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Taking a shot at Dark Eldar in 6th edition, and trying something a little different. You see, ever since the Codex came out I've been desperately in love with The Duke, I just never found a way to use his particular special rules effectively. Now, however, with some of the changes that 6th edition brings I feel as though he can finally be used to full effectiveness. With that I bring you The Duke's Personal Harem.

HQ-
Duke Sliscus

Elites-
-9 Trueborn
2 Splinter Cannons
7 Shardcarbines
Raider
Night Shields

Troops-
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon
-5 Wyches
Hydra Guantlets
Haywire Grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon


Fast Attack-
-3 Beastmasters
5 Khymerae
2 Razorwing Flocks
2 Razorwing Flocks
-3 Beastmasters
5 Khymerae
2 Razorwing Flocks
2 Razorwing Flocks

Heavy Support-
-Razorwing
-Razorwing
-Razorwing


This list actually comes to, if I did my math right, 2k points exactly. With the changes that 6th edition bring to vehicles specifically I feel like Dark Eldar don't need to rely entirely on our darklight anymore, especially since Haywire Grenades will kill almost any vehicle we assault with the Wyches, and with our large first turn turbo-boost followed by 6"+6"+2d6" re-rollable charge range the following turn we'll more likely than not be able to get the ladies stuck in with whatever priority targets we need to take out with the venoms taking off shooting stragglers. With the recent FAQ a lot of people have decried the death of the coven list as Agonizers don't ignore TEQ saves, The Duke's personal boat is going to be popping out 33 poisoned 3+ shots a turn. Even if they're snap-fire that's going to hurt, and I can imagine first turn TB parking within range of whatever Deathstar they may have, and shoving 33 3+/3+ shots down their throats. TEQ can only take so many saves before the ones start showing up. Not to mention the Beastmasters can also take them on with the razorwings, and if we need to we can pot-shot 12 splinter cannon rounds each from the venoms.

I come now to my favorite part about the list and the codex in general, the Razorwings. They're here mostly for Air Superiority, and beyond Dakka Jets I think they're one of the best vehicles at it, but beyond that they also come stock with their 4 monoscythe missiles that can all be fired during the same turn. That's 12 S6 AP5 pie plates in one shooting phase. While I can't imagine it wiping a board, it sure as hell will put a dent in the opponent's army, especially considering the new blast rules vs vehicles and that the glancing hits they deal can wreck em. I feel like that gives this list a good amount of focused Anti-Tank (Wyches/Beasts), a decent amount of AA (Razorwings), and a great volume of Anti-Infantry firepower/assault. It also has The Duke's option of deep-striking any vehicle in the army as well, which may or may not be useful depending on what's on the other side of the table.

Please note as well that while I did try to make this list as competitive as I could, it is by no means what I would describe as WAAC, or even particularly great. I'm sure there's a lot I could do to improve it, and I'd love some comments on it. This is just a first draft of what I think would work well for a themed list in 6th that isn't Blasterborn based.

Sadly, i think we can only shoot 2 missiles a turn now (as per page 81 in 6th edition)

Otherwise, i like your list! Makes good use of the Duke, who is rather awesome.

My old Duke list had the same Trueborn loadout, 3 squads of 9 Wyches (inc Heka w/ agonizers) 3 Haem(Liquifier) and 3 Ravagers. All in Raiders with a few Aethersails.

Here's my thoughts:

Vanilla warriors with a splinter rack will probably be more cost effective than then the Trueborn with cannons and carbines when riding with Duke. Now that you can still get a hit at 24" as well as the re-rolls with the racks it's a good cheap alternative.

While Flyers are almost mandatory now, I'm going to be taking mixed heavies for a while until the meta develops. I'm thinking 2 Ravs and a Razor or Rav-Razor-Void mixing up Disintegrators (for TEQ). But who knows, you might be a pioneer with the triple Razorwing list, definitely not a bad choice.

The beasts look good, there's a few people at the moment who are considering clawed fiend for soaking up hits but I don't think they realize that majority toughness is still in effect. Another experimental idea I have is to put a 'power axe' on a beastmaster. It'll be interesting to see if such a unit can combat TEQ effectively (obviously wither it down first with firepower).

MSU Wyches is an interesting choice. The cons would be that the initial assault would lose a good proportion of their unit to overwatch, however this would also mean that you can pile in other Wyches to the same combat with no penalty.

Also you are able to use more thrown haywires.

Play a game and tell us how it goes.

Looks OK. I'm NOT a fan of MSU wyches, never will be. I'm also not a venomspam lover either lol... Razorwings got better, but are still incredibly fragile (looking at you IG and SW....)

Give it a try and let us know. I'm going to be taking my Duke list sometime in the future after tweaking my Blood Angels, Daemons, and Necrons...

>Zid
What's your Duke force looking like atm?

Redsox84 wrote:Sadly, i think we can only shoot 2 missiles a turn now (as per page 81 in 6th edition)

Otherwise, i like your list! Makes good use of the Duke, who is rather awesome.

I unfortunately don't have my own copy of the rulebook yet, I simply poured over a friend's yesterday to confirm/deny the extensive reading I had done on it so I can't read through to check on that, but I had thought (And full well could be wrong) that the Razorwing had some sort of special rule that could allow that. If not, and I'm more inclined to believe you than my own horrible memory, no huge deal, 2 per turn is still great coverage.

Maige wrote:My old Duke list had the same Trueborn loadout, 3 squads of 9 Wyches (inc Heka w/ agonizers) 3 Haem(Liquifier) and 3 Ravagers. All in Raiders with a few Aethersails.

Here's my thoughts:

Vanilla warriors with a splinter rack will probably be more cost effective than then the Trueborn with cannons and carbines when riding with Duke. Now that you can still get a hit at 24" as well as the re-rolls with the racks it's a good cheap alternative.

While Flyers are almost mandatory now, I'm going to be taking mixed heavies for a while until the meta develops. I'm thinking 2 Ravs and a Razor or Rav-Razor-Void mixing up Disintegrators (for TEQ). But who knows, you might be a pioneer with the triple Razorwing list, definitely not a bad choice.

The beasts look good, there's a few people at the moment who are considering clawed fiend for soaking up hits but I don't think they realize that majority toughness is still in effect. Another experimental idea I have is to put a 'power axe' on a beastmaster. It'll be interesting to see if such a unit can combat TEQ effectively (obviously wither it down first with firepower).

MSU Wyches is an interesting choice. The cons would be that the initial assault would lose a good proportion of their unit to overwatch, however this would also mean that you can pile in other Wyches to the same combat with no penalty.

Also you are able to use more thrown haywires.

Play a game and tell us how it goes.

I thought the exact same thing with the warriors, especially now that we can actually shoot while going 12, but I wanted to save the space for the Wyches. I know we can do the double FoC now, but at the same time that'd require another compulsory HQ/Troops which I simply wouldn't have the points for (All the HQ's in the 'dex add nothing to this list for their cost IMHO). Maybe I could do it with just 'nilla Trueborn and use the extra points squeeze out to fill in some holes elsewhere? I'm not entirely sure, but I'll try to fiddle around with it, because you are right in the squad being pretty pricey for what it does.

I mostly took the 3 R-wings because I love the models and their versatility, not to mention the fluff about The Duke's Pirate Fleets (Pirate-dar sounds like the most fun modeling ever). I think you might be spot on with the Voidraven though, since I imagine the Void Lances will be amazing at taking out other aircraft as well as ground targets, and the voidmine doesn't seem like something to sneeze at. I'd have to play around with the different load-outs, maybe try some 2 R-wing 1 VR see how that goes and move from there.

I also picked up the Beasts and MSU Wyches for a very specific reason, the hammer and anvil. I feel like 4 Razor flocks in each unit would have no problem taking out even TEQ, and I can charge with the throw-away wyches first to eat overwatch and then hammer with the Beasts. Alternatively, they save overwatch for the beasts, the wyches get in fine, and I eat the overwatch on Khymerae rather than Wyches. Either that or I let the wyches tarpit (If it's a unit they can do it to) and send the beasts where they could be of more use. Not to mention they help with target saturation. Overall the Wyches are there to be threatening, but not TOO threatening. With multiple squads I can consolidate my charges all into one squad, hit multiple squads that I need to tie up, take out up to 6 vehicles a turn in the assault phase, or whatever I might need.

Also, as an aside about the venom-spam, I really don't even want the venoms. I'd rather get more Raiders and pop on Disintegrators, but in doing that I'd be spending 30 more points than I currently am. I could try playing around with the trueborn squads and see what room I could make, possibly taking off the splinter cannons and putting in carbines, opening up the 30 points to bump the venoms up to raiders with Desi's. I definitely see one of the biggest weaknesses of this list as not enough quality shooting. I honestly don't know which would be better though, 72 poisoned AP5 shots or 18 S5 AP2. The first seems better, but at the same time denying saves to TEQ, what would seem to me as our hardest match up, seems great as well. Maybe I could try a mixed set-up, 2 Venoms for 24 shots and 4 Raiders for 12. That would also look much nicer on the table, and maybe I could shave off some more points somewhere to add power weapons into the units.

I'm not entirely sure. Guess that's why I posted this here, haha. I'm probably going to be able to get a game in sometime next weekend or the one after (4th of July this week, going to be crazy busy at work), I'll update with how it works out then.

@Shikahake7

The first thing to point out is that the only shooting you can do at 12" are snapshots unfortunately. Another thing is that if you are taking rifles you take them on 'nilla warriors not TB, it saves points and you have an extra scoring unit. TB are only used for special weapons.

I'm not too great with mathhammer, but I'll try to put it into perspective anyway.

9 warriors w/ splinter rack and 'DukeJuice' get 9 shots at 24" and 18 shots at 12". They re-roll 3+ to hit and wound on 3+.

9 decked out shardborn (7carbines 2 cannons) and juice get 8 shots at 36" and 29 shots at 18". 3+ hit (no re-roll) 3+ wound.

So it averages 11 wounds for warriors (12") and 13 wounds for the TB (18") ......mathhammer guys might need to correct me here.

The Warriors are 91pts
The Trueborn are 163pts
72pt difference.

However we also have to consider that the Trueborn (while not scoring) are still fully effective on foot which also means you can take the risk of disembarking them after a 6" move for some extra range (6thed disembark is also 6" from hull).

The Dark Eldar Heavy support debate will probably ignite pretty soon (I might even start a thread myself). At first glance the Razorwing seems like the more reliable and cheaper option although the Voidraven can cause absurd amounts of damage if played right. I think the consensus will develop with the metagame, that's why I'm going to experiment with all three (Including my old Ravagers).

The MSU Wyches is definitely something that needs to be play tested. It seems counter-intuitive to me (Because I always played them Raiders-Haemon-Heka w/ weapon).
I'll admit that I did a lot of complaining when the power weapon rules occurred to me in the rumour thread, but I still think I'll be using them against a lot of units, maybe with power spear instead of agonizer.

But yeah, as the metagame is currently in its Birth throes, all we can really do is experiment. Definitely lots of paradigm shifts, I've decided that I'm taking Eldrad and a Pathfinder squad for my first DE game......

Maige wrote:>Zid
What's your Duke force looking like atm?

Really haven't worked on it yet, currently pondering my other three armies as DE (IMO) got hit pretty hard with a nerfstick currently. Heres my thoughts though:

- Archons got better, soaking up wounds for their units.
- Drazhar got drastically better, I'd say hes probably one of the best dueling charecters in the game (cuz if they decline you can still go after them by bouncing to BTB)
- Wyches got the beatdown. Our PW's are only AP3, we don't get dodge on the charge vs overwatch, and FnP got knocked down a bit.
- Warriors stayed basically the same
- Raiders and Venoms got nerfed. You can either get out, and move, that way the transport can move 12" so it needs 6's to hit, or you can more 6' so you can get that extra charge range, at the trade off that your raider/venoms gonna probably get smashed
- Haywires are pretty much a must IMO. They got far better, probably the best AT in the game now.
- At least we got Flickerfields for free... oh wait, so did every other skimmer... >.>
- We're the best army for beating down necrons now.
- Hexrifles may be pretty good for warrior squads sitting in back... if your Haemi rolls a 6 to hit, you can allocate to the sergeant/nob/charecter, and have a good chance at instakilling em

That said, heres what I'm thinking of running at 2k (currently):

HQ
Duke - 150 pts
Haemi - SS - 65 pts
Haemi - 50 pts
Haemi - 50 pts

Elites
3x trueborn - 3x blasters - Venom w/ dual SC - 146 pts
3x trueborn - 3x blasters - Venom w/ dual SC - 146 pts
3x trueborn - 3x blasters - Venom w/ dual SC - 146 pts

Troops
7x Wyches - Hekagonizer, haywires - Raider w/ shockprow -179 pts
7x Wyches - Hekagonizer, haywires - Raider w/ shockprow -179 pts
7x Wyches - Hekagonizer, haywires - Raider w/ shockprow -179 pts
10x Warriors - Raider w/ racks - 155 pts
9x Warriors - Raider w/ racks - 146 pts

Heavy Support
Ravager - 3x DL's - 105 pts
Ravager - 3x DL's - 105 pts
Voidraven - 2x Necromissiles, 2x Monoscythes - 195 pts

Total: 1996 pts

This is a draft not using my dex, but its modified a but from my 5th ed list. I'm thinking Haemis may want Agonizers in case of duels, Hexrifles also are pretty tempting now, and Nightshields seem kinda meh as EVERYONEs going to kit to wreck fliers, so that -6" isn't gonna do crapola. Just gotta keep moving with DE now

Looks pretty nice and economical. I think I'm in the same boat (no pun intended) while DE are my favourite force it's going to take me a while to adapt to the changes, I'll be focussing on my GK for a few games.

Haemonculus equipment is interesting indeed.

In regards to TEQ:

Liquifier has a 50% chance to wound and a 33.33..% chance to crack the armour which is the same but more valuable because of PW changes.

ShatterShard simply wipes out 33.33..% of whatever it touches. Not sure how LOS will affect this, but with the new allocation rules I think it means explicitly that any MODEL under the template is in danger including EW.....
So it's totally worth a suicidal charge if it means you can hit a Draigostar or something.



Disregarding TEQ Hexrifle is still chancy as sin. You need to hit on 6 wound on 4+ have them fail their save then fail a wound test. Still better than it was though, you'll be skipping the third step on anything <3+.

Maige wrote:9 warriors w/ splinter rack and 'DukeJuice' get 9 shots at 24" and 18 shots at 12". They re-roll 3+ to hit and wound on 3+.

9 decked out shardborn (7carbines 2 cannons) and juice get 8 shots at 36" and 29 shots at 18". 3+ hit (no re-roll) 3+ wound.

So it averages 11 wounds for warriors (12") and 13 wounds for the TB (18") ......mathhammer guys might need to correct me here.

The Warriors are 91pts
The Trueborn are 163pts
72pt difference.

Your numbers are correct, what's important to note, as well as the versatility of the Trueborn being able to disembark, is the fact that, their 11 extra shots are significant in terms of probability and luck, because a particularly lucky round of shooting has the potential to be much more devastating, whereas the warriors are inflating their damage by offsetting bad luck with the splinter racks.