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I had my worst game of 40k ever this weekend. I was playing my DE against a friends bike heavy SM army. Mission was D3+2 obj & deployment was the diagonal deployment drawn from table corners (don't remember the names). He won roll to choose deployment. Terrain was fairly heavy, some LoS blockers, but lots of Ruins (our FLGS has -lots- of the city ruin terrain, it seems to be a fav there). He had two chapter masters, one was Pedro, a Master on a bike, three 6 man bike squads, two attack bike squads, a twin autocannon dread, a 10 man scout squad & three tac squads, all on foot.

I was running:

Sliscus + 4 Incubi in Venom
2x 5 Haywyches in Venom
3x 9 Wyches + Haemy's in Raiders
1x 10 Wracks in Raiders
2x Ravagers
1x Razorwing

After deployment, I failed to seize initiative & he went first. I had essentially turtled up behind the largest piece of terrain I could, getting cover for my deployment & some was out of LoS, but due to the mostly Ruins terrain, he was still able to see my army from @ least some of his - he had deployed pretty much all along the closest edge of his DZ. After moving, he drops his first oribital bombardment, destroying a Ravager, two Wych Raiders, killing 4 in the first & 5 in the second & a Venom, killing 2 of the 5 Haywyches inside. Both Wyches in the Raiders fail their morale test, the first running off the board & the second one coming close - the three from the Venom hold. The second one, destroys the last two Venoms, killing an Incubi & all 5 Wyches in the other Venom. It also destroyed the Wrack Raider, killing 4 and that explosion kills two more Incubi & the other Wych squad that was on its way off the table. The Dread opens up, destroying the last Raider & 4 Wyches inside, who hold their ground & his scout squad destroys the last Ravager w/ rends.

At that point, I obviously concede the game as I only had Sliscus, an Incubi, 6 Wracks, 6 Wyches & the Razorwing (he actually had the cajones to try & tell me "Don't quit, you still have a chance!"). Now, obviously this was some great rolling on his part as neither of his OB's scattered & I couldn't make a FF save for anything (or any other rolls for that matter..), but I can't tell you how disheartening it was to have ~ 1700 pts destroyed in one turn by two characters, a dread & a scout squad.

So, fellow Dakka-ites - what do you think I could have done differently? I was deployed in a manner that the Ravagers were my 'wall' of protection as is my usual (& apparently the norm for most DE players here I have noticed), but all that did was allow for wholesale slaughter of my army as it couldn't have been more perfect for those two OB's. What is your reccomendation for fighting against SM's and their dual OB first turn alpha-strike. Spread out more & risk a piece-meal assault, or just suck it up & realize that this is what's "normal" for us of the Dark Kin?

~Vryce

I've been suffering from much of the same issues with my DE. I tend to favour my SM army over them as I can only seem to win when my opponent has horrific luck. Darklances simply lack the ability to wreck vehicles (via hullpoint damage) while our paper planes became much more paper and less planes this edition.

In 5th I could win many games with maneuvering even if I lost all my vehicles by the end. 6th was just too unkind to DE imo. I relied on wyches to do the dirty work of taking objectives, and they fail horribly.

Your deployment is similar to how I generally do it, but you really do have to spread out against blast like that. Where in 5th a bit of a scatter would take the center hole, and thus full strength, of the blast off a vehicle and you wouldn't see multiple vehicles take a blast at full strength. You really have to remember that it doesn't work like that, and a high strength blast is pretty likely to kill every one of our vehicles it touches.

In short, I don't really feel like there is a good answer to this one - apart from spreading out. Reserves can be used if there is not enough terrain to allow you to simultaneously spread out and stick to good cover.

Anyone been experiencing success with DE in 6th?

Sometimes I have had successes.

I struggle with arty, much like many folks, because NS offer no protection against them. To the OP, I recommend the next time you set up and know that your opponent has pie plates to spread out.

Hiding behind a big terrain piece is nice, but if there are blasts in his list you are asking for it.

I also whole heartedly recommend taking NS to offset a great deal of those weapons that can dink us first turn.

What a musketeer said about spreading is parmount. Tons of armies are laying down those circles of death and you have to take the risk of spreading out. One thing not in question I would say though is those 3 raiders should be warriors and the raiders should have splinter racks at least. Poison is stil DE's major advantage. I've only played DE once in 6th and that was against tau which is obviously the worst match up that could have happened so I can't attest to the workingness but I would still give them credit at what they are good at: haywitches, mass poison, beast hordes, and flesh circuses.

I have also had the same issue; so you are not alone. I have a friend recently that played guard and ran an ADL, autocannons on every squad, a basalisk, and a leman russ. Coupled with a lack of LOS blocking terrain and the autocannons my choices were to clump and die to the blast weapons or spread out and die to autocannons. As much as I hate to say it I am actually starting to miss 5th edition's deployment rules. In 5th I would have reserved my whole army in a situation like that. It always worked fairly well for me at the time because it tended to throw my opponents into uncertainty, guaranteed me the first chance to fire, and allowed me to move on into more advantageous firing lines. Of course there was the drawback of only getting part of my force, but it was worth it.

In 5th edition, when I did not get first turn with my Dark Eldar, I would reserve the entire army. In 6th, you can no longer do this, which is a huge issue.

Honestly, I don't think that mechanized Dark Eldar are competitive. They have far too many bad matchups (though they do have some good ones as well). My answer would be to do a Dark Eldar/Eldar foot or hybrid list.

If you don't want to change your list, consider reserving some of your units and hiding as much as you can. Pretty much all you can do.

Yeah, I miss the days of reserving my army too, alas it is not to be.

Maybe I'll just have to shelve the DE for a bit & focus on my other armies for a bit. I play w/ the models I have that were purchased in 5th ed after they were re-done & there is no feasible way to scrap what I have & build in an entirely new direction, much as I know that's probably what the army needs to even remain playable. I can't see how DE could even possibly be viable w/o transports, the thought of footslogging anything in that codex is, IMO, laughable. Though, I guess the transports are too, so maybe it's just time for a break from them.

Unfortunate, I really love my DE.

~Vryce

First spread out. Second - always use nightshields. Third, do not deploy your warriors in the boats ... you do not have to. Fourth, warriors trump wyches.

My DE have done very well in 6ed when I screen them, use terrain and spread out. Of course, some lists are tougher to deal with than others. Losing nine boats turn one is not normal. You can afford to lose a few in your list and you should expect to if you do not grab initiative. But that result was abnormal.

I actually find my DE are doing better in 6ed than they did in 5ed. Mind you, my list is different from yours. But that said, we have the weapons and units to succeed in 6ed.

 felixcat wrote:

First spread out. Second - always use nightshields. Third, do not deploy your warriors in the boats ... you do not have to. Fourth, warriors trump wyches.

Nightshields would not have changed the outcome - OB's are unlimited range, so there's no reducing it. If you start out of the Raiders & embark first turn, you cannot flat-out, drastically reducing movement. The models inside the vehicles are irrelevent, again, it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the particular issue I was having.

It was just an all around bad experience, I'll admit. Couldn't make a FF save & the fact that two large blasts didn't scatter @ all ensured that there was nothing left to do but just concede. I'll make a point to try & spread out a bit upon deployment from here on out, however, I have quite a bad taste in my mouth from this experience & probably won't put my DE anywhere near a gaming table until I'm able to make some substansive changes to the core build.

~Vryce

I'm doing quite well with my DE army. I use a good amount of venoms, ravagers, some jetbikes, and a large beast pack with the baron. I think a lot of the negativity here saying that DE can't work in 6th is a little unwarranted.

To do well with dark eldar, you need to understand the rules of the game really well, and you need to understand how the DE break all of them. Take advantage of your poison, lances, haywire, and silly movement shenanigans. Deploy way off to one side, then shoot to the other side of the board. If you try to play DE like you would a bunch of marines in rhinos, you're going to die a horrible death. Learn when to hold back your dagger, and when you jam it into your opponent.

With that said, some things really help DE more than anything. These are - Night Fighting and going first. If I'm going first, and there's nightfight, its almost game over depending on the opponent. All of my vehicles are going to have jink+stealth/shrouded (if you can even see me), and there's no way anyone can hide from me. First blood is a very easy VP here. If you are not going first, and there's no night fight first turn, then its an uphill battle. The only trick here is premeasuring and spreading out if they have blasts. Put your venoms in front of your ravagers so you get 5+ saves on everything at least. If they're castling, just play to the mission. If that means hiding until turn 5 and crushing into them, so be it.

I find that I take a big advantage early, then my opponent blows up some things and slowly catches up throughout the rest of the game - but they never quite make it. Dark Eldar alpha strike is just too powerful.

Almost all of these new releases have included a new huge MC. I laugh. I can't wait to kill a $115 model turn 1.

Other small tips:
Night shields are your friend against some of the strongest guns out ATM - Tesla Destructors. My friends necrons HATE fighting me. I lance his vehicles, and poison down his wraiths before they're even near to me. And he never has range with his barges.
The Baron is an excellent HQ if only for the +1 to go first.
A beast pack is an excellent assault unit, AND it absorbs fire from S6+ weapons. People don't want to get into combat with 35 rending attacks on the charge (6 flocks), so they'll waste fire that could kill your vehicles on your beasts. And you'll probably pass a cover save anyway. =P A beast pack also helps against deep strikers. You can spread out a ton of models and prevent any real damage being done to your vehicles.
Eldar allies work really well. Try to fit in some scatter laser warwalkers for mid-S fire power. Very strong against light vehicles, infantry in general (wounding on 2s), and also synergizes well with your mass of AV10. This might change with the new codex being released, but we all know the scatter laser still exists, so I'm sure they'll be a good platform for it.

I'm doing quite well with my DE army. I use a good amount of venoms, ravagers, some jetbikes, and a large beast pack with the baron. I think a lot of the negativity here saying that DE can't work in 6th is a little unwarranted.

I stand by my comments in regard to DE in competitive play. In an eight round event, you are playing spoiler at best. I played mech DE in their heyday during 5th edition. Even then, their reign was very short lived. GK Henchman Razorspam quickly ended Dark Eldar. Sure, there were amazing auto-win matchups, but there were also a good share of auto-losses.

6th edition is much of the same. The foot heavy meta both helps and hurts Dark Eldar. Sure, the armor cracking problem of 5th largely unimportant in 6th. Conversely, the repercussions of vehicle explosions are even worse for Dark Eldar players. Yes, Venoms can start shooting away at infantry turn 1. However, tons of bodies ensure that those average 4 wounds per Venom don't do all that much. While you don't see 6-8 Razorbacks and a couple of Rifle/Psyfleman too often anymore, you do run into 4+ flyers at events quite regularly. Dark Eldar (even with Eldar allies) have very few answers to a handful of flyers (let alone full Cron Air, which, while a "rock", still comes out to play at GTs).

To do well with dark eldar, you need to understand the rules of the game really well, and you need to understand how the DE break all of them. Take advantage of your poison, lances, haywire, and silly movement shenanigans. Deploy way off to one side, then shoot to the other side of the board. If you try to play DE like you would a bunch of marines in rhinos, you're going to die a horrible death. Learn when to hold back your dagger, and when you jam it into your opponent.

The problem is, Dark Eldar do not do anything particularly well besides firing a large amount of poisoned weapons. There are faster armies with transports that are more survivable (I hate to keep bringing up the Night Scythe, but you have to compare to the best). DE are a fragile and limited army on their own.

With that said, some things really help DE more than anything. These are - Night Fighting and going first. If I'm going first, and there's nightfight, its almost game over depending on the opponent. All of my vehicles are going to have jink+stealth/shrouded (if you can even see me), and there's no way anyone can hide from me. First blood is a very easy VP here. If you are not going first, and there's no night fight first turn, then its an uphill battle. The only trick here is premeasuring and spreading out if they have blasts. Put your venoms in front of your ravagers so you get 5+ saves on everything at least. If they're castling, just play to the mission. If that means hiding until turn 5 and crushing into them, so be it.

As you yourself admit, if you go second and/or do not have night fight, the DE are in for an uphill fight. This doesn't matter as much during your typical 3 round local event or pickup game, but over the course of a big event, you face these issues.

Furthermore, the "beta strike" is just as big as the alpha strike due to the prevalence of flyers. In these games, you what? Rush to the opposite side of the board and hope to avoid flyer angles? Pretty rough.

Night shields are your friend against some of the strongest guns out ATM - Tesla Destructors. My friends necrons HATE fighting me. I lance his vehicles, and poison down his wraiths before they're even near to me. And he never has range with his barges.

Against Annibarges, sure. Against 48" range shooting or Night Scythes? Who cares. Each Venom is only averaging 1.3 unsaved wounds to Wraith units, even worse if they have a DLord in front.

The Baron is an excellent HQ if only for the +1 to go first.

Absolutely. The Baron rocks.

A beast pack is an excellent assault unit, AND it absorbs fire from S6+ weapons. People don't want to get into combat with 35 rending attacks on the charge (6 flocks), so they'll waste fire that could kill your vehicles on your beasts. And you'll probably pass a cover save anyway. =P A beast pack also helps against deep strikers. You can spread out a ton of models and prevent any real damage being done to your vehicles.

The Beastpack is a great unit, but is a scalpel that has to be played perfectly. Helldrakes and Griffons/Manticores hurt. Losing combat (which happens) hurts. You almost need a Bikeseer giving the unit a 4++ or Vect for Fearless.

Eldar allies work really well. Try to fit in some scatter laser warwalkers for mid-S fire power. Very strong against light vehicles, infantry in general (wounding on 2s), and also synergizes well with your mass of AV10. This might change with the new codex being released, but we all know the scatter laser still exists, so I'm sure they'll be a good platform for it.

I think that Eldar allies are essential to even have a chance.

Not trying to sound all gloom and doom--you make some valid points. DE can win games. DE can dominate games. However, DE are not a threat to win an eight round event. There is too much that is stacked against them.

And yet DE have one at larger tournaments. They are not going to win that often but they compete - and bear in mind there arev a lot less DE entering these tournaments as well so the numbers are against them. I'm not trying to troll here ... it seems a common net assumption that DE will never win at a large venue and I admit they have issues but they are not nearly as bad as the net makes out now.

I used Eldar allies foe awhile but knowing that a change was coming i have not used Eldar in the last three months. I still win games without them. And my suggestion was not to turbo your raiders across the table early. You do not have to. You screen either your raiders with venoms ( if nightshields are not key) or venoms with raiders if nightshields will help.

I will have some units embarked on a transport when they need to ... of course in some games I feel safe enough to start them there ... in others I board any empty transport that survives the first two rounds.

My list has changed from 5th edition. I use a more raiders, I use at least one klarge warrior squad, I use an Archon with either grots or icubi ( prefer Grots). I always use reavers - I never used them at all in 5th.

There are some lists that punish me ( IG chimera spam can hurt with manticores and russes). I need to play carefully against the new Tau but I have beat them. Everyone takes a bad loss sooner or later. I was crushed a few times for sure. I adjusted and played on with my DE. My suggestions were general TAC suggestions. And yes DE like to go first as a rule. But not going first is hardly a an auto-loss.

And yet DE have one at larger tournaments. They are not going to win that often but they compete - and bear in mind there arev a lot less DE entering these tournaments as well so the numbers are against them. I'm not trying to troll here ... it seems a common net assumption that DE will never win at a large venue and I admit they have issues but they are not nearly as bad as the net makes out now.

I may have missed it, but which 6th edition GT has been won by a DE primary force? Not being sarcastic or mean, I honestly have not seen this. I do agree with you that less and less DE are entering, which hurts the odds.

I used Eldar allies foe awhile but knowing that a change was coming i have not used Eldar in the last three months. I still win games without them. And my suggestion was not to turbo your raiders across the table early. You do not have to. You screen either your raiders with venoms ( if nightshields are not key) or venoms with raiders if nightshields will help.

I will have some units embarked on a transport when they need to ... of course in some games I feel safe enough to start them there ... in others I board any empty transport that survives the first two rounds.

This is good advice for deployment. As you mention, it is matchup dependent.

My list has changed from 5th edition. I use a more raiders, I use at least one klarge warrior squad, I use an Archon with either grots or icubi ( prefer Grots). I always use reavers - I never used them at all in 5th.

Foot Warrior blobs are very good in 6th. A number of the deathstar combos like Grotesques, Beasts, and Harlies can work as well. I still find Reavers to be a bit too expensive for what they are.

There are some lists that punish me ( IG chimera spam can hurt with manticores and russes). I need to play carefully against the new Tau but I have beat them. Everyone takes a bad loss sooner or later. I was crushed a few times for sure. I adjusted and played on with my DE. My suggestions were general TAC suggestions. And yes DE like to go first as a rule. But not going first is hardly a an auto-loss.

Going second is not an auto-loss--it is very matchup and terrain dependent. Yet, that is exactly why DE have always had issues. Night Fight can help, but some of the new armies have ways to mitigate this. In addition, I've always found the games in which I was seized upon to be particularly devastating. In events with eight games, that does happen.

Just to mention one list - Sean won with his beastpack list. But various Eldar/Dark Eldar have placed high ... I am pretty sure a combined Eldar DE wraithwall list has won - cannot rememeber which event) and recently a pure Wyche cult - and that surprised even me. Here is the thing ...

Dark Eldar are the true glass cannon force. There is no denying that. It means we need to play with quite a bit of finesse ...

1) Make extremely effective use of cover.
2) Understand and utilize speed.
3) Take advantage of targets of opportunity.
4) Always play to the mission.
5) You will punished if you make mistakes so premeasure a lot, know the rules backwards and forwards, play to your limitations and strengths. DE must exploit their opponent's mistakes with their speed and their dakka.

It's funny ...

In 6ed assauklt does not work well with overwatch and now supporting fire, etc. etc. I do not agree. My grotstar ( archon, haemie, 4 grots, raider) will get into position and do a lot of damage. Archon's are almost OP in my opinion. My haemie now cariies a crucible ( I will not debate the effectiveness but only say it has crippled a few lists when I've gotten lucky).

I hear people complain that our troops die to overwatch ... well most of our troops should not be assaulting and their troops will die to our warrior splinter fire overwatch. Sure Wyches can be hurt by overwatch but they are not used for assault anymore - they are haywire carriers. They can get into position and blow up a tank better than almost any unit in th game.

Flyers hurt us, really? We have a great flyer - the Voidraven ( I actually use razors whih are also good). We can use an AGL quad gun. All 6ed armies face this problem.

Our transports are made of paper. They always were made of paper. But they are fast. No army I have played redploys and advances as quickly and efficiently as DE.

I will not say I have not been schooled playing my DE. I have. I made fundamental mistakes or came across an opponent who really understood what I was attempting to do and had the means and ability to prevent it. It can happen. But the majority of players ( even at tournaments) do not recognize DE as a threat anymore, do not practice against DE and can be taken advantage of quite easily.

So yes, DE have issues. So do Necs, IG, GK ... I will not pretend that allies as a rule make almost any list better. But as a pure list DE is a very good list. I'll sit back and see what Eldar will bring to the table. I have no doubts a list is out there that will win consistently with a few of the new eldar codex units allied to my DE. Until i have studied it though, i'm happy enough playing my DE as is. I'll be happy also to supply my list to anyone who wants to see it.

Recently it's more like I main Dark Eldar and Eldar are the allies, and they compliment each other perfectly. Divination Eldrad can give Dark Eldar a little extra durability, or you could Fortune the slightly hardier Eldar units.

The biggest thing is to deploy / move so that you can reach part of their army with ALL of yours before they close distance. This is easier against some armies / lists than others.

Just to mention one list - Sean won with his beastpack list. But various Eldar/Dark Eldar have placed high ... I am pretty sure a combined Eldar DE wraithwall list has won - cannot rememeber which event) and recently a pure Wyche cult - and that surprised even me. Here is the thing ...

I know that Eldar/DE have placed high, but winning a whole event is a bit different. Going 4-0 or 3-1 day 1 is something that good players can do despite a sub-par codex (matchups can throw a kink in the mix though). Nevertheless, it seems as though DE does not have answers at the top tables. They didn't in 5th and they don't seem to in 6th. I blame it on the myriad of bad matchups and fragile nature of the list.

Dark Eldar are the true glass cannon force. There is no denying that. It means we need to play with quite a bit of finesse ...

1) Make extremely effective use of cover.
2) Understand and utilize speed.
3) Take advantage of targets of opportunity.
4) Always play to the mission.
5) You will punished if you make mistakes so premeasure a lot, know the rules backwards and forwards, play to your limitations and strengths. DE must exploit their opponent's mistakes with their speed and their dakka.

Agreed.

It's funny ...

In 6ed assauklt does not work well with overwatch and now supporting fire, etc. etc. I do not agree. My grotstar ( archon, haemie, 4 grots, raider) will get into position and do a lot of damage. Archon's are almost OP in my opinion. My haemie now cariies a crucible ( I will not debate the effectiveness but only say it has crippled a few lists when I've gotten lucky).

I think you can still assault in 6th (and still like to). My 5th edition DE had three units of Wyches with an attached Haemonculus to zip forward and either tie up units in assault or garner a ton of attention from opponents. The same thing does not work in 6th. Gone is the 12" Raider move, 2"+base disembark, D6 fleet, and 6" charge. The combination of random charge length, worse FNP, stronger explosion damage, and overwatch dooms many of the staple DE assault units. Beastpacks, Eldar Harlies, and Grotesques make it work, but these possess a combination of speed and/or durability that much of the codex lacks.

I hear people complain that our troops die to overwatch ... well most of our troops should not be assaulting and their troops will die to our warrior splinter fire overwatch. Sure Wyches can be hurt by overwatch but they are not used for assault anymore - they are haywire carriers. They can get into position and blow up a tank better than almost any unit in th game.

Never complained about it. Agreed that it isn't a huge deal. It is, however, another piece of why Wyches are bad.

Flyers hurt us, really? We have a great flyer - the Voidraven ( I actually use razors whih are also good). We can use an AGL quad gun. All 6ed armies face this problem.

Voidravens are great--if you get the second turn. Incidentally, this is counter what DE normally want. If they come in to a flyerless board, they will die pretty fast to the ensuing beta strike. You are correct in saying that most armies face this issue.

Our transports are made of paper. They always were made of paper. But they are fast. No army I have played redploys and advances as quickly and efficiently as DE.

They are fast...

I will not say I have not been schooled playing my DE. I have. I made fundamental mistakes or came across an opponent who really understood what I was attempting to do and had the means and ability to prevent it. It can happen. But the majority of players ( even at tournaments) do not recognize DE as a threat anymore, do not practice against DE and can be taken advantage of quite easily.

So yes, DE have issues. So do Necs, IG, GK ... I will not pretend that allies as a rule make almost any list better. But as a pure list DE is a very good list. I'll sit back and see what Eldar will bring to the table. I have no doubts a list is out there that will win consistently with a few of the new eldar codex units allied to my DE. Until i have studied it though, i'm happy enough playing my DE as is. I'll be happy also to supply my list to anyone who wants to see it.

I think they are cool and I think they can win. I remain skeptical of a major GT win for a number of reasons. I would be interested in seeing what you are running.

I keep getting tabled repeatedly with my DE, sadly. Between Ravagers, Venoms and Raiders, I have a ton of vehicles to hide and usually not enough terrain. Even with night-fighting, it's not much of a boost: the enemy will just user lights with their rhinos/chimeras so the heavier guns can fire without issue.

Also, the 36" range of most heavy DE weapons makes sure you are never too safe even at night. Vehicles can just drive a bit forward and still engage you. if they have fast stuff as well? even worse.

Having no counter to flyers (other than expensive planes) hurts a lot. Even Ork planes routinely wipe my ravagers and warriors. No durable troops may be the worst thing, however: once the enemy has knocked out my ravagers, they can usually just pulp my warriors or explode my Raiders (and therefore pulp my warriors) and keep me from claiming objectives. I'm really hoping the Eldar codex will have affordable (point-wise) Wraithguard and/or Guardians so I can have either tough troops to defend an objective or the numbers of cheap bodies to absorb casualties.

Terrain, flyers, and fortifications are often my bane. A castled IG force packing all of the S7 walled up behind an ADL with a nice smattering of vehicles and a vendetta hurts like nobodies business. Especially when they get more objectives than me and place them carefully around the ADL to maximize carnage to myself if I want to take them (whilst making the objectives extremely easy for them to simply perform a single turn of movement to get.

An army like that takes a lot of consideration and planning to dismantle. Slowly setting traps and picking off targets of opportunity until the opponent is left a gibbering wreck wondering what went wrong.

But...Then a flyer comes in and kills my ace in the hole. Then continues to kill each next possible ace in the hole turn, after turn, after turn. Meanwhile I shoot shoot opportunistic lances at it to kill it, or try to ignore it, but it continues to kill one of my vehicles. every. single. turn. I have literally had my army dismantled in this fashion by vendettas, storm ravens, and night scythes.

Meh.. I guess I need to invest in more solid flyer defense. Either via getting my own fragile flyers or on an ADL (completely uncharacteristic of Dark Eldar and totally theme destroying IMHO).

Edited to add On-Topic:

That said; as far as deployment goes it really depends on what you are fighting. Against a force with a lot of blast weapons avoid clumping, but against a force that lacks blast weapons it becomes more viable to cluster behind what good cover there is (often very little).

More importantly, however, is that you should make sure that the board has enough line of sight blocking terrain. I find that Space Marine, Necron, Imperial Guard, and Tau players have a -completely- different idea on what enough terrain is than an Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tyranid, or Ork player. The tournament scene often only exacerbates this difference.

I agree with pretty much everything said so far. Even the posts expanding on what I previously posted are logical thoughts.

I just wanted to expand on what seems to be the big dilemma - flyers. Personally, I run absolutely no anti flyer. None. Not even an aegis. If I get turn 1, and you have a couple flyers in reserve, you're about 200-300 points down on my army. That makes DE alpha strike that much more potent. That's what I meant about striking early and hard so that even if those flyers do come on, they can't do enough damage for your opponent to come back. If I get turn 2... well, I have one turn to take out what I can. With first turn, I can generally guarantee that my beast pack will be in assault before any flyers come in.

Also, I know that flyers can dominate a game, but thats only because we as players let them. As DE, you can easily counter their movement. You know that flyers can only turn up to 90 degrees, and must move at least 18". With that said, if you surround the flyer at the 18" mark, he has to fly over you, therefore not having a viable target. If a flyer is only allowed to shoot a couple turns in an entire game, I can't see that as a worthwhile investment of points by your opponent.

Its easy to ignore 1-2 flyers. Simply counter their movement and only give them a couple rounds of shooting. However, if your opponent has 4 or more flyers, it might look like an uphill battle, but he has SO MANY points in reserve (at least 500-600). Just strike hard and fast - what the DE are good at - and I believe you'll come out on top. Focus on going first (via the baron, vect, etc), and rolling on strategic warlord traits (if only for the night fighting rule).


EDIT:
With all that said, I do believe that there are a lot of hard counters to DE. Going undefeated in a GT would be quite a feat. Hopefully we'll be able to mitigate some weaknesses with some eldar trickery. =P

Here are seven battle reports (with pictures!) for seven games, all going second, six wins, one defeat, only one game where I had night fight on my first turn. These should give you a bunch of examples of how to deploy against a variety of opponents when going second.

BR17: The Black Buzzards VS Space Wolves - 1500
BR18: The Black Buzzards VS Ravenwing - 1500
BR19: The Black Buzzards VS CSM Triple Helldrake - 1500
BR21: The Black Buzzards VS New Tau - 1500
BR22: The Black Buzzards VS Tau (Rematch) - 1500
BR23: The Black Buzzards VS Tau Mech/Riptide - 1500
BR25: The Black Buzzards VS Tau Mass Broadsides - 1500

Hope that helps.

 JGrand wrote:

I may have missed it, but which 6th edition GT has been won by a DE primary force? Not being sarcastic or mean, I honestly have not seen this. I do agree with you that less and less DE are entering, which hurts the odds.

Well De primary won this event: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/484661.page

De also finished 4th at adepticon.

 Vryce wrote:
I had my worst game of 40k ever this weekend. I was playing my DE against a friends bike heavy SM army. Mission was D3+2 obj & deployment was the diagonal deployment drawn from table corners (don't remember the names). He won roll to choose deployment. Terrain was fairly heavy, some LoS blockers, but lots of Ruins (our FLGS has -lots- of the city ruin terrain, it seems to be a fav there). He had two chapter masters, one was Pedro, a Master on a bike, three 6 man bike squads, two attack bike squads, a twin autocannon dread, a 10 man scout squad & three tac squads, all on foot.

I was running:

Sliscus + 4 Incubi in Venom
2x 5 Haywyches in Venom
3x 9 Wyches + Haemy's in Raiders
1x 10 Wracks in Raiders
2x Ravagers
1x Razorwing

not sure if you can deploy Sliscus in an army without trueborn or warriors. His special rules says he MUST be deployed with warriors or trueborn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Musketeer wrote:
To the OP, I recommend the next time you set up and know that your opponent has pie plates to spread out.

exactly


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JGrand wrote:
In 5th edition, when I did not get first turn with my Dark Eldar, I would reserve the entire army. In 6th, you can no longer do this, which is a huge issue.

which is one of the reasons that the Baron is such a good character. +1 to go first is everything for DE.

Q: What happens if your force contains Duke Sliscus but does not
contain any Kabalite Warriors or Kabalite Trueborn, as the Serpent’s
Venom special rule says he must deployed with one of those units? (p51)
A: He will deploy like any other independent character.

Source

I figured Sean would eventually enter this conversation. Sean knows I tried his beastpack list for a while but I'm playing a more conventional list now still with good results. Tau ignoring cover and the loss of all of Eldrad's powers (new codex) had me testing new lists early. I will get the Baron in my lists anyway most likely - he is such a good character for his cost.

Playing DE you need to address threat bubbles. You can pre-measure everything now. So use this to your advantage. Deploy denying infiltration to start. Use nightshields and be sure you are not in range with your whole force if your enemy sports weapons that can still reach you. A static gun with 48" range or less will not hit you - spread out at the back of your deployment with nightshields. There was no reason the Op should lose that many raiders/venoms/ravs turn one. It was simply poor deployment. Of course some forces will have means to bypass some of your defenses. Chimeras with searchlights can light up a few raiders and get to you with other units. Some forces can move a unit and still fire a weapon that hurts you within that bubble. But lessen the damage of an alpha strike. It isn't that hard.

Seriously, if you want help in refining deployment take a look at Mush's Battle Reports. They've helped a lot of people over on The Dark City.

Musketeer's point of spreading out when you know the enemy has pie plates I cannot back enough. Our transports are paper thin, and if you let one large blast get them then you have hindered your own efficiency by deploying too defensively.

Baronyu wrote:

Q: What happens if your force contains Duke Sliscus but does not
contain any Kabalite Warriors or Kabalite Trueborn, as the Serpent’s
Venom special rule says he must deployed with one of those units? (p51)
A: He will deploy like any other independent character.

Source

I see, fine then.