coven lists. My coven lists tend to be 2 Talos and a Cronos.

I have a vicious fondness for WWP surprises also Plop down a WWP, and watch the units pop up in the enemy's face.

Mandrakes are awesome looking paperweights, but rather pathetic. The only time i see them is in themed lists.

The Talos works well with WWP entry He can be beastly in CC. The Cronos is less so vs MEQ, but can be pretty deadly vs T3 enemies like eldar and guard, and will hand out Pain tokens like candy to your other troops

DE can be amazingly vivious when you have learned to use them right. They don't have the benefit of power armour (as a rule) and armoured transports to allow you to get complacent, and their codex is built around sudden, vicious strikes. The best defense is a good offfense, and you have to try to deal the maximum amount of hurt in the minimum amount of time, before the enemy has time to trash you in return.

Don't forget that lances reduce that nice Necron armour from 13 to 12, making the pen that drops it to 11 more easily attained, and that Necrons don't like getting in CC much, as a rule. Dropping a unit of Bloodbrides into a necron unit makes for mangles metal in my experience