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first crack at a dark elder list...

HQ 135pts
archon
blaster
djiin blades
soul trap
night field

elites 153pts
4 incubi
venom, splinter cannon

troops 400pts
kabalites x10
splinter cannon
syrabite
raider, flickerfeild, splinter racks

kabalites x10
splinter cannon
syrabite
raider, flickerfeild, splinter racks

fast attack 244pts
9 reavers
champion
heat lance x3

68 pts left and not a clue what to do with them, ruling at our club says no flyers at 1000 so anti air is not needed, archon rides with incubi
any tips on actually using the DE would be helpful as its my first time using them, and they look nothing like chaos marines




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Opponents likely will be ig orks and Marines

TBH i would drop the incubi and try to squeeze in 3 trueborns with 2 blasters in a venom with extra splinter cannon and another 3 trueborns with 2 splintercannons in a venom upgraded with extra splinter cannon. I usually dont run 2 large units in raiders but if you want too drop the sybarite and the splinter cannon if you take the previous mentioned elites.

Venoms and trueborn are just great. For extra strength you could take a haemi and drop it in a blasterborn venom with a liquifier gun. Now you got a decent flame template, feel no pain and they have to be pretty close anyways for the blaster to be in range.

On the reavers i would drop the champion and take cluster caltrops. At 1000pt these 9 guys should just turbo boost over units, hopefully from one point of cover to another, and kill. The St6 D6 hits are just great. If you do that you might not want 3 heat lances. Usually i take them as well but just turbo boost all game and never fire. Plus when they turbo boost they get a 3+ jinx.

If you do this, now your opponent has more units to fire at so he has to make choice on what to take out first. This will let you get the other units in the right position. And if you are playing a low LD army like guard or orcs the reavers can focus on wiping out the easy targets. Whenever i use incubi they always before less than stellar and with only 1 close combat unit in a 2 HP vehicle it can get shot apart real easily turn 1 depending on terrain and placement.

Unless your deathly afraid of leadership checks, drop the syrabites off the kabbie squads. I would also swap the flickerfields for night shields on the raiders, as you can get a cover save by moving.

The reavers are good, but possibly overkill in a squad of 9. Consider 2 squads of 6, with heat lances and possibly caltrops. A good way to use your reavers is to turbo boost at the end of the shooting phase and get a pain token by picking off a wounded squad. I would keep the lances as you need some AT. Currently you have 6 at weapons, but you should have closer to 10 at 1K. (general rule is 1 darklight per 100 points) Against horde guard and green tide your fine, but parking lot IG or mech marines will be an issue.

I think that you should keep the flickershields on raiders. If you plan on moving them up to the 24" shooting range the nightshield might not be as effective. But also it might just be my preference. I put nightshield on my ravagers because they hang back on the table real far so the 36" and 48" weapons are affected.

As far as 2 squads of 6 reavers i like that idea and will try that in my games actually. I find with reavers that you need to have the overkill of 9 in a unit because most of them will be doing S3 attacks and that is not all that reliable even on low toughness enemies.

I would take out the djin blade, especially when you take into account that you have soul trap (soul trap gives you str 6, which will ID you cause a wound to yourself). I know you are taking it to get a blaster and + attack with the archon, but tbh if you do this then you will be wasting the incubi and his combat potential by shooting armour that they cannot hurt in assault. Also, although you get lots of attacks, you are still only str 3. I'd go for the venom blade or an agoniser instead.

You are pretty light on troops I feel. Raiders get popped very easily. I'd try and get another raider or venom in there by shaving off points from upgrades. Get rid of the sergeant upgrades and change the archons upgrades and you can fit another one in.

Here's what I have planned for DE at 1000 points:

HQ
Archon - Shadow Field, + upgrades

Elites
Incubi x4
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Troops
Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Heavy Support
Ravager - 3x DL

Ravager - 3x DL

This leaves me with 45 points left to buy upgrades for the archon or vehicles.

Edit: also, the flickerfield might be wasted on the raider. If you are using it as a gunboat then you will need to be in 24 inches anyway. Almost all anti tank will be able to hit you at that range, -6 inches or not.

thanks for al the support we are doing an army switcheroo and I have to turn over my chaos marines to our dark elder player. (just heard he is using my defiler model, may point him to dakka dakka)

I was curious why he had only 2 raiders but 9 venoms in his collection, seem though they are the transport of choice.

I like the list big blind bill, I will definitely try something similar.

what peoples views on the succubus? tempted to run her with the incubi and upgrade one to a klavex. that way the incubi can sort out TEQ while the succubus with hydra gauntlets puts out a load of attacks to thin a horde somewhat

To be honest, the best HQ choice for DE at 1000 points is probably a Haemonculus.

I put an archon and incubi in my list because they look nice. If I was being competitive then my HQ would be a Haemonculus with a quad of 4 wracks (troops) in a venom. This will only cost in the region of 150 points. A kitted out archon with 4 incubi and a venom is looking at around 260 points. Those 100+ points you save could be better spent, either on another venom squad, or another ravager.

Dedicated melee HQ squads wont be winning any games for DE in 6th, the same is true of the succubus as it is for the archon.

For 2+ save units you should either fill them full of splinters, or hit them with dark lances if no better target is available for them.

Ravagers with Lances on are fire magnets, I would put dissies on them and take blasterborn as anti tank.

Haemo is a good choice, I prefer wracks as my troop choices because of t4 and fnp. I literally just use them for objective camping as they are a pain to kill with go to ground and fnp.

As DE are so speedy don't worry about having to take long range weapons too much as you can be in range of pretty much the whole table if you need to be.

Liquifier guns are fantastic, my 1750 list has 8 of them in, they are especially useful against bike units due to possible ap1, 2 or 3, ignores cover plus a unit of Wracks charging you (especially with an acothist will put the Brown pants on most units.

Also incubi are fantastic but for the points you can do better.

Main thing with DE if you want to win anything is this:

Spread your blasters out as much as possible.

Use haemos for fnp on units that don't start with pain tokens (don't be afraid of using hexrifles in blasterborn units, they are instant death sniper rifles that you can move and shoot with).

I would suggest you take FF on everything and if you have the points night shields too.

Trophies on vehicles are very useful and so worth it for 5 points.

If you do take reavers take heat lances and caltrops, you can turbo boost turn 1 and then shoot a vehicle in the butt turn 2 with the melta lances.

With the reavers start a haemo with the unit and jump him in a transport start of t1 and leave the pain token with the jetbikes.

Pain token fu will save your ass!!!

Shingen wrote:
Ravagers with Lances on are fire magnets, I would put dissies on them and take blasterborn as anti tank.

Haemo is a good choice, I prefer wracks as my troop choices because of t4 and fnp. I literally just use them for objective camping as they are a pain to kill with go to ground and fnp.

As DE are so speedy don't worry about having to take long range weapons too much as you can be in range of pretty much the whole table if you need to be.

Liquifier guns are fantastic, my 1750 list has 8 of them in, they are especially useful against bike units due to possible ap1, 2 or 3, ignores cover plus a unit of Wracks charging you (especially with an acothist will put the Brown pants on most units.

Also incubi are fantastic but for the points you can do better.

Main thing with DE if you want to win anything is this:

Spread your blasters out as much as possible.

Use haemos for fnp on units that don't start with pain tokens (don't be afraid of using hexrifles in blasterborn units, they are instant death sniper rifles that you can move and shoot with).

I would suggest you take FF on everything and if you have the points night shields too.

Trophies on vehicles are very useful and so worth it for 5 points.

If you do take reavers take heat lances and caltrops, you can turbo boost turn 1 and then shoot a vehicle in the butt turn 2 with the melta lances.

With the reavers start a haemo with the unit and jump him in a transport start of t1 and leave the pain token with the jetbikes.

Pain token fu will save your ass!!!

Don't listen to this post. Dissies are garbage, take lances and do what we do best vs infantry, blot out the sun with splinter fire.

Flicker fields are often a waste as we get a 5+ jink if we move, and night sheilds are our best upgrade on venoms and ravagers.

Really? Dissies are garbage? What planet are you on?

I see you clearly took the time to answer his questions!

Bad troll is bad.

Shingen, disintegrators are pretty bad. If you are taking a ravager, then stick with the dark lances. In a venom spam army it is anti tank capacity you need, not more anti infantry firepower.

Ravagers with Lances on are fire magnets,

They might attract more firepower than disintegrator ravagers, but this is because they are better.

I would suggest you take FF on everything and if you have the points night shields too.

Night shields and flickerfields on everything will get expensive fast. I wouldn't put nightshields on raiders. You will either be using them as gunboats or assault transports, and in either case you will be so close that the -6 range won't matter.
They might find a use on the venom, due to its better stand off ability at range 36.

Trophies on vehicles are very useful and so worth it for 5 points.

Again, expensive, and only useful in certain set ups. If running a venom spam list then they are pretty useless. If anything looks at a 5 man venom squad then they are normally dead before any leadership tests.

Dissies are not as good as dark lances, I agree but on ravagers they are much better depending on your setup.

If you are taking a basic venom spam list with practically no anti tank anywhere else then yes take dark lances. If you are running an optimised list then you won't need lances on the ravagers.

My 1750 list has 19 darklight weapons in it and there isn't a dark lance ravager in sight.

With regards to nightshields. Yes, pointless on anything going in close. If you are sitting back they are useful, especially in a kabal list that relies so heavily on the vehicles keeping your troops alive.

Blackwell, if you want a basic kabalite Venom spam list that can work quite well the guys here have more than enough knowledge to help you out.

If you want to advance a bit further and use DE a bit more competitively send me a message when the time comes.

Shingen wrote:
Really? Dissies are garbage? What planet are you on?

I see you clearly took the time to answer his questions!

Bad troll is bad.

Not trolling, just pointing out how wrong your post is...

Shows how little you think you know.

Shingen wrote:
Shows how little you think you know.

Then the others who've stated how wrong they think your post is know little too? You're giving a new player bad competitive advice. Of course I'm going to jump in and help.

the games are over and this was my list (more a less I lost the list)

HQ
Homunculi, hexrifle

Troops
Wracks x4
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5 - Blaster
- Venom - 2x Splinter Cannon

Heavy Support
Ravager - 3x DL flickerfeild

Ravager - 3x DL flickerfeild

Ravager - 3x Dissies fliikerfeild

we had some last minute drop ins on the big switcher tournament, I ended up against IG , tyranids, and my own chaos marines.

IG went well he bought something close to 150 conscripts and some artillery lost the game cause it was too many to kill but started to get to grips with the movement of the DE.

tyranids were so easy it was funny, hexrifled the tyrant when he was still on the ground LOL. I had read that DE were a hard counter to nids but this was a brutal massacre. tabled him turn 4

chaos flattened me...noise marines....much pain and close range fighting.

next week playing with Tau

Glad the hexrifle worked out. Killing a tyrant with it must have had your opponent faceplanting.

If you can give the haemo a liquifier gun that helps a lot with horde lists as well as bikes / jetbikes and depending on the AP marines etc.

Against Tau it's going to be a hard slog due to the amount of firepower they can put out at range. I'm not one for List tailoring but you might need to rethink some of the list a bit. Even basic fire warriors are a nightmare for de vehicles because of the 30" s5 shooting. Most of their firepower is also likely to be ignoring cover and high strength so you'll need to keep range and use terrain to your advantage.

Tau are a good test of any list.

Tau is s fine match. Use night sheilds, splinter cannons are 36" range, most tau weapons are 36" range. With night sheilds they're 30" vs your 36" and fire warriors are only 24". You can kite them easily with your out ranging splinter cannons and dark lances.

Exactly that.

Tau is the army I am switching to. Next week I will post a tau list

Ahh I see

Sellout!!!!!

Shingen, I think we scared him away from DE

Naa DE are a labour of love. No matter how much you hate them you keep coming back!

TBH I enjoyed playing with them, my own chaos marines my have stomped me hard but im considering starting my own DE army.

twas the whole idea of the tournament, to introduce players to the play style of other peoples armies.

currently im a bit stuck on tau, I know how to beat them, have no idea how to play with them

They are mostly just shooting which I find rather boring, DR are good in that way as you can mix and match.

Not to mention DE have the coolest models.

Yeah there is that. Get some sslyth, they look really good. Im going to do a duke sliscus conversion with one. He is called the serpent after all.