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Simple question, considering that most DE units have fleet, would it be possible to not go with the standard Raider-heavy build and instead focus on fleeting and lots of bodies to carry the day?
I'm not savvy enough with DE yet to figure out how exactly to make it work but something tells me that a few units with FnP leading the charge to provide a durable 4+ cover save to those behind them. That and relying on assault weapons instead of heavy weapons to keep the army mobile.

There are other DE builds aside from raider heavy armies.

If you're asking if you can have fun and challenge people with a foot-slogging non-WWP army, you can. If you're asking if you can win tournaments with it, you won't.

Armies that can sit back and shoot at you will. Flamers will ruin your day. And you're basically giving up your best asset - incredible speed.

Unless you have a few raiders or something with WWP, your paper thing armor will get crumpled fast. Footslog armies can footslog becuase they either have the protection or numbers to not worry too much about getting shot at

I footslog a Haemonculus horde. Their armour is paper thin, but they have massive durability.

I tend to have a couple of venoms on hand, but they're not vital

Dashofpepper wrote:There are other DE builds aside from raider heavy armies.

If you're asking if you can have fun and challenge people with a foot-slogging non-WWP army, you can. If you're asking if you can win tournaments with it, you won't.

Armies that can sit back and shoot at you will. Flamers will ruin your day. And you're basically giving up your best asset - incredible speed.

Fair enough.
If I was to pursue a foot slogging list, what would be the best way to approach it?
My first instinct is to simply spam numbers, something like 80 Warriors with Blasters and Splinter Cannons supported by 40 Wyches with Haywire Grenades for anti-tank plus some HQ units. Should be able to fit into a 1500 point list.

How about this?


2500 Pts - Dark Eldar Roster

Total Roster Cost: 2493

HQ: Haemonculus (3#, 195 pts)
1 Haemonculus, 75 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10) + Shattershard 15
1 Haemonculus, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10)
1 Haemonculus, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10)

HQ: Haemonculus (3#, 180 pts)
1 Haemonculus, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10)
1 Haemonculus, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10)
1 Haemonculus, 60 pts = (base cost 50 + Liquifier Gun x1 10)

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (20#, 230 pts)
20 Kabalite Warriors, 230 pts = 20 * 9 (base cost 9) + Dark Lance x2 50

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (20#, 230 pts)
20 Kabalite Warriors, 230 pts = 20 * 9 (base cost 9) + Dark Lance x2 50

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (20#, 230 pts)
20 Kabalite Warriors, 230 pts = 20 * 9 (base cost 9) + Dark Lance x2 50

Elite: Kabalite Trueborn (3#, 86 pts)
3 Kabalite Trueborn, 86 pts = 3 * 12 (base cost 12) + Dark Lance x2 50

Elite: Kabalite Trueborn (3#, 86 pts)
3 Kabalite Trueborn, 86 pts = 3 * 12 (base cost 12) + Dark Lance x2 50

Elite: Kabalite Trueborn (3#, 86 pts)
3 Kabalite Trueborn, 86 pts = 3 * 12 (base cost 12) + Dark Lance x2 50

Fast Attack: Beastmasters (17#, 270 pts)
5 Beastmasters, 80 pts = 5 * 12 (base cost 12) + Agoniser 20
5 Khymerae, 60 pts = 5 * 12
1 Clawed Fiend, 40 pts
6 Razorwing Flocks, 90 pts = 6 * 15

Fast Attack: Beastmasters (17#, 270 pts)
5 Beastmasters, 80 pts = 5 * 12 (base cost 12) + Agoniser 20
5 Khymerae, 60 pts = 5 * 12
1 Clawed Fiend, 40 pts
6 Razorwing Flocks, 90 pts = 6 * 15

Fast Attack: Beastmasters (17#, 270 pts)
5 Beastmasters, 80 pts = 5 * 12 (base cost 12) + Agoniser 20
5 Khymerae, 60 pts = 5 * 12
1 Clawed Fiend, 40 pts
6 Razorwing Flocks, 90 pts = 6 * 15

Heavy Support: Talos Pain Engine (1#, 120 pts)
1 Talos Pain Engine, 120 pts = (base cost 100) + Chain-flails 10 + TL Heat Lance 10

Heavy Support: Talos Pain Engine (1#, 120 pts)
1 Talos Pain Engine, 120 pts = (base cost 100) + Chain-flails 10 + TL Heat Lance 10

Heavy Support: Talos Pain Engine (1#, 120 pts)
1 Talos Pain Engine, 120 pts = (base cost 100) + Chain-flails 10 + TL Heat Lance 10


129 Models, well over 200 wounds.

I think you can non WWP or raider list using hellions as troops, reavers, and beastpacks. Anti tank would be scourges, reavers, and true born lance squads (lots of competition for FA slots). A beast pack with baron attached and spread out provides cover for a good portion of the army. With the beasts moving 6, fleeting, and assaulting 12, your speed is fine. The hellions move 12 normally, fleet, assault 6, and hit and run.

The army isn't what normally is seen with DE, but with all the points save on not taking tanks, you end up with a HUGE amount of models.

you can do it, I think harlies get a place in a list to be unshootable and give thigns behind them a cover save.

wracks are very resilent to shooting and decent assault units.

beastpacks I think would be kind of manditory

hellions and the baron can make an appearance.

have to think about AT, ravagers are not going to cut it as all the enemy AT will go after them till they are dead.

Amaya:

I've got $10 that says my Necrons win against your army in any mission without losing a single model.

Dashofpepper wrote:Amaya:

I've got $10 that says my Necrons win against your army in any mission without losing a single model.

ahahaha

Dashofpepper wrote:Amaya:

I've got $10 that says my Necrons win against your army in any mission without losing a single model.

Well all those Dark Lances would probably take out one or two ...

Amaya wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Amaya:

I've got $10 that says my Necrons win against your army in any mission without losing a single model.

ahahaha

I'm serious. You've got nothing in that entire army that can hurt a Monolith, and I play close combat Necrons. Monoliths pyramid my warriors in so that you can't see them or get to them, and my wraith wing (STR6 I6) makes repeated forays against your units, then teleports out of combat on each of your turns, going through a succession of 3+ inviul saves, 4+ WBB saves, and a second 4+ WBB save.

Meanwhile, my Deceiver bounces from combat to combat after you get close enough for him to get out from behind the monoliths to engage something without taking fire from you.

There's simply nothing in your army that can kill anything of mine. =p

For games where that won't win, (like capture and control) I can just deep-strike a monolith onto your own objective while castling mine with afore-mentioned pyramid. You have not a weapon in your army that can do anything about it. That's right. 11 models from the worst codex using...close combat Necrons, the thing they're the worst at...are going to walk unhindered through your whole army. Or as much of it as they can before time and turns run out.

You've got to bring the tools to the table to deal with *every* threat. Get some wyches with haywire grenades in there. Or at least some haywire blasters if nothing else.

Dash of pepper, it is good that you winn with the necron list, but you have a tendency to brag about this on every thread that pops up. Enough already, the original poster wanted ideas for a good Dark Eldar foot list. I know it goes against your dogma, but I do think there can be good dark eldar foot lists out there.

I do however think that you need eather 3 haemonculy and barron, 6 haemoncoly or 3 haemonculy and the special character haemonculy to do it.

Go a) warrior with pain tokens or b) slowly advancing wracks or grotesques who open up a wwp for scourges/beastmasters/helions.

If you can place the webportal 19" onto the buard (deploy 11, walk 6, place it so that it ends 2 away) you can have a 24" charge range on 6 of the other units in your army. Get 2-3 of these portals and nobody is safe. Also, the Talos would be kind of great comming out of a portal.

Talos-strike or Chronos-strike delivered from a webway portal (hence my taste for venoms- fast delivery to a good deploy point) is one of my favourite ways to startle MEQ..


'There's simply nothing in your army that can kill anything of mine. =p '

I think you overestimate the survivability of your units. I play Necrons too, and pretty successfully, but it is still possible to fail a save or wbb here and there..

What happens if you get a single Darklance shot on a warrior and fail to roll that 4+ WBB? The Liths aren't vertical, so you can usually find a chink to fire through no matter how you line them up.

They may not beat you, but you WILL lose models


Advice for list adjust to beat dash's much vaunted army (making guesses since he didn't post his list):

Void Lances can, and will, kill monoliths, and they aren't the only toy the DE have. Have you actually read the codex in depth? They have a number of things in there that will pen a Lith./Landraider

The deciever can be shot down before he reaches combat (and likely will be (poisoned weapons are rather effective against him)as he cannot enter another combat after jumping ship on the assault he's in, and it will be the DE turn next... A lot depends on the cover he has available to bail into.

Wraiths can be spammed down with firepower, and have a 50/50 of coming back. If they don't have a ridealong orb then lance the wraiths, and watch them fail to get back up, with about a 1 in 3 (i'm not math-hammering the exact number) chance of a kill. Engaging the wraiths with the pain engines once they get bogged in combat will also reap them down fairly fast, as the Talos puts out a lot of attacks, and unless the other guy is cheating his ass off he will fail his 3+ inv and WBB from time to time Shooting them with the heat lances if they don't happen to be engaged is worth a try also.

As Dash rightly states Haywire is highly effective vs Liths

Aren't Talos Monsterous Creatures? They have the ability to kill monoliths.

CaptKaruthors wrote:Aren't Talos Monsterous Creatures? They have the ability to kill monoliths.

No, they don't. You don't get the Monstrous 2D6 to pen against Monoliths.

And Niiai, I'm noting a disturbing trend in your posting regarding me. Ease off, will you?

Topically, this thread is about foot-slogging DE and their competitiveness. Someone posted a foot-slogging DE list. The best way to show that a list isn't competitive....is to SHOW that it isn't competitive. I can't think of a better way to say, "That idea isn't competitive" than to show that the worst codex in 40k doing what they are worst at can beat the crap out of the list.

It is not my fault that you can't relate what I write to the subject at hand. Don't call me out for your failings. And on the "Enough already" we've had about enough of you posting negative criticism of me that is irrelevant to subjects at hand. Stop stalking me, stop being rude, do me a favor and put me on ignore if you can't control your negativity.

OP: To reiterate - you *can* make a foot-slogging list. You can have fun with. You are unlikely to beat people's faces in with it.

I've had no issue with footslogging Dark Eldar.

My win/loss ration with my haemonculus list is thus far 11/1

I have beaten faces fairly convincingly with it If you can't, then that's your lookout

I will grant that they are better against some armies than others, just like the skimmer spam DE that is the usual build, but that's part and parcel of being a 40K army.

Few armies work equally well with a non-tailored list against all enemies. Most can cope, if you are decent at building an all-comers list, but will still find some forces tougher to beat than others.

Topically, this thread is about foot-slogging DE and their competitiveness. Someone posted a foot-slogging DE list. The best way to show that a list isn't competitive....is to SHOW that it isn't competitive. I can't think of a better way to say, "That idea isn't competitive" than to show that the worst codex in 40k doing what they are worst at can beat the crap out of the list.

Most lists have a list that can completely counter them. Showing that one list can wipe another is no indication of how poor the losing list is. Show how the losing list can be bested by many lists and then your point is proven.

This isn't to say that I think walking DE are a great idea.

I liked the idea of a foot slogging DE list when the codex came out as well, mostly because I wanted to paint it.

I was considering making a 2 lord 20 wyche unit the core of my army, and running my FA slots as haywire blaster jump guys. This sprinkled with some basic warrior units and, probably a beast unit?

I dunno, on paper seemed ok, but in practice, well? I am glad at least that others were considering the concept also! I might actually try to take it seriously again...

augustus5 wrote:

Topically, this thread is about foot-slogging DE and their competitiveness. Someone posted a foot-slogging DE list. The best way to show that a list isn't competitive....is to SHOW that it isn't competitive. I can't think of a better way to say, "That idea isn't competitive" than to show that the worst codex in 40k doing what they are worst at can beat the crap out of the list.

Most lists have a list that can completely counter them. Showing that one list can wipe another is no indication of how poor the losing list is. Show how the losing list can be bested by many lists and then your point is proven.

This isn't to say that I think walking DE are a great idea.

+1: Black Templar. Blessed Hull needs haywire as well.

There are many armies that can stomp the crap out of foot-slogging DE like the one listed. That's not something that needs to be elaborated on. Of relevant interest is the fact that if your army can can prevented from killing a single model in the enemy army....then it needs to be revamped.

Sounds like I'd be wasting my time with footslogging then, so its back to Raiders.

I have nothing against Raiders, just trying to find a viable alternative to the standard 5th edition philosophy of "mech it up!".

The problem with a dark eldar foot list is this: What is usualy a very good matchup for you can become quite bad.

I am thinking primaraly of short ranged armies, preferably in transports where you usualy could have shot the transport away from under them and runn off.

Also, if you meet an army who is mobile and has a long ranged (tanks with blast templates, whirldwinds in particular) then you have good chances of being in a real piccel with little or no way of getting into the game.

Minigun there are good alternatives to Mech it up. The irony is of course that IG man gunnline is one of them. Also, mass orks I belive can do it? (I have no experience with it.) Some people claim eldar can do it.

I am not shure, but perhaps some sort of GK list? Deepstriking etc. I know deathwing can do it.

Also, a biker list can be cool and good. Or a BA biker/jump hybrid. A SW drop pod list would demand a huge amount of DP but it would not play as a regular mech list.

Of course you can do nids, but they are just bad seeds in my opinion (and I play them.) Daemons sometimes do it good in tournaments (although souldgrunders are better then DM in moast lists unless you need exkstra lashes.)

Using the list above, then Dash is right you can't deal with Monoliths. This is simple fact.

However, if you remove one of your Beastmaster units and replace it with a 10 model Scourges unit with four haywire blasters and a Solarite that will be the same point cost. An alternative to the Scourges would be to use 2 units of 10 Wyches with Haywire grenades and a Hekatrix for 10 points less.

I don't believe that the living metal rule negates the emp effect of the haywire blasters (if I am wrong ). With the range and assault type of a hawire blaster your scourges will be able to start attempting to kill a Monolith from the first turn, and if you chose to use wyches with Haywire grenades you get a lot more dice in an assault.

Hope this alternative to lances help.

Dashofpepper wrote:

CaptKaruthors wrote:Aren't Talos Monsterous Creatures? They have the ability to kill monoliths.

No, they don't. You don't get the Monstrous 2D6 to pen against Monoliths.

And Niiai, I'm noting a disturbing trend in your posting regarding me. Ease off, will you?

Topically, this thread is about foot-slogging DE and their competitiveness. Someone posted a foot-slogging DE list. The best way to show that a list isn't competitive....is to SHOW that it isn't competitive. I can't think of a better way to say, "That idea isn't competitive" than to show that the worst codex in 40k doing what they are worst at can beat the crap out of the list.

It is not my fault that you can't relate what I write to the subject at hand. Don't call me out for your failings. And on the "Enough already" we've had about enough of you posting negative criticism of me that is irrelevant to subjects at hand. Stop stalking me, stop being rude, do me a favor and put me on ignore if you can't control your negativity.

OP: To reiterate - you *can* make a foot-slogging list. You can have fun with. You are unlikely to beat people's faces in with it.

It's not competitive because it can't deal with one army build that hardly no one plays?

And where did I ever say it was competitive? I was just throwing it out there. You're the one who came in screaming WAAC!!!

As you should know, there is very little in the DE Codex that can deal with Monoliths. Outside of s9+ or s8 AP1 you can't kill Monoliths.

Edit: And ofc Haywire Grenades.

Dark Gate, if you're lucky, but it would be a bit of a waste of a oneshot (i like the idea of Cthullu eating a Lith )

Void lance/void mine is my usual vs Liths, and i like the Voidraven in an all-comers list anyway

I just need the models to be released :(

Dashofpepper wrote:There are other DE builds aside from raider heavy armies.

If you're asking if you can have fun and challenge people with a foot-slogging non-WWP army, you can. If you're asking if you can win tournaments with it, you won't.

Armies that can sit back and shoot at you will. Flamers will ruin your day. And you're basically giving up your best asset - incredible speed.

A full foot slogging army with a WWP is still a full floot slogging army.

Hellions and jetbikes can join a foot slogging army and add both speed and target saturation.

With WWP a no vehicle no AV DE army does seem viable to me.

With the ability to deploy 3 haemonculus each equipped with a WWP as a single HQ choice there is absolutely no shortage of slots for WWB, though 3 WWP might be a bit excessive, or might be just right if the plan is to use them as cover.

You can win with a Foot slogging army -and- you can win a tourney or two with them as well. I've done it, however, is very very difficult to win as it is less forgiving than the normal raider army. More often than not, you are going to lose close games because you did not have enough immediate mobility at the right time.

I recommend more of a -combined arms- approach to a foot slogging army. This means you need (IMHO) 1 to 3 raiders/vipers in your army, which is what I do now. I love the Talos with the haywire grenade (haywire grenades are your friend) option as it gives my a viable range attack against armored units. Hellions are nice as well as the beast masters.

I think the OP should test his idea out in a few games and let him decide for sure what he wants to play. We can only give him some advice on how we play our respective armies.

I agree with Adam above. The 5th Ed tendency to "mech it up" is a carry over to how the rules play. Simply put, the lower costs of the vehicles (in most armies) give the player more survivability and more firepower.

The Dark Eldar venoms that showed up in 5th ed. really changed the Raider squads... instead of a raider and a 5 man warrior squad that would field 3 dark lances (one on the raider and 2 in the warrior squad) and 3 splinter rifles that didn't wound well; now you can have a 5 man warrior squad with 1 Blaster (now with range 18) and twin splinter cannons along with 4 splinter rifles that now wound on a straight up 4+, in a vehicle that has a 5+ invulnerable save for similar cost.

it's a game of odds, and to be competitive, you want to maximize your odds while minimizing your opponent's. The 3rd ed squad had 3 longer-range Darklight with 3 rapid fire weapons and an armor 10 vehicle. 7 dice hitting the table unless they get to 12". I used to park my warriors in cover and throw the raider forward as bait.

Now, it's 1 darklight, and 12 splinter shots that wound on 4+ .. and 4 more rapid fire that also wound on 4+. Keeping them in the raider lets you get them into Rapid fire range and still keep an almost-cover-save with the flickerfield. If you throw on the shadow field too.. you shorten their bolter ranges.

... from a pure odds standpoint, it makes sense to mech up in a lot of ways. I used to do a gunline, parking my warriors in cover and hammer away with the darklight. Now.. it just makes more sense to get in the raiders/venoms and roll. Stay out of range with the gunners or shove the wyches in their face asap.

The game is what you make it. I play for fun.. "competitive" means different things to different people. Make the game what you want, play the style that's fun for you.. and enjoy it.

You can run a 90% foot slogging list and be tournament capable. Try run 2 hammies with 3 wracks in venoms. Deploy them on the first turn, with the venom size you should be able to hide at least on completely out of LOS and the other will at least get a cover save. Drop the WWPs - and walk on from the middle of the board.

I've won a local tournament with a all mech DE list and am now building the WWP list. The WWP is just plain nasty if you can get 2 out - its almost impossible to avoid the DE coming from 2 different locations.

15 sreaming wyches with haywire grenades and a hesatrix with agonizer is only 210pts. It is a great unit to take out armor or non-elite CC units.

3 Talos(or is it Taloi), is also a great weapon. They never do much for me because once they hit the board all fire goes into them but that works also. Its a cheap unit that even if its just a fire magnent then they have earned thier points.

No, they don't. You don't get the Monstrous 2D6 to pen against Monoliths.

Crap. I forgot about living metal.