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Currently, im stuck somewhere trying to decide between Dark Eldar, or playing Wolves. In all honesty the pull is rather strong in both directions. Im interested in a Kabalite list, the wyche cults as back up perhapse. What im trying to figure out though, is the three different set ups ive seen for Warriors, and what their uses in those arrangements actually are.

Squad of 5+blaster in a Venom. I understand that it might best be used as a tank hunter, but, it seems true born would be better at that role, with the extra blasters avalable to them, am i missing something here?

Squad of 10+Cannon in a Raider. Seems to me like an anti-infantry unit? Fly around the board and unleash a broadside of splinter fire on any tasty souls within range.

Squad of 20 + 2 Lances. Static fire base? Camping out on home objectives perhapse? But, with what it seems with dark eldar.. this is a dangerous thing to have them immobile, or again, am i missing something with this unit?

Im sure each set up has its merrits, and its flaws, but i need some aid in seeing them at the moment. Then after that, the next step becomes seeing what else fits in along with that.

Venoms can have 2 splinter cannons, which comes out to be 12 shots, good against swarms. The venom with trueborn + blasters is a good all around gun boat.


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check out the article for DE by thor, or just look at dashofpeppers"how to play DE" threads. Very helpful.

The single blaster squad seems a bit inefficient, but 5 guys blaster, including a sybarite with blaster and cc weapon is only 85 pts, add the 2 cannon venom and you end up with a 150 pt min troop unit. Not too shabby for a unit with 2 anti tank guns, and 3 small arms with 4+ poison riding in a 12 shot transport.

Blaster trueborn seem like a good deal in comparison, since you can buy more blasters for them, and take them in even smaller squads, but the points for the unit comes pretty close to the same, and the trueborn aren't scoring. Having 3 blaster trueborn venom units with multiple blaster warrior venoms increases your chances of getting your guys to do the job.

stratassj wrote:Currently, im stuck somewhere trying to decide between Dark Eldar, or playing Wolves. In all honesty the pull is rather strong in both directions. Im interested in a Kabalite list, the wyche cults as back up perhapse. What im trying to figure out though, is the three different set ups ive seen for Warriors, and what their uses in those arrangements actually are.

Squad of 5+blaster in a Venom. I understand that it might best be used as a tank hunter, but, it seems true born would be better at that role, with the extra blasters avalable to them, am i missing something here?

A Squad of 5 Warriors in a Venom with a Blaster is a MSU unit that can threaten both Infantry and Vehicles. Yes, the 4 Blaster Trueborn in a venom is better, but those setups costs you 173 pts, where a 5 man warrior squad with Blaster and Venom is only 125. And you can get up to 6 of them if need be, where you only get 3 of the Trueborn

stratassj wrote:Squad of 10+Cannon in a Raider. Seems to me like an anti-infantry unit? Fly around the board and unleash a broadside of splinter fire on any tasty souls within range.

Squad of 10 in a Raider with cannon can be multitask, just like the 5 in a Venom with a blaster. the Venom gets 12 splinter shots a turn, where as the Raider squad can get 6 at the same range, so the Venom is better for range. But, close to within 12", and put splinter racks on the vehicle, and you get 6 from the Cannon, then 18 from the splinter Rifles, which can reroll missed hits. the whole squad there is 175, with Flickerfields and Splinter Racks on the Raider.

stratassj wrote:Squad of 20 + 2 Lances. Static fire base? Camping out on home objectives perhapse? But, with what it seems with dark eldar.. this is a dangerous thing to have them immobile, or again, am i missing something with this unit?

Im sure each set up has its merrits, and its flaws, but i need some aid in seeing them at the moment. Then after that, the next step becomes seeing what else fits in along with that.

A squad of 20 with two dark lances is exactly as you described, its a firebase with alot of ablative wounds. If you set this out in the open, it will get slaughtered fast. But stick this squad in some 4+ cover, and they can actually last for quite a while, as long as nothing assaults them. Immobile units are not the best thing to have in a Dark Eldar Army, but if you have enough target Saturation, you should be fine. I used to run 10 man squads with a Dark Lance when the codex first came out, just to be able to split fire if need be. They held up decently, mostly because I kept all the enemies' shooting units occupied with my wyches, and ripped the assault troops up with massed fire.



Definitely go check out Thor's tactica, as it is a great article for new Dark Eldar players. Also check out Dash of Pepper's tactics and advice, as he is awesome with Dark Eldar. And don't forget to read anything Ketara posts on the Dark Eldar, as usually Ketara is a voice to be listened to with sound advice on how to make your army even more killy!


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notabot187 wrote:The single blaster squad seems a bit inefficient, but 5 guys blaster, including a sybarite with blaster and cc weapon is only 85 pts, add the 2 cannon venom and you end up with a 150 pt min troop unit. Not too shabby for a unit with 2 anti tank guns, and 3 small arms with 4+ poison riding in a 12 shot transport.

Blaster trueborn seem like a good deal in comparison, since you can buy more blasters for them, and take them in even smaller squads, but the points for the unit comes pretty close to the same, and the trueborn aren't scoring. Having 3 blaster trueborn venom units with multiple blaster warrior venoms increases your chances of getting your guys to do the job.

The Sybarite can't take a blaster, only a blast pistol, and I wouldn't want to put this unit within 6" of anything to fire that pistol off!

Galador wrote:

stratassj wrote:Squad of 10+Cannon in a Raider. Seems to me like an anti-infantry unit? Fly around the board and unleash a broadside of splinter fire on any tasty souls within range.

Squad of 10 in a Raider with cannon can be multitask, just like the 5 in a Venom with a blaster. the Venom gets 12 splinter shots a turn, where as the Raider squad can get 6 at the same range, so the Venom is better for range. But, close to within 12", and put splinter racks on the vehicle, and you get 6 from the Cannon, then 18 from the splinter Rifles, which can reroll missed hits. the whole squad there is 175, with Flickerfields and Splinter Racks on the Raider.

There is quite a bit wrong here; Splinter cannons are only assault 4 if you move, So the Venom can move 12" and fire 12 shots(vehicles can move and fire heavies without a problem, and Splinter weapons are always defensive weapons, So 2 Splinter cannons can fire with their full heavy profile so long as the Fast vehicle does not move flat-out), but the raider(squad) can only get 4 shots, and even then only if it moves 6"or<. Again with the Close-in your raider can only move 6" for your unit to fire, and then the cannon only gets 4 shots(although the rifles do get 18 shots; that can re-roll To Hits)

I was quoting maxes there, as if you had closed to within 12" and somehow survived to fire the next turn without having to move. Sorry, should have listed that!

Galador wrote:The Sybarite can't take a blaster, only a blast pistol, and I wouldn't want to put this unit within 6" of anything to fire that pistol off!

A common misconception is that the blast pistol is a 6" range. It actually has 12" range.

Dracos wrote:

Galador wrote:The Sybarite can't take a blaster, only a blast pistol, and I wouldn't want to put this unit within 6" of anything to fire that pistol off!

A common misconception is that the blast pistol is a 6" range. It actually has 12" range.

No, a common misconception is that it has a12" range, but it is actually a 6" range. Pg. 56 of the Dark Eldar codex, bottom left box covers darklight weapons.

Galador wrote:

Dracos wrote:

Galador wrote:The Sybarite can't take a blaster, only a blast pistol, and I wouldn't want to put this unit within 6" of anything to fire that pistol off!

A common misconception is that the blast pistol is a 6" range. It actually has 12" range.

No, a common misconception is that it has a12" range, but it is actually a 6" range. Pg. 56 of the Dark Eldar codex, bottom left box covers darklight weapons.

yes blast pistols are 6" range. They suck! Way too many points for a weapon you might get to fire once every other game that will leave you in assault range of whatever you shot.


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stratassj wrote:
Squad of 5+blaster in a Venom. I understand that it might best be used as a tank hunter, but, it seems true born would be better at that role, with the extra blasters avalable to them, am i missing something here?

really 5 with a blaster in a venom is the only option i find competitive. If only a squad of 10 could take 2 blasters it might be worth it.

20 with 2 DL is too expensive and too few DL shots.

warriors with splinter cannons seem cool until you realize how much better venoms are at that job.

A squad of 10 warriors, with blaster and splinter cannon in a raider are actually pretty decent. You get 2 anti tank shots, when you need them, and high volume of anti personnel shooting when you get the chance. Sure, a venom is on paper superior to the single cannon squad. But that is also what the venom is made out of. They rarely last long if shot at, and having gobs of min sized blaster squads running around late game when you need anti personnel firepower (due to all the anti tank doings its job) is annoying.

I've found that having anti tank and anti personnel weapons spread out between tanks and infantry is useful, tanks with DE often don't last as long as you would like them, so having infantry being able to still cover both roles is invaluable. In fact I generally like to pair anti infantry transports with tank hunting infantry, and vice-verse. Like tank hunting blaster trueborn in a venom, and warrior splinter cannon teams (with blaster since the shredder kinda sucks) riding in raiders (who have anti tank weapons). There is also the less common unit of DL (which can also include a blaster, or be double lance truborn with some blasters) riding in a stationary disintergrator cannon raider.

notabot187 wrote:A squad of 10 warriors, with blaster and splinter cannon in a raider are actually pretty decent. You get 2 anti tank shots, when you need them, and high volume of anti personnel shooting when you get the chance. Sure, a venom is on paper superior to the single cannon squad. But that is also what the venom is made out of. They rarely last long if shot at, and having gobs of min sized blaster squads running around late game when you need anti personnel firepower (due to all the anti tank doings its job) is annoying.

I've found that having anti tank and anti personnel weapons spread out between tanks and infantry is useful, tanks with DE often don't last as long as you would like them, so having infantry being able to still cover both roles is invaluable. In fact I generally like to pair anti infantry transports with tank hunting infantry, and vice-verse. Like tank hunting blaster trueborn in a venom, and warrior splinter cannon teams (with blaster since the shredder kinda sucks) riding in raiders (who have anti tank weapons). There is also the less common unit of DL (which can also include a blaster, or be double lance truborn with some blasters) riding in a stationary disintergrator cannon raider.

they can work, but a 10 man squad firing its 1 blaster at a tank is 9 wasted weapons.

Exergy wrote:

notabot187 wrote:A squad of 10 warriors, with blaster and splinter cannon in a raider are actually pretty decent. You get 2 anti tank shots, when you need them, and high volume of anti personnel shooting when you get the chance. Sure, a venom is on paper superior to the single cannon squad. But that is also what the venom is made out of. They rarely last long if shot at, and having gobs of min sized blaster squads running around late game when you need anti personnel firepower (due to all the anti tank doings its job) is annoying.

I've found that having anti tank and anti personnel weapons spread out between tanks and infantry is useful, tanks with DE often don't last as long as you would like them, so having infantry being able to still cover both roles is invaluable. In fact I generally like to pair anti infantry transports with tank hunting infantry, and vice-verse. Like tank hunting blaster trueborn in a venom, and warrior splinter cannon teams (with blaster since the shredder kinda sucks) riding in raiders (who have anti tank weapons). There is also the less common unit of DL (which can also include a blaster, or be double lance truborn with some blasters) riding in a stationary disintergrator cannon raider.

they can work, but a 10 man squad firing its 1 blaster at a tank is 9 wasted weapons.

Quite often in the early game the enemy provides no infantry to attack, as they are huddled in their metal boxes so they don't have to deal with anti infantry weapons. By having an anti infantry squad armed with an anti tank gun, you give them something to do rather than twiddle their thumbs waiting for targets to be provided. Plus a blaster is a fine anti infantry gun in its own right, able to provide kills on even tough units like termies, multi wound tyranid units and isolated ICs.

Hell, even space marines have to deal with the 9 guys waiting to have the one guy shoot his weapon at a tank. Look at a tac squad with ML or MM and flamer. You have 9 guys with anti infantry weapons standing around while the ML targets a far off tank or even infantry which is out of range of the rest of the guns. Even if you combat squad, you end up with "wasted" potential as at least 4 guys with bolters wait while the meltagun/ML/MM fires at something.

In my past couple games I've played I have become a fan of the 3x trueborn with 2 DLs in a raider setup. deploy the trueborn out of the raider in some cover and use the empty raider to give cover to other raiders,or pick up squads late game that have had their ride shot out from underneath them.

stratassj wrote:Squad of 5+blaster in a Venom. I understand that it might best be used as a tank hunter, but, it seems true born would be better at that role, with the extra blasters avalable to them, am i missing something here?

Trueborn are Elites, not Troops, and the squad configuration you described for them is more expensive than the Warrior one. All you're missing is the consideration that they are not either/or and also that they can be either/or depending on what you want the rest of the list to be doing.

Squad of 10+Cannon in a Raider. Seems to me like an anti-infantry unit? Fly around the board and unleash a broadside of splinter fire on any tasty souls within range.

About right - though really that configuration is also about buying the Raider. You can't separate the two because transport decisions are very important to the overall scope of a DE army. Honestly I'd buy a Blaster for this configuration as well, but would probably take the Dakka Venom and 5 man Blaster squad instead due to point considerations.

Squad of 20 + 2 Lances. Static fire base? Camping out on home objectives perhapse? But, with what it seems with dark eldar.. this is a dangerous thing to have them immobile, or again, am i missing something with this unit?

Who uses that build? Looks terrible. I think you hit the nail on the head quite accurately with your assessment.

Im sure each set up has its merrits, and its flaws, but i need some aid in seeing them at the moment. Then after that, the next step becomes seeing what else fits in along with that.

Check out the DE Tactica (link is in my sig) you sound like you're new enough to DE that this would be very helpful to you in getting a clearer idea of how the army works in general and how certain units can work in particular.

Good luck with DE, they are a fine army decision and have more spikes and thongs than any other army out there

Thor665 wrote:Good luck with DE, they are a fine army decision and have more spikes and thongs than any other army out there

And sigged!

Thanks for all the replies, its got some thoughts running through my head for what sort of set up to proceed with, lets just see where it all takes me to.