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I was browsing through the Dark Eldar Codex, and I just cant figure out how you beat them. They are murderously fast, just about all weapons seem to wound on a 4+ at least regardless of toughness, they have downright insane BS and WS skills and super high Initiative. The only thing I can see that they lack is any kind of armor saves, but with their power from pain rules it seems they will be running around with FNP most of the time anyway.

I play chaos, orks, blood angels and ultramarines. Honestly I cant think of a way to beat them without being shot / sliced to pieces by about turn 3.

I understand that they are competitive, and reasonably balanced. So there must be something I am missing. There must be a way to effectively deal with them, but it is completely eluding me. I am very new to 40K so there is a lot I don't understand fully. Honestly though, the Dark Eldar as an army scare me.
The only thing I can think of is long range shooting and hopefully you kill them off before they get close.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:I was browsing through the Dark Eldar Codex, and I just cant figure out how you beat them. They are murderously fast, just about all weapons seem to wound on a 4+ at least regardless of toughness, they have downright insane BS and WS skills and super high Initiative. The only thing I can see that they lack is any kind of armor saves, but with their power from pain rules it seems they will be running around with FNP most of the time anyway.

I play chaos, orks, blood angels and ultramarines. Honestly I cant think of a way to beat them without being shot / sliced to pieces by about turn 3.

I understand that they are competitive, and reasonably balanced. So there must be something I am missing. There must be a way to effectively deal with them, but it is completely eluding me. I am very new to 40K so there is a lot I don't understand fully. Honestly though, the Dark Eldar as an army scare me.
The only thing I can think of is long range shooting and hopefully you kill them off before they get close.

They fly around in paper airplanes, with paper thin armor saves, and their weapons are pretty crappy against AV12.

Any army that A) doesn't care about beating them in H2H, B) can shoot down paper airplanes, and C) doesn't rely on AV14 should be fine with them.


If you run Chaos, note that they have pretty awful psychic defense. Run a pair of Lash Sorcerors. After you smoke one of their pitifully armored transports, lash them away from you and into a nice pattern (like a small blast for example, or a flame template pattern) and let them have it.

Dark Eldar are hyperaggressive, and proportionally fragile. Autocannon Dreadnoughts and Lootas should be set up with clear fire lanes as far back as you can, and blow up their transports. The key is high rate of fire with medium strength. You can force them to approach you as well with 48".

Power From Pain is usually only relevant in midgame and later, after some killing happens.
It's still a pretty terrible matchup for orks though.

As a DE player the armies that scare me are tau and ig. Both of those armies have really good shooting. Basically keep the DE from moving or shooting and you will be safer.
Orks...I don't know what to tell you charge them before they charge you? That really isn't a good answer but it is the best I can come up with.
BA...The problem there is that their ally is speed, the one army that does that better is DE. I would play them the same as you vanilla marines.
As to the marines, razorspam. One of the hardest 1850 lists I have ever played against of marines was like 3-4 tac squads with Las/Flammer (I would have gone ML/Flamer) in Razorbacks with TL Assault Cannons. He had a Captain and some termis. Just that many shots meant he could take a beating and still do damage.
I don't know enough about CSM to give you much advice other than a DP LR is a pain to take down. Yeah you loose one on your BS but ignoring shaken/stunned goes along way.

I've found that Dark Eldar actually have a very tough match up against Eldar, although that doesn't really help the OP. The reason being is that Eldar is fast enough that Dark Eldar's speed advantage isn't as noticeable, and Eldar have an incredible ability to spam strength 6 scatter lasers- which are even more effective against Dark Eldar units than usual. a four shot s6 gun scythes through paper planes, and ignores on the troops. Brutal. Not to mention that as has been said Dark Light weapons are pretty mediocre against Av12, which is all Eldar have.

I play IG with eather full mech or half mech half platoon with alot of heavy weapons. I have found that i pop the paper air plains and gun him down while he walks or he gets to me and i will most likely use. i have also cfound that mech is not always the answer for DE with all the lances may not mean dead tanks but alot will not be moving or shooting on my side. IMO if i were playing an army that has some good cc i would shoot as long as possible then get to them with some cc. AC are the best weapon that i have aganst DE. As IG i field 8 AC heavy weapons teams and there is no way the DE is going to get to me fast enough. the major prioritys is there HQ and transports after that the orks can just wear them down btw melta is a great weapon but when facing DE you do not want to get that close. a

S6+ shooting.

Dark eldar weapons (both poisoned, and lances which are statistically the rough equivalent of vehicle poison 4+) rely on volume of fire unless you're up against a WWP list. You need to bring LOTS of targets, and kite as best you can. Fast razorbacks (blood angels) are brutally good at kiting.

I saw it was already mentioned, but as a grey knight player I'll say it again. Dreadnoughts with autocannons! If the rest of your army is 24" have them near the dreads to force the raiders/venoms/ravagers to get close enough and then unleash hell. Don't try chasing them down in a rhino, they will kite you around and dark lance you to death for your trouble.

There's an interesting mix of things here, some of it I really agree with (Razorspam, multiple shot mid/high strength weapons) some of it I think is really...odd (Lash princes as answer to DE?)

The basic gist is this - DE hit hard. We hit so damn hard that your mammy is gonna feel it. We hit hard in shooting, we hit hard in assault. Plus we're fast, we come all the way across the board, give you a wedgie, and start wuss slapping you while laughing as we provide streaming video of the aforementioned mammy in pain from the blows.

Then you sneeze on us and we die.

The core advice I can give is - you want lots of vehicles to protect your men. Men outside vehicles will be drowned in poison and thrown into assault with invulnerable save packing FNP meth heads on a bad acid trip - you don't want any of that.

You need a lot of vehicles to protect you too. Don't try to pay for tough vehicles, we're not impressed by that, you want AV 11-12 vehicles, those are what give us problems. Yes, that makes no sense - it is DE, deal with it.

Okay, so you're safe in your metal boxes, what now?

You need things that can shoot - preferably with a 48" range. You don't want to have to get out of your boxes though (can't get out, DE will get me, can't get out, DE will get me...) So Razorbacks and Chimera are good standouts of things that are good vs. DE. Thus - Razorspam, the horrible Grey Knight Str 8 Assault Cannon TL Dreads of annoyingness - these are things that hurt DE, because you'll rob us of speed and our paper plate protection.

After that you just want to pick apart the squads, at this stage you can start getting out of your vehicles more often, depending on how much you've hurt the DE it might be safe.

If you're still alive by Turn 4-5 you know you've done something right.
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Specific army advice (aka - things I usually try to kill first/hate to see across from me)

Chaos - Um...you poor bastard. Pretty much bringing 3x Oblits is about as clever as you guys can really get. Most of this army is practically built to have DE curbstomp them. I'd focus on Oblits, and get the rest of your men plasma/meltas and get them in Rhinos, try to drive up and shoot apart the DE as best you're able. Pray a lot. DOn't ever bother with a Demon Prince - he'll be dead whenever we want him dead. Good luck.

Orks - Lootas are the magic button here. 3x Lootas, and in a mob at least 10 strong (15 is better) Each of these is basically a point and kill for any DE vehicle. Bubblewrap them with something - boyz, grots, whatever - just prevent the DE from getting a charge on them. The best Ork list will probably otherwise be a footslogging one - and hope the DE player didn't bring 6x Venoms or 3x Razorwings. (or both...but maybe then he won't be able to kill your walkers...till Turn 2, psych! No - just hope he didn't bring enough AI, sometimes a new DE general will do that)

Blood Angels - (You are aware these guys are probably one of the more competitive armies right now, probably moreso than DE, yes?) My advice - Razorspam. Packing a fair spread of plasma wouldn't hurt - neither does the FNP shenanigans as that will actually slow down your inevitable death to a storm of poison bullets that will come at you. But a fully tricked out BA Razorspam list is on my short list for toughest matchups DE have to face - it's probably top 5, and is certainly top 10.

Ultramarines - Ehhhh...it pains me to help the Ultrasmurfs. Well, probably the best Vanilla tools are simple things - Landspeeders are potent, and some dumber DE generals will overlook them and their destructive powers. Razorbacks are still ace, and any sort of Razorspam list is solid. Predators and Rifleman Dreads will also serve you well - mobile and potent shooting in the mid AV range, remember? Vanillas should *definitely* spend as much time as possible cowering in their boxes. Avoid foot units, also avoid paying out for Landraiders, as we mock them, same with Termies unless it's shooting Termies with Missile Pods and the ilk.

My best advice is you go out and get a DE army and read my tactica so you can help us show how inferior all those other mewling man-child armies are

Thanks for the advice. I think I am getting a better idea.

In summary, one ideally wants to put out as many strength 6 shots as possible at long range. Also, one needs to keep the fleshy bits covered or else those fleshy bits will be poisoned and killed in seconds. It also seems that Dark Eldar have a problem with killing light vehicles, but finds heavy vehicles easier. From what I saw of the Dark Eldar stats, just about any 40K weapon will ignore their armor. Their armor rivals that of Orks. However in close combat they tend to get a bunch of nasty invulnerable saves.

I run foot lists by personal choice (I don't really like vehicles) Most of the advice given seems to rely on staying in / utilizing light armor. However I also noticed that this is mainly to get rid of the Dark Eldars vehicles. If all vehicles were removed from the equation (include walkers because I don't really see them as vehicles.) How would both sides fare?

I notice a lot of Dark Eldar have fleet which must really help them to get into close combat, but if they are running, they are not raining poisoned death on the enemy, and if they are shooting they will also be staying out of close combat range where they are arguably the strongest. (from what I can see. I might be very wrong here.)

Thor665 wrote:
My best advice is you go out and get a DE army and read my tactica so you can help us show how inferior all those other mewling man-child armies are

I would because the models look awesome, My main reason for collecting is painting though, and the detail on the Dark Eldar intimidates me. I personally love the new talos pain engine model.
(to be honest the only reason I have vanilla marines is because I bought a starter paint kit and they teach you how to paint ultramarines.)

The thing is that the units which are fleeting at you are probably wyches or incubi...meaning they do not care if they shot that turn....and warrirors who are shooting at you are pretty bad in combat so they loose nothing by shooting.

As to DE on foot...it does not work very well unless your going the WWP rout...and even then you have a few vehicles to get those portals out there on turn 1.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:If all vehicles were removed from the equation (include walkers because I don't really see them as vehicles.) How would both sides fare?

If the shooting phase were removed, how would both sides fare?
You're making a pretty dramatic request, and one that inherently removes an aspect of the game.
The answer for all foot vs. all foot is - depends on the armies, the point totals and what they were made to do.

I've helped some players in 500-1000 point games who lacked vehicles make very competitive DE lists that dealt with footslogging and mech armies handily.
I've never played against an all footslogging army at point totals over 1000 while I was also using an all footslogging army of DE. So I really am not sure how that would play out.