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.

Ive been playtesting my list extensively and ive shaved off everything i feel isnt neccesary and added in a few other upgrades. I want to see what the tacticians of Dakka think before I enter my first tournament. All comments and critique are welcome!

HQ:

Duke Sliscus - 150 Points

Elite:

8x Kabalite Trueborn (Joined to Duke Sliscus) - 136 Points
W/ 8 Shardcarbines
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

Troops:

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

10x Kabalite Warriors W/ Splinter Rifles and Blaster - 105 points
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield, - 70 Points

10x Kabalite Warriors W/ Splinter Rifles and Blaster - 105 points
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield, - 70 Points

Fast:

6x Reavers W/ 2 blasters - 162 Points

6x Reavers W/ 2 blasters - 162 Points

Heavy:

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Total Points 1999

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what advice to give you...because I don't know what is most important to you.

I definitely do *not* like your list, but telling you "Reaver jetbikes suck, the Duke is a bad HQ choice for what you're trying to do, and you're missing the point of a Glass Cannon" isn't very constructive....but I feel overwhelmed with trying to help you tailor a list that I don't even like the foundation of in terms of competitiveness.

There are some links in my signature worth your time to read. Also take look up Ketara - one of the mods here, and look at his "threads created" to find some of his DE tactica and unit analysis threads.

Firstly I would like to thank you Dash for posting here and giving me a few things to read. I suppose I should give a bit more background on what im trying to accomplish and maybe that would help you with advice.


That being said, My goal is to compete in 2000 point tournaments at my FLGS. I have not yet attended a tournament there but from reading their packet it seems that alot of the scoring is based on army theme and background. Looking through the codex and reading the fluff has brought Sliscus to my attention because the idea of Dark Eldar raiding parties and space faring pirates is very appealing to me. That being said he is pretty much the only unit in my list that im attached to aside from my wychs. I feel like the Reaver Jet Bikes have been very hit and miss for me but i have yet to find a better alternative. I had considered 4-5 Incubi in a Venom instead of a 6 man reaver squad but since there is no Venom model yet and I am not very adept at conversions I have been avoiding that route.

All that being considered I will read the material provided by you and see if I can shed some new light on tweaking this list in any other ways.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'll be honest, I'm not sure what advice to give you...because I don't know what is most important to you.

I definitely do *not* like your list, but telling you "Reaver jetbikes suck, the Duke is a bad HQ choice for what you're trying to do, and you're missing the point of a Glass Cannon" isn't very constructive....but I feel overwhelmed with trying to help you tailor a list that I don't even like the foundation of in terms of competitiveness.

There are some links in my signature worth your time to read. Also take look up Ketara - one of the mods here, and look at his "threads created" to find some of his DE tactica and unit analysis threads.

Agreed. On everything.

Personally, Kabalites are a worthless unit. There's never a reason why I wouldn't just take trueborn instead, unless I wanted to do tank hunting, which is what ravagers are for. Trueborn lay down a horrendously powerful wall of shots, depending on if you use five or ten, but even a five man unit can completely wreck GEQ (if not completely destroy a ten man unit), and against MEQ, the sheer number of shots can cripple them.

Reavers suck, obviously. Never.Ever. Give them shooty weapons. That is not their objective. If nothing else, they're a distraction unit that should run over things, and nothing else.

Sliscus is dumb. Just put retrofire jets on anything that would actually benefit from DSing (which is NOTHING). He's not even close to worth it, unless you throw him in a gigantic trueborn unit and attempt to shoot things to death (which you've done). All in all, the trueborn can get things done without him though.

The core of your list should be stronger, for sure. I never take wyches without Haemonculi lumped with them. They're too fragile during that first assault. I'd rather just pay 65 points for FNP and a hexrifle.

Like DOP said, I'm not really sure what you want to accomplish, or what armies you go up against, so I can't exactly give the best advice. From what I can tell, you go up against MEQ or Mech Guard? There's too much ATfor you not too

SkySerpent wrote:Fast:

6x Reavers W/ 2 blasters - 162 Points

6x Reavers W/ 2 blasters - 162 Points

This is your hole.

They're not assaulty enough to benefit from the Duke's drugs.
They don't have vehicles to benefit from Deep Strike.
And you have open Elite slots where you could get better anti-tank.

Consider the point total of those Bikes.
Consider the point total of 4 Trueborns w. 4 Blasters in a Venom w. Splinter Cannon upgrade.
They are practically identical, while the Trueborns boost your anti-tank almost twice as much each, will be harder to kill, and benefit from the Deepstrike gain.

I'll also note your Kabalite Warrior squads could probably be optimized better, you could easily shed some men off of those units at no appreciable loss to the combat functionality of the unit and use the points elsewhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Personally, Kabalites are a worthless unit. There's never a reason why I wouldn't just take trueborn instead, unless I wanted to do tank hunting, which is what ravagers are for.

For objective claiming Warriors are infinitely superior to Trueborn, and can also serve an objective claiming purpose that neither Wyches nor Wracks are optimized for (back field claiming).
Warriors also have some very affordable and functional configurations considering their ability to claim objectives that makes them a more valuable addition, in general, than Trueborn. Though it is sort of an apples to oranges thing.

If I may argue in favor of the Reavers....

They are one of the only ways to get Melta into a DEldar army. Dark Lances are all well and good, but I don't have to tell you about their luck... and against AV14 and AV13 you'll sure appreciate having melta around. Heck, even against lesser AVs having something with 9" melta range can be very useful to pop a tank open to poison focus fire... especially when you get that nifty 6" assault move to escape back to 15" away back out of most units assault range. And if you need to shoot or Bladevane somebody you still have the capability. All the Lances do is give them some duality... for a grand total of 24 points. Not bad, and way better than Scourges with the damned things.

RJBs are perfectly capable of killing things, and even being useful to a list, that isn't the question.

The question is whether 4 Trueborn w. 4 Blasters in a Venom w. extra Splinter Cannon can kill all the things RJBs can, and kill them better/faster and/or is more difficult for your opponent to kill for equivalent points?

I think the answer is pretty clearly yes to all of those questions - and at that point why would you take RJBs if you could take Trueborn if your goal is to win the battle?

Well you generally want to run Haemies if your gonna go with a wych heavy list. The free pain token basically makes wyches very tough unit to crack, but if your running the duke it shouldn't be that much of a problem because of his ability to roll for two drugs instead of one.

Made a couple of adjustments to the list I don't know how far off your tournament is or if you have the models for them.

2k DE list:

HQ:

The Duke - 150pts

Elites:

Truebornx3 with blasters x3
venom - Splinter cannon 146pts

Truebornx3 with blasters x3
venom - splinter cannon 146pts

Troops:

Wychesx8 - hydra gauntlets, haywire , hekatrix with agoniser
Raider - Flicker shield 206pts

Wychesx8 - hydra gauntlets, haywire, hekatrix with agoniser
Raider - Flicker shield 206pts

Wychesx8 - Hydra Gauntlets, hekatrix
Raider - Flicker shield 170pts

Warriorsx10 - Dark Lance
Raider - Flicker shield 185pts

Warriorsx10 - Dark Lance
Raider - Flicker shield 185pts

Fast attack:

Scourges x5 - Haywire Blaster x2 130pts
Scourges x5 - Haywire Blaster x2 130pts

Heavy:
Ravager - Dark Lance x3, flicker shields 115pts
Ravager - Dark Lance x3, flicker shields 115pts
Ravager - Dark Lance x3, flicker shields 115pts

Total: 1999pts

Probably not the most competitive list you could run but should be viable in any meta. Some notes on the list on the 3rd wych squad I took away their grenades to save some points and I gave the hekatrix the hydra gauntlets, this unit is where you'll want Duke to be in. Why not give the gauntlets to a random member and not take a hekatrix? Because I had some extra points and the hekatrix will actually get 2 + D6 attacks instead of the normal 1 and if for some reason the duke falls and the squad survives, you still have a ld 9 instead of 8.

I didn't quite understand why you gave your warriors blasters but no heavy weapons to speak of, its a waist to add 5 more warriors and not grab a heavy weapon, and if you want them just for the blaster its cheaper to go with a 5 man squad in a venom. I gave them a Dark lance so you would have some ok static back fielders and two more raiders to do what you want with.

I took out the jet bikes to recover some points to add in the two squads of trueborn, the scourges are a pretty decent unit. The haywire blasters are more for stunning vehicles than actually destroying them which in some cases is actually a more preferable option. And hey if your raider opens up a transport the scourges are armed with carbines which should make quick work of anything that's coming out.

I hope this helps, while there are many lists on the internet right now for DE, I don't feel like there's a standard cookie cutter list right now, which is a good thing as it shows this codex has a ton of viable options just waiting to be used, its all in play testing your list and a little feed back here and there. Anyways Good luck at the Tournament.

So after reviewing some of the material Dash left here and reading the other comments in this thread I've realised that i need to tighten up the focus of my list. I've decided that a more assaulty list might suit my play style best so here is what ive come up with as a revision.

HQ:

Duke Sliscus - 150 Points

Elite:

9x Kabalite Trueborn (Joined to Duke Sliscus) - 153 Points
W/ 9 Shardcarbines
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

5x Incubi - 110 Points
Venom: Extra Splinter Cannon - 65 Points

5x Incubi - 110 Points
Venom: Extra Splinter Cannon - 65 Points

Troops:

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

8x Wych Cult + 1x Hekatrix W/ Agoniser - 138 Points
W/ Haywire Grenades
Raider: Dark Lance, Flickerfield - 70 Points

Heavy:

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Ravager W/ 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfields - 115 Points

Total Points 1900

I dont feel like ive lost any real firepower and ive gained quite alot of assaulty goodness. Any input on these changes would be greatly appreciated. Also any input on what to do with the final 100 points would be great as well.