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I play dark eldar and mostly I have a pretty heavy kabalite and wych army
My HQ is The duke, and I switch between lelith and some haemunculi for the second slot. I just picked up some wracks for some coven goodness, as well as to give me a little assault buff. I was wondering what the best way to run wracks is. Is it better to have 4 and a haemi in a venom, or 9 and a haemi in a raider? Are the good tarpitters or unit killers?

Wracks aren't that great anymore, not their fault, assault just isn't that great anymore. They're even worse off thanks to not having fleet so they really suffer from random charge distances.

That being said, they do have their uses. I've found them useable in either squads of 5 with a liquifier gun in a venom as a cheap scoring unit for clearing off objectives and long ranged anti-infantry from the Venom or as a squad of 10 with two liquifiers and a haemonculus attached for a third. The latter requires more than a single unit though, if you can put 3-4 squads of Wracks on the board they're liable to do some nasty things to anything sitting in cover. In short, their biggest strength is their liquifier guns which are oh so fething delightfully good. Best flamer in the game if you ask me. The other bodies are really there to keep the liquifier gun alive and help you capture objectives.

As much as I like liquifier guns, they don't come close to the sheer delight of a 4+ AP2 wound or 4+ glance you get from the Breath of Chaos.

And speaking from the perspective of the imperial guard, I'd rather be hit by a liquifier gun that just about any other flamer in existence.

Which requires a psychic test, can be psychic-defense'd and can't be spammed ad nauseam for 10 points each.

The only thing I'd consider better than the Liquifier gun is crap that's mounted on vehicles, like a Heldrake's bad breath. But when I say flamer, I mean stuff on infantry.

Corollax wrote:
And speaking from the perspective of the imperial guard, I'd rather be hit by a liquifier gun that just about any other flamer in existence.

Because one in six times it won't pierce your armor? Think about the big picture, man...

More that I'm taking wounds on 4+ instead of 3+ like I normally do. =P

...No, you're getting wounded on a 3+. Liquifiers are Strength 4.

Yeah, wracks are basically about unlocking venoms in groups of three, venoms+liquifier gun in a group of 5, and a pair of liquifier guns in 10(maybe in a raider). If you have a hamey to make them scoring. Liquifier guns mess up units, and they are decent at finishing off small units in assault.

Running a hamey with them is optional. They already have one stock, and FNP is the most important anyways. FC is not that important as they have poisoned weapons, although the re rolls to wound MEQ is handy.

They are also cheap and rather survivable by dark eldar standards. Unlike wytches or kabbies, they can be scoring units that don't evaporate under bolter fire.

In addition to what Dr. Serling said (and to clarify my comment earlier) the reason I'd suggest running 10 with a haemonculus attached is the third liquifier gun. Stronger shooting phase. As he said, FC ain't that big a deal.

If you do run 10 with a haemi what is the preferred use for them? Also, if you wanted to use wracks in a raider is it better to do 9 and a haemi or 10 by themselves? Then what do you guys use them for?

 Lokas wrote:
...No, you're getting wounded on a 3+. Liquifiers are Strength 4.

Wow, am I really that tired? Thanks. (Edit: At least it's not a 2+ like the heavy flamers I was thinking of...)

 jetstumpy wrote:
If you do run 10 with a haemi what is the preferred use for them? Also, if you wanted to use wracks in a raider is it better to do 9 and a haemi or 10 by themselves? Then what do you guys use them for?

It depends on the composition of the rest of your list for me. If you have 4 squads of 10 Wracks, I'd feel safe starting them on the board and using them to try and clear out infantry in your deployment zone and the midfield. They're not very fast without a transport, hence why you don't zip them into the enemy's deployment zone. That's more a use for 10 wracks in a raider. Which, I'd suggest 10 in a raider on their lonesome except for one squad that is an escort for your mandatory HQ. Alternatively, you can take 20 Kabalite Warrior blob, throw the haemonculus in there, and have 10 man squads of wracks zipping around in raiders and hosing down trouble spots. I think that's the direction I'm going to take for my revised Wet T-shirt Contest list.

@Corollax: No problem. I'm currently studying for finals (at least trying) so I understand the insomnia plague.

My list includes

The Duke
9 Kalabites raider

10 kalabites in a raider

x2 wyches in raider

10 Wracks in raider

x2 trueborns w/4 blasters in venoms

ravager
razorwing

Scourges w/ haywire blasters

For my second HQ slot I've been using Lelith with mixed success, but I was thinking about switching her out for a trio of Haemunculi.
What do you think?

That would work well.

If I could make one suggestion though, I'd say to drop the two raiders for the Kabalites, group them up in a big 20 strong blob with two splinter cannons and stick the duke there. It's an incredibly potent unit that has served me very well. And because you roll for combat drugs before deployment, you can see if the blob will start with FnP from the duke or if you wanna attach a haemonculus there to give it to them. From that point on, you can either attach them to the Wych squads or the Wracks squad, although the 2x liquifier gun Wracks in a Raider doesn't really need a Haemy. Plus you'd have to take off one of the Wracks so then it'd still only have 2 liquifier guns, but one of them would be on a 60 point model instead of a 20 point model.

 jetstumpy wrote:
My list includes
9 Kalabites raider

10 kalabites in a raider
What do you think?

I've never run Kalabites, I must try them!

Jokes, jokes.

Lelith is pretty bad since she struggles killing anything T4+. Even charging against guardsmen she only nets 4 kills. Which isn't very good. 3 haemies is much better

Personally, I'd steer away from foot DE as they are much, much slower. Which is'nt very good.

Wracks, despite not having basic guns, can take liquifiers, which are amazing. In a venom with dual SC they're even nastier. 10 in a Raider is also good, and if necessary you're not that bad in combat, mostly because you can survive overwatch.

My fave way to run wracks is in mini units of 3 to allow for a cheap DE fleet.

A raider with 3 wracks is less than 100 pts IIRC, and a venom about the same. If you wanted to fleet up it's cheaper than some options.

Those mini-units can be surprisingly sturdy and tend to get underestimated by the opponent, also. I've had objectives contested or held just because the unit was so small that the oppoenent forgot it was there


Failing that i like to run Urien as HQ plus wracks, and run them in raiders with 2 liquifiers. Urien's extra pain tokens mean that i don't need to assign a haemy, so i can get 2 liquifiers in the unit and still ride.

 Lokas wrote:
That would work well.

If I could make one suggestion though, I'd say to drop the two raiders for the Kabalites, group them up in a big 20 strong blob with two splinter cannons and stick the duke there. It's an incredibly potent unit that has served me very well. And because you roll for combat drugs before deployment, you can see if the blob will start with FnP from the duke or if you wanna attach a haemonculus there to give it to them. From that point on, you can either attach them to the Wych squads or the Wracks squad, although the 2x liquifier gun Wracks in a Raider doesn't really need a Haemy. Plus you'd have to take off one of the Wracks so then it'd still only have 2 liquifier guns, but one of them would be on a 60 point model instead of a 20 point model.

What would I do with the 20 man blob of kalabites? Wouldn't they just die too fast on foot? That seems to be my experience with them foot slogging.

Deploy them in cover, and move up the board turn 3-4 to claim any objectives.

They are fragile, but they have a lot of wounds, really really good guns (especially if they've got the 3+ poison from Duke) and function as a good anvil unit for board control purposes. In other words, they create a large kill zone that your opponent doesn't wanna send infantry units in, or they will get shredded. Once it gets a pain token, it's abnormally durable. Imagine a powerblob from 5th with FnP and that's roughly what we're talking about. Even if they avoid your kill zone like the plague (which they should) you can fire off your splinter cannons which can wipe MSU or weakened units on their own and you gain total control of the section of the board they occupy, limiting your opponent's tactical options. It's an incredibly good unit in 6th thanks to the changes in rapid fire rules, the changes to how heavy weapons fire (you can move your splinter rifle dudes up the board and keep the splinter cannons still to fire full shots) and the fact that you can start off with a Pain Token. It actually compliments a mechanized force very well.