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I'm starting a DE army, and I have a rough idea of what I want to take, but it seems there are a lot of excellent choices for HQ, and I'm not sure which ones to take.

A Haemunculus startes with a pain token for early game durability, and allows me to take Wracks as troops.

An Archon adds a little CC pizazz and crushes characters

The Baron is mostly a support unit, and is dirt cheap, plus makes hellions troops

The Duke gives one squad of Kabalite Warriors/ Trueborn pimped out splinter weapons, and gives a choice of combat drugs, while being okay in CC.

What's the general consensus about these?

There is no general consensus because each is meant for different army types and playing styles.

Is Lady Lady Malys awesome? Yep. But not in the kind of list I play.

A better choice would be telling us what kind of DE you want to play, what theme you would like to accomplish, what units you'd like to run, and I/we/whomever can help you find HQ options that plug into your intent.

Okay then,

I plan on shootier DE with lots of Trueborn, Reavers, and Ravagers, with Wracks, maybe Hellions and Incubi for combat support.

In what list IS Lady Malys awesome?

She's not a good HQ

How exactly do you figure that? Shes cheap and cheerful at 130 pts. allows baiting through redeployment, moderate combat effectiveness and anti psyker in an army that has NO psykers or anti psykers. what exactly is not to like?

My personal favorite HQ is an Archon with ghostplate, huskblade, and soul trap. Season with whatever other goodies you'd like. This guy and his bodyguard of five Incubi literally walk through most squads they go up against. Monstrous creature? No problem, Archon sucks the soul right out. Marine Assault squad? They'll have fun dying before they can strike. Tarpit units like Scarabs, maybe grots? Archon will instant death them in droves. Really is a very nice close-combat unit that can handle itself admirably against most enemy units.

She gots the ladies blade and the anti psycer. But we are talking an T3 S3 model witha 4+ save and no ethernal warrior.

The arcon can get combat drugs, shadowfield and he has a BS of 6. Unles you are going for the WWP (witch the lady lacks) he can you can take a blaster with his BS6.

WWP, SF and Blaster, the laidy got nothing on that. If I want a cheap HQ I go for the wych of better yet, a haemoncaly.

Most everybody in the DE hq is str and T 3. she's got a 4++. EW is for people who don't know how to avoid a powerfist to the face, and if DE get caught by TH/SS the game is already over. She can redeploy units, and that's what makes her golden.

Dude, Malys is really good. That anti-Psyker ability Is really amazing, and she can take a court if the archon (or incubi) to beef up her stuff. I like her. Also, she's a woman.

Archons with agonizers, ghostplate, clone field, combat drugs and maybe a blast pistol are the way to go

I haven't found a use for Lady Malys yet. She doesn't add anything that I really want. Honestly, if her ability was that of the Deceiver, I'd like her more.

Archon with soul trap, huskblade, combat drugs, blast pistol and shadow field on the other hand. That's an HQ with a punch.

With the exception of Drazhar and anything from the Haemonculi covens, everything is T3 with no eternal warrior. Also, Archon's are BS7, blasters are terrible antitank because of their short range, extreme cost, and infantry mounting (which further worsens their range), and Haemonculi don't have fleet, making them a severe hindrance to anything other than wracks or grotesques when starting inside a vehicle or in reserve for a WWP, due to the rules for detaching ICs.

Succubi are probably the best cheap HQ you can get, though Archons are better if you have the points to spend making them so.

Haemonculi are only for haemonculi coven armies.

Lelith is a better succubus, having both a shardnet and impaler and a rule that makes all her attacks ignore armor saves, as well as getting an insane number of bonus attacks. All at S3, sadly, so you're unlikely to actually do much damage with her, making her price point seem rather excessive. If you have the points and are using raiders, though, I suppose she'd probably be a good choice to make a bloodbride unit that much nastier while still fitting in a raider.

The Baron is great if you want to take Hellions.

Malys would have been awesome if her Precognisant ability was used after the roll to steal initiative, but still, anti-pskyer defenses in an army otherwise entirely lacking in them, and a Djinn blade that doesn't attack you if you roll doubles.

Sliscus is a great addition to any list that has a lot of combat drugs, and can make a unit of kabalites or trueborn slightly better.

Vect is absurdly expensive, but does some awesome stuff.

Kheradruakh is basically Sly Marbo, only more than twice as expensive, with a negligibly better statline, and absolutely no redeeming qualities (it should have been more like the callidus assassin, able to assault the turn it came into play; it's weak enough that it wouldn't be that damaging to the opponent, even a guardsmen squad should be able to kill it...).

Urien is probably a must for most coven lists, unless you'd rather be spamming some special weapon haemonculi can carry, in which case you'd be better off taking the three you can get per HQ slot.

I think that's all of them, isn't it?

Mustela wrote:Okay then,

I plan on shootier DE with lots of Trueborn, Reavers, and Ravagers, with Wracks, maybe Hellions and Incubi for combat support.

Alright, I take issue with your direction. While DE are cheap, points get eaten up quickly, and if you're planning on wracks, hellions and incubi for combat support, you're not going to have a shooting army, you're going to have a close combat army with a bit of shooting support.


Just start from scratch, and check one of these for me so I can give you some direction:
[ ] I want a maximized firepower shooting army.
[ ] I want a very lethal ranged army with some close combat support.
[ ] I want a good mix of shooting and assault in my army.
[ ] I want an assault based army with enough ranged anti-tank to open vehicles and soften targets for my assaults.
[ ] I want a mostly assault based army capable of dealing with vehicles on the assault too.
[ ] I want a trick army that will take people by surprise.
[ ] I want my enemy HQ to be Steven Spielberg so that I can flay apart his soul over a thousand years for the abomination he created in Indiana Jones 4.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Haemonculi don't have fleet, making them a severe hindrance to anything other than wracks or grotesques when starting inside a vehicle or in reserve for a WWP, due to the rules for detaching ICs.



Haemonculi are only for haemonculi coven armies.

I disagree - I run a single haemonculi in my army. He used to start with my beast unit and pass a pain token over to my Baron and my beasts, then jump in a trueborn venom for the duration, but with the FAQ nerf to beasts, he now starts the game in my wych raider to give them feel no pain. 9 wyches with haywire grenades and my haemonculi - the wyches jump out when the opportunity to apply those haywire grenades comes around, and my haemonculi goes hunting for a target to put his shattershard on from the raider.

Niiai wrote:The arcon can get combat drugs, shadowfield and he has a BS of 6. Unles you are going for the WWP (witch the lady lacks) he can you can take a blaster with his BS6.

Archons have BS 7 now. The only real way I can see taking a blaster is if you take a Djinn blade as its wargear and does not replace your existing CCW. This way you end up with 2. You replace one with the blaster and then take another with the Djinn Blade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mustela wrote:I'm starting a DE army, and I have a rough idea of what I want to take, but it seems there are a lot of excellent choices for HQ, and I'm not sure which ones to take.

Haemunculus are the cheapest so they obviously make a strong choice for low point games. The ability to give pain tokens to units right at the start is also nice. They have access to the most entertaining wargear but they are not going to be beasts. You can also get three in one slot. If you like wracks, I think they are a stupid choice not to take as you can take them as troops. Once my wracks get painted I think I will take them in all my games and thus Ill take at least a Haemi in all my games.

The basic archon is good. Reasonably good in CC with a few nasty combos in wargear. He also opens up a court of the archon, which i have only proxied a few times but like. I think overall an archon is the second best choice out there.

Okay, thank for sticking with me so far.

Here it goes

[ ] I want a maximized firepower shooting army.
[x] I want a very lethal ranged army with some close combat support.
[ ] I want a good mix of shooting and assault in my army.
[ ] I want an assault based army with enough ranged anti-tank to open vehicles and soften targets for my assaults.
[ ] I want a mostly assault based army capable of dealing with vehicles on the assault too.
[ ] I want a trick army that will take people by surprise.
[x] I want my enemy HQ to be Steven Spielberg so that I can flay apart his soul over a thousand years for the abomination he created in Indiana Jones 4.

and for good measure:

[x] I want my enemy HQ to be Steven Spielberg so that I can flay apart his soul over a thousand years for the abomination he created in Indiana Jones 4.

It seems like you will mostly have sooty units with maybe 1/2 counter charge units, most likely Incubi.

If you want and IC to ad to your incubi to make them a bit more dangerous in close combat, I would go with either a Succubus+agonizer or Archon+agonizer+shadowfield. Ad anything else that you like to taste. But, Incubi can do some damage on their own and do not always need the help of an Archon. I do not like the Husk blade+Soul trap combination. It only works against IC or MC and there are many lists which do not have many or any of those. Unless you are fighting a ton of Tyranids or Blood Angels most lists will only have 1-2 IC of MC in them at all.

I think that the Baron has a great place in a shooty army. He can make Helions scoring and can ride along with them if you like. Personally, I would put him in a unit of scourge. With stealth, you can move 12" into some cover in the middle of the board and fire away. I am not impressed with the barons close combat ability and I think that the stealth works best with a unit that hugs cover. Then if the enemy moves in the flamers to dig you out of cover you still get a 4+ save from the ghost plate, and even a 6++ save against the Heavy flamers. Also +1 to go first helps you to alpha strike more.

The hemi might have a place in any list. Any unit that you want to be able to take some heavy fire, add the hemi to it. It might work to put him with either helions or scourge as they are not protected by transports in the first few turns. If either of those units have steath from the baron, it gets even better. 3+ cover + FNP is a tough nut to crack.

Lastly I think that you could take Vect. He deals more close combat damage than the regular Archon and then there is the 4+ to size roll. It can be useful simply to mess with the opponents head. There are a lot of people who are simply put off their game when the initiative is stolen from them. Every player probably has had a game where they set up aggressively, had the initiative stolen and then took a huge amount of return fire. It can however backfire against you just as hard. It is best used as a mental weapon, to make your opponent not know what is going to happen when they deploy first. The point cost limits him to larger games. 2000+ probably. NEVER TAKE THE DAIS! it kinda sucks....

What about putting a haemunculus with Incubi? The only problem I see with them as CC support is toughness 3, and some FNP wouldn't hurt, plus it allows me to skip to Furious Charge more quickly, and it's hard to say no to Strength and Iniative 5.

I think Vect is so obscenely expensive for a toughness 3 model, it's not smart to take him, as his Shadwfiled won't save him from being smashed to a paster by a mob of 30 ork boys. I know the Dais is pretty trashy, I mean, the point of raiders is cheap transport plus dark lance.

P.S.

Is the Animus Vitae an okay option? I know it really doesn't help out in CC, but against hordes, it could be a pain token bonanza, and 5 points doesn't hurt. Thoguh I was wondering whether you actually had to kill something with it, or just HAVE it.

Mustela wrote:What about putting a haemunculus with Incubi? The only problem I see with them as CC support is toughness 3, and some FNP wouldn't hurt, plus it allows me to skip to Furious Charge more quickly, and it's hard to say no to Strength and Iniative 5.

I think Vect is so obscenely expensive for a toughness 3 model, it's not smart to take him, as his Shadwfiled won't save him from being smashed to a paster by a mob of 30 ork boys. I know the Dais is pretty trashy, I mean, the point of raiders is cheap transport plus dark lance.

P.S.

Is the Animus Vitae an okay option? I know it really doesn't help out in CC, but against hordes, it could be a pain token bonanza, and 5 points doesn't hurt. Thoguh I was wondering whether you actually had to kill something with it, or just HAVE it.

FNP is largely irrelevant to Incubi's T3; the things you are killing with them (and their power weapons) generally have power weapons; there's just not a lot in the way of un-power weapon equiped MEQ blobs floating around for you to play with.

[x] I want a very lethal ranged army with some close combat support.

This is precisely what I play. Look to my tournament record in my signature for effect.

Short rundown of my army:

Baron Sathonyx with a unit of beasts on foot to give them assault/defensive grenades and +1 cover. Where appropriate, the Baron leaves the squad if they need a 12" charge.
Nine wyches with haywire grenades and and a razorflail in a raider with flickerfields; they're joined by a Haemonculi with a shattershard.

These two units make up my close combat. Neither are ultra-killy, but both are important to me - razorwing flocks are rending with 5 attacks base, I get invulnerable saves from khymerae, and that unit can tie up elements of assault armies while my shooting takes down other elements. Wyches can sit around in close combat (and even win), and the haywire grenades are the best answer in the codex for necron Monoliths and Black Templar Land Raiders that have the blessed hull upgrade.

The rest of my army is shooting. At 2k, I have 3 ravagers, 3 trueborn units with blasters in venoms, and 5 warrior units (with a blaster) in venoms. I end up with a vicious alpha strike, the Baron to help make sure I *get* that alpha strike, and just enough assault to make people regret coming to talk to me in person about my alpha strike.

Dash - isn't its really hard to kill Monolith with haywire? i mean 4/6 times you will roll just glance - and they can't kill monolith - no?
ps. where new reports?)

Something like six glancing hits and two pens isn't enough to bring down or at least cripple a monolith? It's a far sight better than "glance on a six" S8 lances that cost at the bare minimum 24 points apiece (kabalite with a blaster: 24 points; anything else: 34 at the least, I believe (sybarite with blast pistol)). Haywire grenades are, hands down, the best antitank weapons in the codex (barring haywire blasters, which while technically better, are also much, much more expensive, and can only be taken in two otherwise bad units).

penek wrote:Dash - isn't its really hard to kill Monolith with haywire? i mean 4/6 times you will roll just glance - and they can't kill monolith - no?
ps. where new reports?)

Haywire Grenades....mmm...tasty. They are the best way to deal with Monoliths. Yes there's 4/6 chance of rolling a glance, but there's also a 1/6 chance of getting a penetrate, usually 9-10 wyches swinging, which should average 1-2 penetrates. And....there's a good chance that you can block off the portal so that things can't teleport through.

While Necrons are usually screwed on the table anyway, I feel like they are even moreso now against DE because of all the splinter weapons you can bring to the table. Its hard to hide behind monoliths when an enemy can fly circles around you. Ignoring the Monoliths is a safer tactic for DE than for other armies; with the exception of Eldar, no one else has the mobility to get around and ignore monoliths like DE. And if the Necron player castles up to negate DE mobility, haywire grenades will fix that.

Well, if Steven Spielberg is your oponent bring your soultrapp and go to town!

Niiai wrote:Well, if Steven Spielberg is your oponent bring your soultrapp and go to town!

Soultrap only works on enemies with souls

Dash do you use that list on a dark angel list like this: 6 units of termies with krak missiles and three dreads with belial as HQ?

Absolutely.

Terminators die to dark lances and blasters. They die to massed splinter weaponry as well. Neither beasts nor wyches are afraid of terminators, although they wouldn't assault in unsupported.

Dark Angels fear Dark Eldar.

Drazhar isnt completely terrible, yes he's op but he is ST 4, T4 with eternal warrior, ws7 and bs7, I7 with 4 attacks, the only DE with a 2+ Armour save, he has demiklaves that can give him either a total of 6 attacks on the charge or 4 strength 6 attacks, give him furious charge and feel no pain an he's a monster with I8 and ST 5 on the charge 7 with demiklaves, come standard with both murderous assault and onslaught, so what if he doesn't have an invul save, that's why you make sure to use his darting strike ability to keep him out of the reach of power weapons or power fists, not o mention he can eat mob squads with his extra attacks from riposte. He's not terrible but he his op for sure

Well the termies I face all have storm shields and they do well against ap2 weapons cause they have a 3+ invun save so they dont die much. I use three disintegrator cannons on each ravager cause I get more ap2 shots. If you use only three dark lances per ravager your focusing all your shots at the termies. There is a total of six five man units of termies. Let me know how you would defeat this undefeated term army.

baron deathnyx wrote:Well the termies I face all have storm shields and they do well against ap2 weapons cause they have a 3+ invun save so they dont die much. I use three disintegrator cannons on each ravager cause I get more ap2 shots. If you use only three dark lances per ravager your focusing all your shots at the termies. There is a total of six five man units of termies. Let me know how you would defeat this undefeated term army.

Was that addressed at me?

Alright. Six units of terminators, presume five terminators per unit.

Turn One: Normal DE Alpha-strike; 3x Ravagers, 8 venoms, one raider, three units of trueborn firing...lets presume two of the five warrior units have range to get out and drop a single blaster at 18" and the other three don't. Wyches don't disembark and beasts are too far away to do anything useful except hoof it up the field.

Lets presume every terminator has a storm shield, so every terminator has a 2+/3++.

Lets also presume that all firepower gets concentrated into one terminator unit at a time until it is either dead or the cyclone missile launcher in the unit dies.

96 poison shots score 64 hits, do 32 wounds, kill 5 terminators. One unit down.

9 Dark Lances get six hits, do five wounds, kill two terminators.

14 blasters score 9 hits, 8 wounds, kill 2.5 terminators. Add in a raider dark lance to round it up to 3.

Enemy Turn One: Dark Angels shoot at....stuff. Two units went down, four still ticking, along with dreadnoughts - unless the dreadnoughts are long range shooters, in which case less terminators died in exchange for dealing with some armour.

DE Turn Two: All the warriors should now be able to move up into range with either a 6" move and rapid-firing while still embarked, or a 12" move and disembark. Haemonculi goes after Belial's unit with a shattershard, wyches assault an unscathed terminator unit to tie them up, beasts continue to advance.

Relevant armor finishes dying (or shaken/stunned)...we'll say that 3-4 vehicles went down, costing the DE splinter cannons - but the extra 8 shots of splinter rifles with a blaster added in completely make up for lost splinter cannon fire. Firing kills 5-9 more terminators, shattershard takes down another 1-2, Belial if lucky, and wyches nab another 1-2 in close combat.

Dark Angel Turn Two: If they're lucky, there are still two terminator units roaming around freely, and one stuck in combat. Lets say that they score two more vehicle kills. Both ravagers.

Dark Eldar Turn Three: Army wide rapid firing into the terminators, beasts are up to and possibly past midfield, getting into assault if the terminators have been advancing. Wyches still tied in, and 4-8 terminators die....anything that survives will finish dying on turn four.

I've played Dark Angels plenty of times - it simply isn't an army for Dark Eldar to fear. The way to kill one wound terminators with stormshields is through volume of fire - something DE do exceptionally well.

Please note that this was all math hammer and theoryhammer, which completely sucks for trying to apply to 40k. =p However, if you like - meet me on Vassal with the dreaded DA army, and I'll take a pass at them.

ive played vrs a dark angel player using my DE. he ran something simaler to this (tons of termies, a few dreads and belial) my initial atempt fighting him with DE failed and i got tabled. after reading dashs DE guide i figured on trying the list out, and have not lost a game yet. i recently replayed that DA player, and needless to say his terminaters simply could not keep up speed wise, or volume of fire. his dreads spent most game stunned, only 1 died but one was immobilized and weaponless and the other spent 5 of 6 turns stun locked. his terminaters fared worse. out of the 4 squads be brought 1 unit left was standing (with 3 of its 6 men dead) termies while sporting a 2+/3+ do not fare well when facing mass wounds. and posion literally negates that SS. since most often they wont have FNP, they get to make tons of saves on only a few models in the unit, and no reroll. usually means i can drop 6-9 terminaters a turn. a squad and a half on average.

effectivly i agree with dash.... DA dont have the mustard to fight a well built DE list.

I have now become a follower of lord dash because his army tactics and advice on winning with dark eldar make them the ultimate undefeated army. I just have to buy alot of venoms. Also because splinter cannons dont have a strenght characterisic can I move 12" and fire both cannons?

baron deathnyx wrote:I have now become a follower of lord dash because his army tactics and advice on winning with dark eldar make them the ultimate undefeated army. I just have to buy alot of venoms. Also because splinter cannons dont have a strenght characterisic can I move 12" and fire both cannons?

Correct, that is one of the reasons why they are so good.