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Dear Warseer council,

I am new to Dark Eldar and relatively recently bought a Dark Eldar battleforce box along with a HQ option. This is what I have come up with so far. Advice please!


x10 Kabalite Warriors (115pts)
Blaster
Splinter Canon

9 Wyches (130pts)
Hydra Gauntlets
Hekatrix
Agoniser

3 Reavers (88pts)
Champion
Heat Lance

1 Raider (80pts)
Dark Lance
Shock Prow
Flickerfield
Aethersails

1 Haemunculous
Liquifier Gun
Shattershard
Casket of Flensing

498pts with upgrades

Notes:
A) The models will stay as they are in size and composition (though there is the option for an additional wych as there were 10 in the set). I want help with the upgrades
B) I'm looking at keeping the army at 500pts for now!
C) The idea is to have the Haemunculous riding with the wyches in the raider. Scream across the board and ram the enemy. Using his pain token with the wyches. Get into close combat, use his trinkets etc. The Reavers are for harassment while the Kabalites fire from range. Most units have some form of anti-armour weaponry (I think).

Questions:
1) Are the weapon choices and upgrades I have chosen a good idea? Are there better combinations?
2) As an all-round force (well, that was the aim at least) how would it fare? What specific difficulties would it have?


Regards,

Wulfmar

Kabbie loadout is good.

The wytches could use haywire grenades for anti tank, although at 500 points you will probably be okay. Something to consider for bigger games.

The blaster>heat lance on the jetbikes, and the arena champion is not needed.

The raider does not need a flickerfield in 6th, as moving gives you a 5+ save, flat out is a 4+ save.

I would drop the casket of flensing from the hamey. With the shattershard, the casket and the liquifier that is a lot of guns on a model that you may not get to use. The casket is too dependent on good dice.
Shattershards are amazing, and so are liquifiers. Maybe add in a scissorhand or venom blade for CC ability.

Your list is fine for a beginner 500 point army.

I agree with Serling. The things he suggests that you drop will probably make plenty of room for haywire grenades on the wyches. I would also reccomend a blaster for the reavers rather than the heat lance. The heat lance is as good as a melta on AV14, but other than that it's worse by a reasonable way. The blaster, however, is plenty good enough to take out most vehicles. Alternatively, go for cluster caltrops. I'm not certain you need a champion either.

Some bizarre choices and some noobie choices:

Kabalites: Blaster needs to be close Splinter cannon needs to be far away. I'd porbably split into 2 squads (ideally in venoms both with blasters).

Wyches: Why take Hydra Gauntlets when Razorflails are the same points and do more damage? You need haywire grenades on the unit.

Reavers: No need for champion unless you want to assault and 3 jetbikes won't be winning assault against anything. Also blaster is generally far superior to the Heatlance. I'd swap that and get cluster caltrops on them they are what you really want to be doing with the unit (moving over stuff and never slowing down).

Raider: Isn't worth 80 points for an open topped AV10 vehicle it just dies too easily. Flickerfields aren't really worth it as you get a 5+ save for moving anyway. Shock prow isn't much use either as an AV10 vehicle isn't going to survive a Ram nor is it really likely to do much damage. Likewise Aethersails aren't really worth it unless you have spare points and nothing to spend them on.

Haemmie just needs a liquifier and nothing else keep him on the boat and burn stuff. Let the Wyches take the pain token and go hunting.

So drop the unnecessary stuff and take only wargear that is going to help the unit in their primary role. DE can't afford to carry around chaff.

My advise is to drop the Reavers in favour of a raider for your Kabalites. The Raider should have night shields and splinter racks at the very least. This gives your kabalites mobility and re-rolls to hit. Get within rapid fire range and that's a lot of damage you can do. The Night Shields pay dividends, and can lead to your opponent turning funny colours as he or she rages at his basic troops type always being 6" out of range because of "those damned shields". Get to within 24" of their bolter equivalent totting trooper, and their effective range is reduced to 18". Works wonders

The Reavers are nice models, I've not used them myself though have heard that they're use is limited in groups of 3. Dropping these gives you the points you need for the extra Raider and the beautiful goodness that is re-roll-alites. Seriously, I run this all the time and they just wreck everything.

I'd drop the aethersails on the wyches raider, as (IIRC) you can't disembark after using them, and lets face it you won't want to be running AWAY from something with Wyches will you. A better upgrade would be a PGL for the Hekatrix and torment grenade launchers or grisly trophies (both if you can!) on the raider. Wyches jump out, turn everything to mush, your opponent passes his Ld test, is forced to re-roll, fails, you cut him down and consolidate in to cover, or (if you've positioned your raider out of LOS) back on to the raider in preparation for next turn.

Just in regards to what Sterling said on FF's in 6th ed, he's right, you can get the 5++ jink save for free now, though that does mean that you then can't shoot in the following turn. The FF has actually continued to be a big winner for the DE as it means that they're (the only race not 100% sure on that) capable of taking an Inv save and shooting back in the next turn when everyone else can't even put a finger on the trigger. This means you'll either a) destroy what you're shooting at, or b) force him / her to take another jink, which gives you another chance of not being shot at next turn.

In a low points game though you have to question the value of that 10 points, and whether or not it'd be better spent elsewhere.

As for the haemy, upgrade his CCW to something capable of doing damage. He's weak as hell in close combat and needs the edge. An alternative option for him would be to put him with your Kabalites (though you'd lose the SC, and you want the extra shots it gives in low point games) and give him the hexrifle for neutralising characters. You could use him to snipe power fist sergeants or whatever out of a squad, thin the rest of the unit with the kabalites, then the wyches pile in, mop up, and gain their pain token that way.

So there we are, I hope that's of some help? Your original list was fine, but with a couple of tweaks it could be EPIC.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

FlingitNow wrote:Some bizarre choices and some noobie choices:

Kabalites: Blaster needs to be close Splinter cannon needs to be far away. I'd porbably split into 2 squads (ideally in venoms both with blasters).

You can't do that, SC's can only be taken if the squad numbers 10+

Wyches: Why take Hydra Gauntlets when Razorflails are the same points and do more damage? You need haywire grenades on the unit.

Flails are just a re-roll, whereas the hydras are D6 extra attacks. Not wanting to sound rude, can you explain why a re-roll is better?

Reavers: No need for champion unless you want to assault and 3 jetbikes won't be winning assault against anything. Also blaster is generally far superior to the Heatlance. I'd swap that and get cluster caltrops on them they are what you really want to be doing with the unit (moving over stuff and never slowing down).

Raider: Isn't worth 80 points for an open topped AV10 vehicle it just dies too easily. Flickerfields aren't really worth it as you get a 5+ save for moving anyway. Shock prow isn't much use either as an AV10 vehicle isn't going to survive a Ram nor is it really likely to do much damage. Likewise Aethersails aren't really worth it unless you have spare points and nothing to spend them on.

Refer to my above post re FF's.

Mathwise Razorfail is better than Hydra, Also PGL on Heka is not necessary, since wyches already do have assault grenades. The only unit in Codex which needs Phantasm Grenade Launcher are Incubi and they can have access to it via attached Archon.

I think possibly I didn't make my question/circumstances clear enough with the initial post - though thank you to Dr. Serling and p_gray99 as I think you understood what I mean't and your replies have been very helpful!

Addition to original post/rewording:
I bought the battleforce box - I'm not buying more models. I want to use the ones from the box. I'm not sure why people are saying 'buy this, and this, and this, don't bother using the ones from the box'... Wouldn't be any point in buying the box then - which I already have. I did say originally ''The models will stay as they are in size and composition''. Hopefully that should clear up any misunderstandings!

I think giving the Haemunculous the scissor hands will be a very good idea after looking more in detail at his stat line. I'll remove the Flickerfield and Aethersails from the Raider and change the Kabalite blaster to a splinter cannon. Reavers will obtain a blaster instead of the heatlance. Point costings work out roughly the same ^^

People are saying "get this, it will do a better job as footslogging your kabalites is ill advised" that's all.

There weren't any misunderstandings on my part, just advise from one that has some experience. Take it, leave it, your call, though your reply seems more than a little ungrateful to those that took time out of their day to give you extra pointers to the ones you'd already received on the specifics you'd given.

Certainly if you are going to buy anything soon then raiders and venoms are up there alongside ravagers, however until then there are a few upgrades to be done. For example, the hydra gauntlets aren't the best choice. Most people swear by the razorflails. I go for shardnet and impaler and then hope I can put that wych next to their powerfist serg. I'm not sure what you could spend the points on, but you could get rid of quite a few points on the raider, perhaps get a webway portal for the haemy so that the reavers and warriors can do some nasty stuff as soon as they come on? Basically, you're nearing the best list possible with only those resources.