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Lately I have been playing a few games with an assault list:
HQ:
Duke Sliscus - 150
Baron - 105

Elites:
4 x Incubi // Venom w/ Splinter Cannon - 153

Troops:
10 Warriors // Raider w/ Splinter Racks, Night Shield
5 Wyches w/ Haywire // Venom w/ Splinter Cannon - 125
5 Wyches w/ Haywire // Venom w/ Splinter Cannon - 125
5 Wyches w/ Haywire // Venom w/ Splinter Cannon - 125
15 Hellions - 240

Fast:
6 Reavers w/ 2 Heat Lances - 156
6 Reavers w/ 2 Heat Lances - 156

Heavy Support:
Talos Pain Engine w/ Twin-linked Liquifier, Twin-Linked Heat Lance - 115
Talos Pain Engine w/ Twin-linked Liquifier, Twin-Linked Heat Lance - 115
Ravager w/ Nightshields - 115

I don't think the list is bad, but it's totally uncompetitive.
After 2 games, I feel like assault for Dark Eldar is just done.
I played against Eldars and Tyranids, and assault is close to impossible to get close to them.
I hugged cover for 4+ cover saves and still they just get wittled down.

When assaulting Nids there's no unit I can even hurt significantly with wyches...
It's so depressing...
Everything just gets ID, what's the point of having FNP?

I understand that certain lists are gonna perform better but both lists were kinda more shooty and from that it just feels like the only way to go is a shooting army for us...
Sorry for the rant...

If you're not playing competitively Wych Cults and Coven builds are perfectly functional, a couple Venoms will mitigate whatever advantages those pesky bugs might have. Another option is a Venom Spam/ Leafblower hybrid, with 3 man squads of wracks in Venoms you can use them as gunships for less than 100 points while having a more durable scoring unit inside, this is more likely to get into assault than a traditional Kabal build.

Wych assault is dead. Its sad, but so true. However, Grotesque assault is scary as hell. A full unit is only 350 points and thats a lot of points, but that bad boy is 30 T5 wounds with FNP (and FC if you put a hami in the unit which is a good idea).

You launch these guys out from a WWP. Ok so they can't assault the turn they walk on, but seriously, unless there is a bunch of S10 shooting going on, these guys are still going to be around to assault. Now imagine you have two units of them.

I'd use 4 venoms with warriors for softening up with shooting and to get 1 hami to the middle of the table for the WWP to be used.

I'd join your two units of bikers into one unit of bikers and give them 3 caltrops wargear and just bladevein all across the board.

I really think that a hybrid shooty/assaulty list is very viable. You just have to use assault units that arn't wyches (which makes me a sad panda).

Lady Malys is a nice complement to a grotesque squad, as she makes them immune to force weapons. The free pain token goes a long way toward giving her furious charge, too (a big help on an S3 model).

Dark Eldar assault is pretty much dead indeed. You can't field the numbers other assault armies can and your "elitist" assault units either suffer from the new transport and overwatch rules (Wyches/Wracks) or suffer from their own effectiveness (Incubi/Archons).

Some exceptions do exist. Grotesques can be fielded quite effectively in either small units in Raiders or large unit from a WWP, both supported by a Haemonculus and/or other IC. Baron Sathonyx with a group of Beastmasters with Razorwing Flock and Khymerae can also be quite effective. Both these units have the wounds to "counter" the nerfs to assault in this edition. However, in any competitive setting, your opponent should and probably will have counters to high T and/or multi-wound assault units.

Just a quick question? Where does the duke go in this list?

Those that say assault is dead for DE - I put this to you, DE were never very good at it in the first place bar incubi and grotesques. I would argue that wyches were only average at best in 5th but they now have a good role. That of hunting tanks.

Shooting is where DE win competitive games now more than ever

Reason list is not competitive: Helions, Heat Lances on Talos, took Baron but not insane assault beast pack, Incubi need grenades, not utilizing Duke to the fullest in a 20 man squad

 Massaen wrote:
Just a quick question? Where does the duke go in this list?

Those that say assault is dead for DE - I put this to you, DE were never very good at it in the first place bar incubi and grotesques. I would argue that wyches were only average at best in 5th but they now have a good role. That of hunting tanks.

DE may never have been as feared in assualt at 5th Blood angels, but to say they were not good is a gross overstatement. We are talking about an army that used to be able to mover 12 inches on any transport, get out and have a potential 12 inches or charge range, not counting pivoting shenanigans, and attack with plenty of units (wyches, hellions, incubi, even wracks) with enough force and speed to make the counter-attack survivable.

Currently, vehicle deployment is gimped, overwatch means you will have to deal with the army's crap armor saves even if you plan a good assault that minimizes your exposure, and pelnty of units just lost any reason to exist (Mandrakes). You can rely on having over 50% of your infantry killed by their own transports, and you can't footslog. DE players that don't want to just pull back and shoot are left with no good options.

 Massaen wrote:
Just a quick question? Where does the duke go in this list?

Those that say assault is dead for DE - I put this to you, DE were never very good at it in the first place bar incubi and grotesques. I would argue that wyches were only average at best in 5th but they now have a good role. That of hunting tanks.

Shooting is where DE win competitive games now more than ever

Duke goes with Incubi to go on assault, his 2+ poison close combat is the best for that.
The problem is they can't even get to the tanks before the venom gets popped

Barrywise wrote:
Reason list is not competitive: Helions, Heat Lances on Talos, took Baron but not insane assault beast pack, Incubi need grenades, not utilizing Duke to the fullest in a 20 man squad

Hellions are amazing if they have a full squad, Splinter pods pumpout 30 shots of poison onto a squad + the hammer of wrath and they strike first.
There's like close to NO anti tank if it were't for the heat lances, considering the Taloses are meant to distract enemies to shoot them instead of the wyches I say having something that can actually hurt tanks at range is a useful thing.
Honestly Haywires are not useful unless in groups of them, like scourges or wyches.

What do you mean take Baron but not beast pack? Hellions are pretty good with Baron as well, beast pack has no range damage so in a list that already has so much assault I rather the range than the assault.
How is Duke the best in a 20 man squad?
His weapons are geared towards close combat, his poison I gave to the 10 Warriors, gave 7 squads bonus to drugs. I feel like I have utilized him to the fullest.

Foot 20 Warriors vs 10 Warriors in a Raider with Splinter racks give them around the same amount of wounds one around 4 wounds plus the Dark Lance and the other around 7.
So in the end you lose mobility and the anti-tank, and have to use 20 more points, for around 3 more poison wounds.



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To be honest this is me being really frustrated after looking at Necron's bullsh*t codex, realizing how gakky we are at both shooting AND assault compared to them.
Like seriously, there's nothing in our codex better than theirs.

Wyche's were never Killy in assault they were used to hold units in place with their dodge and feel no pain saves. No matter what edition you were playing you would need more than 5 in a squad to do this.

There role now is to scare the life out of any armour heavy units and give you access to Venoms.

If you want assault units your looking for Incubi, Grotesques, Beasts and to a lesser extent wracks.

Dark Eldar can hold their own in assault, but where they excel is using their speed and shooting to take the enemy apart a piece at a time.

Your never going to beat tyranids in assault, they will laugh in your face and then eat you. However, use your speed and shooting and it should be fairly simple to make even the Swarmlord cry.

Finally I agree, big swarms of hellions are awesome, and look extremely cool too.

I think your biggest problem is probably your body count in the Wych squads. I honestly can't see a 5-strong unit of Wyches doing much to infantry in assault, since their anti-infantry damage output is roughly comparable to an unupgraded Tyranid Hormagaunt and their surviability isn't much better outside of assault (though once in assault a 4++ and FNP isn't too shabby).

While probably not much better in competitiveness, my Tyranid-biased brain would probably try something like this :



If I understand the Cronus' rules correctly, their two ranged weapons can both generate a pain token upon causing at least one casualty, so in theory they have two tries per turn at boosting up their attending units (main goal is to get Furious Charge on the Wych units so their damage potential is increased, but Fearless wouldn't hurt either). Unlike the Talos, their template is also aways AP3, so against most things you deny all but invulnerable or FNP saves which is rather handy given they mostly want to shoot things.

The PGLs on the larger Wych units might seem a bit odd at first seeing as they have assault grenades anyway, but the changes to defensive grenades makes them seem rather attractive as a last ditch effort to reduce the effects of overwatch if another unit isn't available to soak it up for them (a 5+ cover is better than no save at all). The high body count should also allow them to make it to assault with enough numbers to inflict some damage, though they aren't going to beat down swarms (that's what the Cronus' ranged weapons and the Venoms are for ).

As for the Webway portal, our goal with it isn't so much as to use it to alpha strike a foe as much as use it to get units up into the thick of fighting quicker (particularly the monstrous creature units). If nothing else, it should reduce the number of turns the enemy has to shoot at whatever comes out of it (though depending on how much shooting is on the other side it may or may not be nessessary).

I'm not sure what point value you play at exactly, so I stopped at 1500. To expand the template, it would probably be a good idea to use the last Fast Attack slot for a Beastmaster unit to serve as a combination of "grabber" and counter-assault unit to help the Wyches out, but I have absolutely no idea what configuration would be ideal for that task. The rest of the elite slots could also go towards some Trueborn to shore up anti-tank or perhaps some Grotesques instead of Beastmasters.

Obviously you're very close minded, along with that, you haven't done your homework. Here's a link to a website all DE players should look at

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t5063-sliscus-tactica

There used to be a chart someone made comparing wounds of a squad affected by the dukes poison, 20 warriors had the highest by a long shot in CC and shooting

Also listen to Mush he's a god, Talos doesn't have to be in your opponents face, often times he'll get scared of it and try to avoid it, making it more of a area denial guy, which is why 36" range cannon, smash any vehicles that get close.

What's wrong with adding more assault? Target saturation is a large part of assault armies, and besides, Flocks are awesome 5W 5A Rending for 15 points? Also Harlies are nice as are Haemonculi. Have you even tried them out?

flesh circus is pretty scarry, I'm going to be starting one personally when funds are available.

You don't have the weight of numbers you need to call that an assault army.