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So I decided to sit down and write a list based around the truly disgusting Covens of the Haemonculi. Now never having actually played DE on the table, I'm looking at you guys to help rip it apart and put it back together. Keep in mind that I'm hoping to keep the overall fluff of an army led by the Haemoncului, so don't tell me that a gunboat army full of trueborns and warriors is better. The wargear is all up for question, and keep in mind that this army is designed to get everyone 3 pain tokens as quickly as possible. I think (prays fervently) that this list should be slightly more forgiving than the more common and more fragile armies of the Kabals and Wychcults. (Use cover well) And without further ado:

UPDATED VERSION OF THIS LIST FURTHER DOWN! I've kept this version here in order to show you the progression.

Dark Eldar 2000 points

HQ: -Haemonculus Ancient, Huskblade, splinter pistol, soul trap, Animus Vitae. -130 points

-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier gun, mindphase gauntlet. -105 points

-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier gun, venom blade. -100 points

HQ:-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier Gun, Huskblade. -130 points

Elites: -4 Grotesques, Liquifier Gun. Aberration, Scissorhands, Raider w/ dark lance. -235 points

Troops: -9Wracks, Liquifier Gun, Acothyst w/ scissorhand, Raider w/ dark lance. -125 points

Troops: -9 Wracks, Liquifier Gun, Acothyst w/ scissorhand, Raider w/ dark lance. -125 points

Troops: -10 Wracks,2 Liquifier Guns, Acothyst w/ scissorhand, Raider w/ dark lance. -145 points

Troops: -10 Wracks,2 Liquifier Guns, Acothyst w/ scissorhand, Raider w/ dark lance. -145 points

Heavy Support: -Ravager, 3 Dark lances, nightshields. -115 points

Heavy Support: -Talos Pain Engine, Chain Flails, Extra C.C.W. -125 points

Heavy Support: -Talos Pain Engine, Chain Flails, Extra C.C.W. -125 points

Heavy Support: -Cronos Parasite Engine, Spirit Probe, Spirit vortex -110 points

Heavy Support: -Cronos Parasite Engine, Spirit Probe, Spirit vortex -110 points

Heavy Support: -Razorwing Jetfighter, 4 Necrotoxin Missiles, Flickerfield. -175 points


Overall Idea: Start each game with ravager, and 3 raiders on board. In cover!! One raider has Grotesques and Haemonculus Ancient, as well as another Haemonculus with Webway Portal. 2 other Raiders are identical with 9 Wracks and Haemoncului with Webway Portals. These should be set up opposite objectives, and first turn, race as fast as possible towards each objective. Go flat out, because there's no real shooting. Ravager snipes tanks. Turn 2, disembark, rush objectives, drop portals near objectives, assault what you can. (Get the Haemonculus Ancient with soultrap a tasty IC if possible Reserves come on, Razorwing eats heavy infantry, MC's come out the portals. Cronos use ranged weapons to throw a disgusting amount of pain tokens around, making all the troops fearless. Talos do their dirty duty, assaulting any vehicles if they're too stupid to get too close. (I love smash. Roll well with Talos and you're looking at 4 strength 10 attacks on the rear armor of vehicles. ) Reserved wracks come in to grab objectives on your board edge/ mobile reserve. Please point out my glaring mistakes with rules and/or math, I wrote this list late last night.

Reading through this your plan is to have the WWPs up in turn 2, my problem with this is that 2/3rds of your reserves are going to hit the table before you drop your WWPs. In 6th its a 3+ roll on turn 2 IIRC. You want the WWPs to be on the table turn 1 otherwise you're going to have very angry MCs walking on the board from your edge and if you get Hammer and Anvil, thats almost a write off on all of those scary Engines. If you shell out 70 points for the Aegis wall with the Comms Relay you can take the 2/3rds and drop it down to 4/9ths that come on the board turn 2 with its rerolls.

Parts of this I can't comment on, so I won't try those parts...
3 raiders and 1 ravager on the board to start is a bit crazy for DE. That said, it's how the WWP works so...
I'd add a flickerfield to the grotesques' raider and lower the two wracks squads down to fit them venoms. The flickerfield isn't a lot, but it will significantly increase the chances that at least one of those WWP will make it to where it needs to go.
Next, the ancient should probably be downgraded and drop the huskblades. Haemonculus are support with CC as a last resort. Venom blade or scissorhands is enough for them.
IMO, the Acothysts are also not needed and the points better spent elsewhere (perhaps another squad of wracks or grotesques).
Another thing to at least consider would be to drop on of the haemonculus for the Lady. While she doesn't totally fit the theme, the ability to reposition 1-3 units before the game starts would be huge for this list in getting out of range from the enemy's most dangerous stuff for that first push across the board.
Finally, I'd suggest dropping at least one of the WWP on turn 1 for the reserves that will show on turn 2.

Indeed the reserves rules seem to be a problem. So perhaps downgrade ancient, give him yet another WWP instead, break up the wracks and have 4 WWP on the board. One drops on turn 1 for any reserves that don't feel like hanging back, and has to weather a turn of shooting. Would a larger unit (meaning not a 4 man squad with a haemonculus) be better for that? Also, my reason for not taking the flickerfield is jink primarily, but also, with only 4 vehicles on the field turn one, i should be able to get all four decent cover. Acothysts are there generally to increase attack spam, but maybe should be dropped?

A new, updated, streamlined version of the list based on feedback:
Orange is something that was changed. All the Acothysts on the Wrack squads were dropped.


Dark Eldar 2000 points

HQ: -Haemonculus, Mindphase Gauntlet, Scissorhand, Webway Portal -105 points

-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier gun, mindphase gauntlet. -105 points

-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier gun, venom blade. -100 points

HQ:-Haemonculus, Webway Portal, Liquifier Gun,Venom Blade. -100 points

Elites: -4 Grotesques, Liquifier Gun. Aberration, Scissorhands, Raider w/ dark lance. -235 points

Troops: -9Wracks, Liquifier Gun, Raider w/ dark lance. -100 points

Troops: -9Wracks, Liquifier Gun, Raider w/ dark lance. -100 points

Troops: -9Wracks, Raider w/ dark lance. -100 points

Troops: -10 Wracks,2 Liquifier Guns, Raider w/ dark lance. -120 points

Troops: -10 Wracks,2 Liquifier Guns, Raider w/ dark lance. -120 points

Heavy Support: -Ravager, 3 Dark lances, nightshields. -115 points

Heavy Support: -Talos Pain Engine, Chain Flails, Extra C.C.W. -125 points

Heavy Support: -Talos Pain Engine, Chain Flails, Extra C.C.W. -125 points

Heavy Support: -Cronos Parasite Engine, Spirit Probe, Spirit vortex -110 points

Heavy Support: -Cronos Parasite Engine, Spirit Probe, Spirit vortex -110 points

Heavy Support: -Razorwing Jetfighter, 4 Necrotoxin Missiles, Flickerfield. -175 points


Now at least there are 4 Webway Portals on board turn 1, 4 raiders and 1 ravager on board turn 1 now.
What do you think?

OK.

Giving the Haems anything above a Venom Blade is frankly wasted points, as is upgrading Haems to ancients.

The 2+ poison (invaribly re-rollable) to wound is usually MUCH more effective than the 3+ poison +1 more attack of scissorhands, the 4+ poison + possible instant death of the flesh gauntlet (most of your targets will only have 1 wound, and frankly, anything bigger is probably going to have a decent save and/or smush your haem.) and a Huskblade is just outright wasted points...

Venom Blade + Liquifier OR Hex Rifle is generally the best way to run your Haem.

NEXT, Grotesques, fine, except give the Grot a Venom Blade.
It's 10 pts less, you lose 1 attack, but any successful hit has a 97% chance to wound, so overall it's more effective.

For the Wracks, Acothysts with Venom Blades are good (again, better than the scissor hand), they provide a few extra wounds, and Ld9 (which is better than your haems).

I would only take 1 Cronos at most. They're a complete waste for the Grots / Wracks with Haems as those already start with 2 Pain Tokens and will likely get fearless in short order. The other wracks it might help, and of course whacking pain tokens on the Talos is always nice, but I'd rather have more Talos in the end.

As for the Razorwing - The Monoscythes are the best option.

For the vast majority of targets, Str6 Ap5 will be wounding on a 2+ regardless. With the new rules reverting it back to the whole template being full strength, you can hit multiple vehicles at once, penning / taking off hull points easily enough.
At the moment you're paying 20pts to lose all ability vs vehicles with the missiles, and to wound on 2+ against T5+ (Most targets with T5+ will have a good enough save to probably shrug it off too.)

If you MUST upgrade your missiles, then go for Shatters - +1 Str means you're wonding on 2+ until you hit T6 and the Ap- doesn't make any difference vs vehicles now and it re-rolls to wound. But frankly I feel the 20pts is better utilised elsewhere.

I'd also be running 2-3 of the raiders with Dissies. The Str5, AP2 Heavy 3 is really useful these days, wipes out GEQs, MEQs, TEQs nicely and kill light vehicles quite happily.