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I am begging to become interested in a deepstrike DE force.

Without turning this into a Army list thread, the basic tenets of the army would be

Duke Sliscus
Baron Sathonyx

some assault elite in raiders/venoms
a 9 man poison gunboat for sliscus
wyches in raiders
helions with the Baron
and ravagers

As far as I can tell, this whole army can deepstrike. Not to mention rerolling drugs gives two chances for all the troops to start with a pain token. (With no haemunculous in sight)

So the question is, What advantages does deepstriking offer to a Dark Eldar army. When their craft are already fast skimmers is this all overkill on the speed. When would deep striking such fragile craft be useful, and is it very situational? Or could a deepstriking dark eldar army be a usefull tool in many situations? And how could you see it falling apart? What would be absolutely neccecary to make it work?

If the enemy have flamers stay away from them theres some advise. Dont deepstrike near them i learned that the hard way.

There is an article on Yes The Truth Hurts entitled "The Shiv" that may be helpful for developing your army.

The short answer to your question of the success of deepstriking Dark Eldar is yes, they can be successful.

The longer answer is still yes, but they should generally go full-on shooty if they choose to do so.

The longer answer again is yes, especially if you let the opponent go first and capitalise upon the fear that is wreaked upon your opponent's mind after you explain to him the full extent of your deployment options.

Also, it will fall apart if you don't kill the enemy fast enough. Best Dark Eldar advice ever. Remember it always.

Finally, Sliscus is always fabulous.

Why would you want to deep strike? Hellions will need to run to avoid being battlecannon fodder and radiers will be hard to place without mishapping. Even so once you arrive you cannot assualt, why not just use run your troops in from the table edge?

Ysclyth wrote:

So the question is, What advantages does deepstriking offer to a Dark Eldar army.

The short answer is....none.

Many disadvantages, but no advantages. This has been discussed at length here a couple of times now.

*edit*

And I just discovered to my annoyance that I'm not sure of the names of any of the threads I'm thinking of, so couldn't find them.

I'm going to be very brief. Just take my word for it.

1. Deep-striking gets you nothing that flat-out couldn't from reserve, with a worse cover save and much worse positioning.

2. Deep-striking exposes you to risk that flat out doesn't.

3. You still can't fire from inside a deep-struck vehicle. You'd have to get out.

4. Deep-striking DE means you are presenting variable units with low armour values and saves piecemeal to your enemy. It is the absolute worst deployment option available to you.

And I'm stopping there, because I'm grumpy this morning and not feeling like retyping my way through this discussion, it arises too often.

I kinda assumed that it was discussed before, and tried to search but failed as well. Thanks for the input.

Ysclyth wrote:I kinda assumed that it was discussed before, and tried to search but failed as well. Thanks for the input.

its just one of those many rules in the book when you first read it you are like "wow cool, I wanna do that" Then you 30 seconds later you think, "o wait, thats a terrible idea."

Dashofpepper wrote:

Ysclyth wrote:

So the question is, What advantages does deepstriking offer to a Dark Eldar army.

The short answer is....none.

Many disadvantages, but no advantages. This has been discussed at length here a couple of times now.

*edit*

And I just discovered to my annoyance that I'm not sure of the names of any of the threads I'm thinking of, so couldn't find them.

I'm going to be very brief. Just take my word for it.

1. Deep-striking gets you nothing that flat-out couldn't from reserve, with a worse cover save and much worse positioning.

2. Deep-striking exposes you to risk that flat out doesn't.

3. You still can't fire from inside a deep-struck vehicle. You'd have to get out.

4. Deep-striking DE means you are presenting variable units with low armour values and saves piecemeal to your enemy. It is the absolute worst deployment option available to you.

And I'm stopping there, because I'm grumpy this morning and not feeling like retyping my way through this discussion, it arises too often.

I agree with all of the above, however there are some very situational times when I would have liked to deepstrike but didn't have Duke in my army. I played a killpoint game against mechanized IG with 6 Hydras and 3 Hellhounds. I lost the role to go first.

Hydras seem like they are designed specifically to wipe out venoms and raiders (4 S7 shots, no flat out save) and he had them in squadrons of two all across the board. My only chane was to reserve most of my force (due to limited cover on my side). I would rather have deep striked so I could drop lances on his side and rear armor as opposed to having to shot AV 12 from the front.

Granted all of the above was an extreme example and everything was stacked against me, but I think deepstriking would have at least given me a chance to win or tie.

aggie0642 wrote:I played a killpoint game against mechanized IG with 6 Hydras and 3 Hellhounds. I lost the role to go first.

Hydras seem like they are designed specifically to wipe out venoms and raiders (4 S7 shots, no flat out save) and he had them in squadrons of two all across the board. My only chane was to reserve most of my force (due to limited cover on my side). I would rather have deep striked so I could drop lances on his side and rear armor as opposed to having to shot AV 12 from the front.

Granted all of the above was an extreme example and everything was stacked against me, but I think deepstriking would have at least given me a chance to win or tie.

Rough!

The only, and i mean ONLY, usage of deepstriking is aiming for Rear armor on Walkers and some Vehicles.

Being the only usage, its not worth the cost.

If you insist in Deepstriking, the best you'll do is aiming for the rear

I am not a fan of Deepstriking at all. ..which is as close to saying that I hate it as I can get without actually saying it. Simply put, DE do not have armor or protection that can allow for only a portion of your army to be available. DE are about their firepower, not the staying power. I really want the game winding down or over by turn 3, not just getting started.

My philosophy is target saturation and firepower concentration. When you're in vehicles that can be taken down by a pistol... well.. that's more dice hitting the table and more chances for him to damage you. My goal is to minimize those opportunities. I run as many units as I can and force the enemy to pick targets. The fewer targets I have on the board, the easier it is for him to choose. Then I concentrate fire on the high value targets. if I get a "can't Shoot" result on an enemy vindicator, I move on to the next.. The fewer guns I have on the table, the harder it is for me to do that.

It's a game of luck.. and the strategy is to maximize your chances while minimizing your opponent's. I have yet to see a situation where my chances were maximized and my opponent's chances were minimized by bringing only part of my army on the table at a time.

YMMV.. this is just my philosophy.

I somewhat agree with Dash, but am less hard edged.

Deep striking is situational. I wouldn't design an army around deepstriking because I, personally, believe reserving a DE army is a terrible idea. However, sometimes reserving an army is needed. In those situations having an HQ who magically gives everything in your army the option to deepstrike is not shabby at all.

I think Ravagers and Dakka Venoms are the optimal deepstrike tools.

I Have never liked Deep Striking... you can lose so much to mishaps...

And i play daemons