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So I just became interested in 40k and so far haven't played a game. I've read a bit of the rulebook but I'm still not entirely comfortable with the rules. I only have ten wyches and an archon and am waiting until I have a solid army list to buy more models (I don't want to spend more money than I have to). That said, some of my friends are also starting 40k. Based on their army choices, I'll primarily need to learn to combat Orks, Eldar, and Tau. What will I want for my army, and how will I want to use it?

Make a balanced list. That can deal with multiple things:
vs orks- horde control
vs tau- hit them in cc with literaly anything that you have in your list = win.
vs eldar- depends what they run.

Balanced lists are indeed the way to go. Then once you manage to beat your friends, you can say you did it all with a single list.

An archon is a great starting point, be it standard or Vect. Kabalite Warriors will also be great against all of these, their poison always being a reliable choice against whatever you want. Lances will be your best bet against vehicles, but the rule is useless against Eldar vehicles (no better than 12 armor) and some Ork vehicles that you'll be seeing (trukks and some other low armor stuff that I can't think of).

Take note that DE are a Glass Cannon army. They strike with a hard punch that really tears up enemies, but if they take too much fire, they become torn to shreds.

To add to red armies post. DE are not an easy army to use. You already have models so I will not suggest getting something else to learn with. I will suggest that you read the many blogs and battlereports about the new dark elder before you go buying. Read and re-read the rules. understand cover, skimmers and assault before you buy more models. I would even do some proxy games to try things out.

I consider myself a competent player, and I still am adjusting to how fragile the army is. If you stick with it and accept the fact that you will likely loose the majority of you first dozen games or so you will find yourself a much better in the end. Good luck.

AFAIK, the issue DE has with Tau is that Tau is really good at popping light transports. Missile Pods are Range 36" S7 AP4 Assault 2, and are found in almost all Tau force. A squad of three Crisis Suits armed with those would eat Raiders for lunch. Plus, Tau Pulse Rifles are wounding on a 2+ (S5 vs. T3), ignore 5+ armor, and can pen a raider if necessary. Submunitions from hammerheads inflict ID vs. T3 too, so there's just a whole pile of nastiness in a tau force. With any glass hammer, you really do need to lock the Tau into close combat fast or otherwise they'll shoot you off the board.

As for close combat by the way, a few things to watch for:

Kroot- These can be found in some Tau armies as bubblewrap. They are used primarily to buy a Tau army an extra turn or two of shooting before the enemy can assault. Dedicated CC can handle them easily, but nonspecialists might have a few issues. Kroot hounds strike at I5, so Kroot can damage even dedicated CC if the unit has hounds (not badly, but they might get a few swings in).

Crisis Suits- They have low WS and Initiative, but they are S5, have two attacks, 2 wounds, and a 3+ Save. Mine have done damage to overly confident enemies in CC. Against real CC units they'll fold easily (especially if you have power weapons), but against nonspecialists they can be dangerous.

Broadside Suits- Like Crisis Suits, but with a 2+ Armor Save. Plus they usually have shield drone to take power weapon wounds. Like with my Crisis Suits, I've had Broadsides inflict damage in CC.

Fire Warriors- Why are they on the list? Because their 4+ armor save means that they can stick around longer than is convenient, and they can inflict some damage in a larger squad. You should be able to beat them with almost anything, but they can surprise you occasionally and bog you down.

As a group the Tau suck in CC, but on a 1-on-1 basis Tau units can catch you off guard.

Yeah, I've kinda regretted choosing DE since I heard how fragile they were, but I think they're extremely cool and they sound devastating in the hands of someone who knows how to use them, plus I've already sunk money into paint, models, and the codex, so I'm sticking with them.

Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, but a proxy battle is where you use models to represent different models, right? Like, my friends and I are going to try to make do with D&D miniatures until we get more 40k models. If that's what proxying is, then we're already planning on doing it.

As for the rest of the replies, although I got a little lost when you started using technical terms (since, as I said, I'm not yet comfortable with the rules), I understood the concepts. They were very informative, so thank you.

My only questions are, what is "horde control", and how can I achieve a balanced army? A bit of everything, or just lots of kabalite warriors? Oh, and one more thing. Everything I read about DE talks about how they're great with hit and runs, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but it seems to me like they would just get stuck places a lot. Since the movement phase comes first, don't they just move toward the enemy, shoot, and then are unable to retreat before getting blown to bits? Doesn't sound like a hit and run to me. Or is there some special rule that allows them to move forward and then retreat after shooting in the same turn?

I'm really sorry for my ignorance, I just have no experience whatsoever.

Sorry about all the technical lingo; you'll get used to it eventually. What you have described is in fact proxying. Horde control generally consists of fast-firing, mid-strength, poor AP weapons intended to take down lots of poorly armored targets. Examples: Tau Burst Cannons, Eldar Scatter Lasers, Space Marine Heavy Bolters, etc. I don't know most of the specifics about the Dark Eldar, though.

Well, yeah, I just need to read the rules...I'm just lazy =P

Also, I'm still wondering about the hit and run thing.

You wanna see some games by a Dark Eldar player for some tips and laughs?

http://awesomesaucestudio.blogspot.com/

If you are going to stick with Dark Eldar, there is one absolute you will need; Buy three Ravagers.

Wow, that looks like a very nice blog. I will definitely be following it. Also, how did you get those incredibly clean, crisp overheads of the battlefield? Some sort of program? (They don't look real.)

Those appear to be from the vassal 40k module.

What you want to do to orks is two things: thin them out, then CHARGE THEM.

In an army like space marines, one unit can usually do this with one squad and come out okay, but this is not the case with dark eldar. What you want to do against orks is use your warriors as the ranged support, popping a few boyz in the face before charging into combat.

Ideal assault units for the second part of ripping apart orks are Hekatrix Bloodbrides and Hellions. Both put out an immense amount of attacks on the charge, and at a higher initiative. Bloodbrides will be throwing 40-50+ attacks down range, usually doing about 12+ wounds to any squad that is T4, with more to T3 or less. Likewise, Hellions are throwing 30-40+ attacks at a higher str, which can hack through a boyz mob in short order. Also in the Hellion arsonel are splinter pods, which fire two shots each. A well placed 10-15 man hellion squad will shred orks with impunity.

Do NOT assault a boyz squad larger than 20. Each boy will have at least 2 attacks to throw back for each one you do not kill, and it can be hard (read: Impossible) to kill enough boys to prevent them from throwing just as many attacks back.

I have followed this guideline against orks and other swarm armies, and it has worked extremely well. Hope this helps.

Thank you, Brother Thunder. This does help a TON. Since two of my friends play Orks, I'll be fighting them the most of any army. Plus, one of the Ork-players has already had experience with 40k, so I'll need all the help I can get. Only thing I have to say is I've heard that wyches are useless and will probably get gunned down if you don't get them into CC immediately. But you say to wait until the Ork squads are thinned out. Should I just hide the wyches until the time to charge has come?

And since no one seems to be answering my hit and run question (maybe no one's seen it), I'll ask something else: who should I team up with, if anyone, and when should I back stab them?

Hit and Run lets you make an initiative test at the end of melee to run away 3d6 from Close Combat. A great unit for thining down ork mobs (I recently used this against my friend who plays orks) is to stick Trueborn in a raider with splinter racks, night shields, and a flicker field. Give all the trueborn shardcarbines and splintercannons. Have a second raider with some wyches lingering nearby to leap in for the kill after you weaken the enemy mob.l

Ah, OK, thank you. That explains a lot. I now have no doubt about my army choice.

Kathartes wrote:Hit and Run lets you make an initiative test at the end of melee to run away 3d6 from Close Combat. A great unit for thining down ork mobs (I recently used this against my friend who plays orks) is to stick Trueborn in a raider with splinter racks, night shields, and a flicker field. Give all the trueborn shardcarbines and splintercannons. Have a second raider with some wyches lingering nearby to leap in for the kill after you weaken the enemy mob.l

Splinter racks only affect pistols and rifles, not carbines and cannons.


One decent approach would be venoms loaded with wyches (with haywire grenades and either a shardnet or a pair of hydra gauntlets, hekatrix with venom blade or power weapon if you have the points to spare), backed up by a trio of ravagers. Nightshields on everything, flickerfields on the ravagers (since the venoms come with them), extra splinter cannons on the venoms. Each venom will have 12 poisoned(4+) AP5 shots, which will devastate most infantry, while the ravagers can focus their fire on any armor the opponent has. If the guard player does mech guard, you'll have to revise this to have a more anti-armor focus, which will still work on tau, probably on orks too if it can be managed without sacrificing too much anti-infantry firepower. Read through this thread for a discussion on dealing with mechanized troops (ignore dash's list, it'll tear apart infantry with all its venoms, but has essentially nothing to take on tanks (and the warriors are a terrible solution to that, with their short range, high cost, and comparatively limited mobility)), especially the later pages where people have stopped mocking him and started actually proposing serious solutions other than just "try harder".

Incubi would work good against Tau, assuming you can get them in close and your opponent is spamming crisis suits, but they'd probably be a waste against orks if it's a green tide army, since they are too expensive and have too few attacks to be good against massed opponents. Completely pointless against IG.


A more balanced list would probably involve a mix of warriors and wyches in raiders, with two ravagers and a razorwing with a splinter cannon and possibly disintegrators instead of lances (making it a dedicated anti-infantry platform with 12 36" shots, half of which are S5 and ignore armor, alongside its complement of 48" one shot missiles, all of which are geared towards slaughtering infantry en masse. Bloodbrides with razorflails (160 points for ten with three razorflails, meaning 40 attacks on the charge, 12 of which reroll missed to hit and wound rolls) would chew up just about any infantry Tau, Orks, or IG can field, with haywire grenades they can also neutralize enemy vehicles. Trueborn with shardcarbines and splinter cannons lay down a crazy amount of fire (a full squad, at 180 points for two cannons and eight carbines, will have 24 shots at 18", and either 8 or 12 at 36", all of which is poisoned(4+), AP5, and taken at BS4), probably dealing with infantry even better, but they can't touch tanks at all.

Captain Pain wrote:Thank you, Brother Thunder. This does help a TON. Since two of my friends play Orks, I'll be fighting them the most of any army. Plus, one of the Ork-players has already had experience with 40k, so I'll need all the help I can get. Only thing I have to say is I've heard that wyches are useless and will probably get gunned down if you don't get them into CC immediately. But you say to wait until the Ork squads are thinned out. Should I just hide the wyches until the time to charge has come?

And since no one seems to be answering my hit and run question (maybe no one's seen it), I'll ask something else: who should I team up with, if anyone, and when should I back stab them?

I run alot of ravagers, an archon and incubi bodyguard, and a big unit of hellions in my general 1500 point list. Generally, most people do NOT see the threat of Hekatrix Bloodbrides until it is too late. Another key to success with Dark Eldar, and really ANY army for that matter, is target saturation. Put so many threatening things on the board, that the enemy has no idea what to shoot at!

But yes, do not leave your wyches or bloodbrides in the open, they will be looked at as a free kill point, and they really are when in that situation.

Wow, Sir Pseudonymous, that's...very confusing I did, however, comprehend enough of that to know that it will indeed be helpful, especially when I'm more fluent with the rules and game terms. One question I have is about arming my hekatrix. Are power weapons better than agonisers?

And thanks for another useful reply, Brother Thunder. So I take it hellions are useful? I've been hesitant to buy them since I never hear anyone talk about them. They seem awfully cool, though.

Another thing I've been wondering is, can ravagers not transport troops? In the Codex, it states the number of troops raiders can transport, but not ravagers. This is probably a stupid question, but I want to know the answer before I go buying either one.

Tau are cc flimsy, orks are realy scary, and Eldar can rang from being invinsable to push overs all depending on what is fielded and the person fielding them

Well, here's some info about the players' individual play styles (based off how they play D&D):

Tau player - Avoids close combat. Tries all sorts of crazy ideas to gain vantage points to fire from, even though these ideas usually backfire. Will do almost anything to get out of CC if he's in the mood.

Ork player - Adores close combat. Would rather let a friend die than give up a chance to slaughter up-close and personal.

Other Ork player - He always just did what his fellow players told him in D&D, so I have no idea what he'll do in 40k, where he's on his own.

Eldar player - Copies whatever his friends do (to an extent). Again, it'll be interesting to see him play solo.

As you can see, we have some really "interesting" play styles in our group

The ravager is a dedicated gunboat, no transport capacity.

And to Sir Psyeudonymous, thank's for pointing that splinter racks thing out. That definitely puts a fault in what I did last game.

On another note to Captain Pain, you may want to consider investing in Haemonculi. The ability to hand pain tokens to squads can be very handy.

Captain Pain wrote:Wow, Sir Pseudonymous, that's...very confusing I did, however, comprehend enough of that to know that it will indeed be helpful, especially when I'm more fluent with the rules and game terms.

I think I did a poor job of laying everything out; I was typing up two other posts on the general same topic in other threads at the same time, and somehow turned "vs ... Eldar ..." into "vs ... Guard ..."...

One question I have is about arming my hekatrix. Are power weapons better than agonisers?

Agonisers are good for killing things with both a high toughness and armor save, but are expensive. If you have the points to spare, get them, otherwise take power weapons if you expect to face good armor saves, otherwise venom blades, I think. Let's see... Go with power weapons or agonisers if you're going against eldar and Tau. They've got good armor saves but low toughness, so venom blades and agonisers are a waste. Unless the eldar player is fielding wraithlords and/or and avatar, in which case an agoniser is an excellent deal.

And thanks for another useful reply, Brother Thunder. So I take it hellions are useful? I've been hesitant to buy them since I never hear anyone talk about them. They seem awfully cool, though.

Hellions are awesome, but everyone kind of ignores them. I understand they used to be horrible, but got enough of a buff to make them work great, while still looking weak enough that they get ignored. They have two 18" splinter shots, are jump infantry, have an effective S4 in combat, and three attacks on the charge, not to mention the helliarch's IC grabbing ability (definitely situational, but awesome in the right circumstances). The big thing is though, that if you take Baron Sathonyx, they become troop choices. So instead of being a fast attack choice that's competing with... well nothing really, the other choices range from not too spectacular (beastmasters), to horrible (reavers and scourges), but as troop choices they become scoring, and you can take a potential six of them! Only downside with using them as troops is you get fewer raiders, which means worse antitank capability (if hellions could take haywire grenades, they'd be the best unit in the codex hands down, able to do everything and anything pretty well).


I think, what I would field against players like that, is a mainly wych cult army (mounted in raiders, with haywire grenades and hyrda gauntlets (since there'll probably be so many attacks coming back at you that your best chance is to hit as hard as possible to start with, since -1 attack on everything touching the model with the shardnet isn't all that great against a lot of infantry) and power weapons on the hekatrixes (unless the eldar player fields wraithlords/an avatar, in which case go with agoniser on as many as you can scrounge the points for)), with two ravagers (for tank hunting) and a razorwing with a splinter cannon and disintegrators (for wiping ork hordes off the map in one salvo). A couple of trueborn squads in venoms, outfitted with as many splinter cannons as possible, the rest with shardcarbines. Nightshields and flickerfields on every vehicles (except venoms, which just get nightshields, since they come with flickerfields).

Wow, it's going to take a while to learn all this! I'm a little overwhelmed. I should probably start off doing 500 pointers, eh?

Damn, I hate painting wyches....

Captain Pain wrote:Oh, and one more thing. Everything I read about DE talks about how they're great with hit and runs, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but it seems to me like they would just get stuck places a lot. Since the movement phase comes first, don't they just move toward the enemy, shoot, and then are unable to retreat before getting blown to bits? Doesn't sound like a hit and run to me. Or is there some special rule that allows them to move forward and then retreat after shooting in the same turn?

Hit and Run can mean one of two things in 40k:
1) a special rule that lets a unit disengage from close combat (hellions get this)

Likely what you've been reading is talking about the other sort of hit and run, which could be renamed "Abusing your speed". The general idea is to use the extraordinary speed of the Dark Eldar to attack and destroy isolated parts of your opponent's army. By the time he gets units over to help, you're generally done with the killing, and back in the raiders, ready to jet off.

Ah...that does explain a lot. So could Dark Eldar -- potentially -- run all over the board, slowly chipping away at the enemy, or just forcing the enemy into a stalemate by remaining unharmed but not doing any harm, either?

Sort of, but it's not so much "slowly chipping away" as it is "obliterating a good chunk of the enemy army in one fell swoop through their ability to concentrate your entire force right where you want it", then having a field day with what's left over (which should now lack the ability to hit back hard enough to matter, if you struck in the right place and had a little luck on your side).

It's what makes them so fun, along with the thrill of knowing just how vulnerable most of your troops are. They're always at risk, and you can't just plod forwards yawning away incoming fire with your power armor.

Captain Pain wrote:Wow, Sir Pseudonymous, that's...very confusing I did, however, comprehend enough of that to know that it will indeed be helpful, especially when I'm more fluent with the rules and game terms. One question I have is about arming my hekatrix. Are power weapons better than agonisers?

And thanks for another useful reply, Brother Thunder. So I take it hellions are useful? I've been hesitant to buy them since I never hear anyone talk about them. They seem awfully cool, though.

Another thing I've been wondering is, can ravagers not transport troops? In the Codex, it states the number of troops raiders can transport, but not ravagers. This is probably a stupid question, but I want to know the answer before I go buying either one.

Hellions are extremely useful, when in large groups. The hellglaive grants them +1 Str, which means they start wounding space marines on 4s, rather than 5s that most DE units wound on. Also important is that they are as good in shooting as they are in assault against things of equivilant size, being able to fire two shots a model before charging. Finally, combat drugs gets them anything from +1 str(S5!!), to rerolling all wounds, and in combat, they ALL go at Initiative 6. Combine with the mobility of jump infantry, and you have an extremely mean unit that nobody wants within 18 inches of their force.

They, however, only have a 5+ save in close combat without a pain token, and are still only T3. If they get shot at, be expecting to pick up most of the squad.

3 attacks on the charge with combat drugs adding to their effectiveness makes them mean at killing MSU and hordes. Avoid throwing them into assault units like Khorne Berserkers, Assault Terminators, etc, you have other units better at taking those out.

Ravagers cannot transport troops, and an agonizer is better than a regular power weapon. An agonizer just plain wounds on 4+, meaning that the T8 nightbringer is wounded on a 4+, but so are the T2 grots. You generally will not see grots that often, so wounding T6 monsters is great.

Yeah, I figured agonisers were better, but I just wanted to make sure I would be going up enough tough enough units for its use to be justified.

So I want to keep my hellions out of harm's way until they charge, right? And they can be transported by raiders, yes?

They cannot be put inside raiders, for they are Jump Infantry. Again, target saturation is key to not losing them. Hope they shoot at something that looks more threatening than them, like Incubi and Ravagers.

They have a potential assault range of 24 inches, though. That mobility is nothing to sneeze at.

Sorry I've been so inactive, I've just been busy. Anyway, I'm going to go pick up a bunch of models today. I've currently got 10 wyches, 10 kabalite warriors, and an archon. My friends and I are all meeting up tomorrow to play for the first time (well, first time for everyone except one of the ork players). I'll be up against two ork armies, a tau army, an eldar army, and either another eldar or dark eldar army, because one of my friends hasn't decided yet and is just buying his first models today. We'll probably have multiplayer battles, but they'll be very small--500 pointers at the most. (The tau player, one of the ork players and I are the only ones who can afford large armies right now.) Any final suggestions as to what sort of models I should pick up for tomorrow? Any final pieces of tactical wisdom? Right now I'm just planning to stall one flank of the opposing army with my warriors and maybe a ravager, if I have enough points for it, while my wyches charge the other flank. I'm not really sure what to do with my archon, though.

Oh, and who would be the best choice if I decide to ally with someone?

EDIT: And I want to stick some hellions in somewhere.