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I'm playing a couple of guys, and one of my friends in particular is very experience and has a list that just smashes people.

We play at 1850 and I should note that I don't want to take allies. I'm not interested in any of that stuff.
I should also note that I've got a ton of units and I'm considering buying more so I'm looking for the best build to beat these armies (that can hopefully stand up in general against other builds.)

Here's his list (approximately)

Hellbrute with plasma cannon
Land Raider with Chaos Lord and 7 plague marines
3 squads of 7 plague marines (each has a couple plasma)
2 squads of 3 obliterators
aegis defense line (he changes the guns on it depending what hes up against)

that seems to be all I remember... there may be another squad of plague marines or something.
my other friend also plays chaos (albeit not quite as well) and he runs more beserkers/dreadnoughts etc.

My list today was basically this ---

archon with huskblade, soul trap, shadow field
haemonculus with liquifier, power weapon
8 wytches - one hekatrix, one wytch with gauntlets

that whole squad is on a raider

i ran three raiders each with 10 warriors.
1 warrior with splinter cannon in each squad, the rest were vanilla
raiders have dark lances, night fields and flickerfields

2 venoms each with 5 incubi
each with a klaivex, onslaught, demiklaive

1 ravager with dark lances and flicker/night
2 vanilla razorwings




we built the list together and he genuinely tries to help me get better. he said that even if we played each others lists, he would have expected the dark eldar to lose and that it wasnt my inexperience that got me crushed. im sure that has something to do with it, but what would you all suggest to help beat his list into the ground? I think id do much better against anything with armour of 5 and none of that feel no pain nonsense haha.

i bought the army used and its huge. ive got probably 100 warriors, 30 wytches, some scourges, tons of beasts (all of them) 10 reaver bikes.

i dont have wracks or grotesques or mandrakes. i dont particularly like any of them. same goes with hellions and scourges. if any of those units were key i could be persuaded... but i havent seen much good news on them...


HELP!

First off, ditch the husk blade/soul trap... it really just trash and a waste. Trust me if you manage to kil his lord in single combat then you are playing his game and getting extremely luck. Just take a blaster venom blade and shadow field and call it good, or think of taking the duke (this would be my choice)

Second dirt nap the incubi, they suck IMO. They encourage you to flie those venoms too close to him, take 4 man squads of blaster born. Or to combat him think of taking 3 man teams with dual splintercanons, then take NS on the venom this effectively gives you 24 poison shots per venom which will erase those PM squads. Don't forget the duke will make one warrior or TB unit poison 3+

Finally keep the wyches cheap, just 5 in a raider with haywire grenades should do fine, maybe two of these to ensure you waste the land raider. You only need one warrior squad in a raider, the other two can camp home objectives.

If you have the points take the baron as well as he helps with 1st turn which is pretty huge for DE, he also will make a warrior unit stealth so if it is in cover it will be nearly impossible for him to dislodge. I'll whip up a good list for you here and post it in a few.

Thanks m! Sucks I just ordered 5 incubi ha.. And an archon.... I guess he could stand in for Duke though..

Incubi, while better in assault than anything in the chaos codex, aren't the best choice.

Your poisoned weapons ignore his cool toughness, so take lots of those. Keep the venoms back and buy night shields, like the other poster said. That will allow you to hang back and shoot his plaguemarines while avoiding bolter and plasma fire. Dark lance the landraider early on and then just gun him down.

Taking Nurgle obliterators is hard on your units but again just stay back. Aside from lascannons, they're stuck with plasma cannons for long-range shootiness. Everything else is 24" and again avoidable with night shields.

Try this out:

100 ADL with Quad Gun

150 Duke

105 Baron

56 [3] True Born with 2 Splinter Canons
75 Venom with Ex SC Night Shields

56 [3] TB with 2 SC
75 Venom with Ex SC NS

56 [3] TB with 2 SC
75 Venom with Ex SC NS

120 [5] Wyches w Haywire G. and a Raider

120 [5] Wyches w Haywire G. and a Raider

120 [5] Warriors w Venom Ex SC NS

110 [5] Warriors w Venom Ex SC

200 [20] warriors w 2 SC [Duke/Baron here]

115 Ravager NS

155 Razorwing w disintegrators FF

155 Razorwing w disintegrators FF

1843

thanks so much!!! i'm reading through this to digest

can you please explain what PGL means?


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Also, if i dropped the duke into a 20 man/walking warrior squad... how would i get them into position; especially to rapid fire?

would i not be better to put the duke on a 10 man raider with splinter racks so they are twin linked at rapid fire range?

That list has a killer blob behind the ADL that throws out a withering amount of poison [3+] while gaining a 3++ thanks to the Baron and should it get assaulted it has hit and run. Mean while the rest is standard scoot and shoot. Wyches are anti tank and distraction units that if your lucky get line breaker late game. The jets have dissies because it synergizes best with the missiles, two plates and 6 shots a turn to mow down PA. The true born units through down 24 shots each when stationary and count as 42" away meaning he can't move up and shoot you down. Should give him hell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I didnt write PGL but its usually short hand for phantasmal grenade launcher. No you want the squad to stay lare to benefit from the serpents venom rule. That unit is your home team and camps beind the ADL and will put 12 poison 3+ shots and 4 TL S7 shots out a turn from down range and at 24" hits him with 32! poison 3+... he wont get within 12 trust me.


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Splinter wracks are not worth the points and only work with rifles. You don't want your boat and warlord that close to him.

could you adjust the list a little to accomodate this unit?

I would love to run them and I think they can be pretty vicious..

Baron Sathypants
3 Beastmasters
5 Khymarae
4 Razorwing Flocks

I'm also looking at running some reavers.. maybe 2-3 squads of 3 with caltrops?

my local store let me cancel my incubi order and swap it with a venom. I'm looking at getting 2 more hopefully in a trade... that would leave me with 3 venoms, 4 raiders, a ravager and 2 flyers.

still trying to figure if the extra armour from the void bomber is worth it..

Bomber is a different beast entirely its role is solely AT IMO. Stick with the 2 dissiefighters.

Honestly baron and beasts is not that great anymore as he can't LOS the shots where ever he wants and assault is terribad now. You could always drop one trueborn unit/venom and the NS from the warrior venom and ravager. That would make the list 1848 with your said unit.

Would make a good counter assault unit but honestly I like the Night Shields and TB unit better. It throws out more damage over the course of the game from a safer distance.

im pretty interested in that... after reading the list I think it could really hit the way I want.

running the unit exactly as you posted.. where would you put the baron?
also, as per my vehicle situation, I think I can get it up to 3 venoms and 4 raiders comfortably.

I would keep the trueborn in the venoms and have the warriors/wytches ride in raiders. would this screw things up drastically? would you put lances on the raiders or disintegrators? would you try to keep those 4 units safe so the wytches and warriors can score?



I'm disappointed to not be bringing a lot of assault... but after today it just didnt work.

my raiders got shot down and I'd lose 2-3 guys.

they'd walk a bit, shoot a bit. try to charge and get over watched and then do nothing in close combat.

if they DID get to overwatch, they still didn't get much done.

thanks again for the help, I really appreciate it!!!!!!!!

I mean, with the beasts you will get into combat but you will probably lose to plague marines. They are T5 FNP and remember blight grenades. The over watch from plasma could ID the baron or a flock. I still love that unit though and understand why you want to field it. The TB/venom put out 24 shots effectively from 42" lol. Thats 16 hits for 8 saves a turn. The Beast pack will put down 15 s4 attacks (blight nades) or 2.5 wounds for .8 failed saves before FNP from the Khymera and 20 s3 rends for 1.67 wounds before FNP. Really lack luster in this match up. Then the Baron will add 2 saves and the BM will likely one at most. So if the unit makes it in unscathed you can expect roughly 3.5 failed saves before FNP....


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raoiley wrote:
im pretty interested in that... after reading the list I think it could really hit the way I want.

running the unit exactly as you posted.. where would you put the baron?
also, as per my vehicle situation, I think I can get it up to 3 venoms and 4 raiders comfortably.

I would keep the trueborn in the venoms and have the warriors/wytches ride in raiders. would this screw things up drastically? would you put lances on the raiders or disintegrators? would you try to keep those 4 units safe so the wytches and warriors can score?



I'm disappointed to not be bringing a lot of assault... but after today it just didnt work.

my raiders got shot down and I'd lose 2-3 guys.

they'd walk a bit, shoot a bit. try to charge and get over watched and then do nothing in close combat.

if they DID get to overwatch, they still didn't get much done.

thanks again for the help, I really appreciate it!!!!!!!!

In my original list I put both characters in the 20 man brick. It gives them a 3++ behind the ADL due to the Baron and he gives them hit and run in the event they ever get assaulted.


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I would keep dark lances on all the raiders and ravager due to the amount of poison you already are packing here. if you only have three venoms give them to the TB and just give the 5 man warrior unit a raider

raoiley wrote:
Thanks m! Sucks I just ordered 5 incubi ha.. And an archon.... I guess he could stand in for Duke though..

yeah, GW doesnt like close combat and definlty not DE close combat.

You want to out shoot his expensive plague marines with tons of splinter fire. You are going to want 4-5 venoms and a bunch of warriors with a single blaster in them.
you can have 5-7 wyches in a raider with haywire grenades to take out tanks or fill in your line in a pinch, but these guys arent combat beats, just there to stall
wracks can do combat, but again why bother. DE arent particularly good at CC anymore
incubi are ok at killing meq, but not particularly great. They look cool, but you dont ever need more than 5.

 Exergy wrote:

raoiley wrote:
Thanks m! Sucks I just ordered 5 incubi ha.. And an archon.... I guess he could stand in for Duke though..

yeah, GW doesnt like close combat and definlty not DE close combat.

You want to out shoot his expensive plague marines with tons of splinter fire. You are going to want 4-5 venoms and a bunch of warriors with a single blaster in them.
you can have 5-7 wyches in a raider with haywire grenades to take out tanks or fill in your line in a pinch, but these guys arent combat beats, just there to stall
wracks can do combat, but again why bother. DE arent particularly good at CC anymore
incubi are ok at killing meq, but not particularly great. They look cool, but you dont ever need more than 5.

Yea and against PM its laughable how bad they are. To start they don't have grenades lol. Once you expensively get them grenades with an archon they dont get their bonus attack do to blight grenades and are wounding on a 5+ still... So bad...


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I like the list I made here tonight because it isn't the standard msu venom spam. I love that warrior blob lol

 Exergy wrote:

raoiley wrote:
Thanks m! Sucks I just ordered 5 incubi ha.. And an archon.... I guess he could stand in for Duke though..

yeah, GW doesnt like close combat and definlty not DE close combat.

Beast squads can still be pretty great, and a grotesque blob with the right characters attached can be a wrecking crew. YMMV, of course.

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

raoiley wrote:
Thanks m! Sucks I just ordered 5 incubi ha.. And an archon.... I guess he could stand in for Duke though..

yeah, GW doesnt like close combat and definlty not DE close combat.

Beast squads can still be pretty great, and a grotesque blob with the right characters attached can be a wrecking crew. YMMV, of course.

Grots in large number with Urien and maybe an ally or baron are absolute brutal actually. Beasts on the other hand have really suffered greatly. Yes they can still be a hammer, but in 6th there are too many ways to dismantle the unit with clever positioning by the shooter.

What is it about the grot blob and urien that makes it so devastating? examples?

Urien can up their Str to 6. Wish it was T he was upping, but oh well.

He also hands out pain tokens like candy to wrack/grotesque models at the start of the game, and is no wimp in CC himself.

They can hand out CC pain rather well, are pretty resilient, and if you don't mind risking Urien his Clone field can be frickin' annoying in a challenge to a low A badass (say someone with 2 A and a Thunderhammer, who is used to just IDing folk down all day long) added to the fact he heals 1 wound a round while he still lives

Big Big fan of urien and flesh puppets of all sizes