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So I'm thinking of getting a Dark Eldar army, they're just so cool. I know we could probably expect a new codex sometime soon, but this is the list I've been working on. Now, it does total to 1851 points (that bastard last point...), but I could get by with substituting a shardcarbine for a splinter rifle.

Idea is: Start with DL Raider, Hellions, Reavers, and Ravager on the field. Hope for night fighting, good cover, lucky DL rolls, you know. Next turn or turn three deep strike the Duke with his trueborn raider, the 2 blasterborn, and the other kabalite raider with the cannon and blaster. Blow up some vehicles, poison some troops, sound good?

HQ
150 Duke Serpant

105 Baron Sathonyx

Elites
163 9 Trueborn w. 7 Shardcarbines and 2 Splinter cannons
70 Raider w. splinter racks

108 4 Trueborn w. blasters
65 Venom with Cannon

108 4 Trueborn w. blasters
65 Venom with Cannon

Troops
115 10 Kabalites w. Splinter cannon and blaster
80 Raider w. Splinter racks and night shields

115 10 Kabalites w. Dark Lance
70 Raider w. night shields

298 18 Hellions w. helliarch

Fast Attack
234 9 Reavers w. heat lances

Heavy Support
105 Ravager


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a slight edit to my army, I would remove the helliarch and use those 10 points to put night shields on my ravager.

This would be my 1500 list.

HQ
150 Duke Serpant

105 Baron Sathonyx

Elites
128 9 Trueborn w. 2 Splinter cannons
70 Raider w. splinter racks

108 4 Trueborn w. blasters
65 Venom w. Cannon

108 4 Trueborn w. blasters
65 Venom w. Cannon

Troops
115 10 Kabalites w. Splinter cannon and blaster
70 Raider w. Splinter racks

115 10 Kabalites w. Dark Lance
70 Raider w. night shields

160 10 Hellions

Fast Attack
171 6 Reavers w. heat lances and arena champion w. venom blade

My friend plays dark eldar as his main army.

You need more dark lances. A big strength of dark eldar is skirmishing at the 36" range with splinter cannons and dark lances, drawing out the other army.

The short range of blasters and splinter rifles work fine when you need to surgically destroy a target, but dark eldar really needs the extra range.

Remember - your paper planes can be killed by bolters. <24" is not a good place to be.

 Suburbanbiafra wrote:

Elites
163 9 Trueborn w. 7 Shardcarbines and 2 Splinter cannons
70 Raider w. splinter racks

The Splinter Racks accomplish nothing here. (They only work with Splinter Rifles and Pistols, not Carbines or Cannons.)

Troops
115 10 Kabalites w. Splinter cannon and blaster
80 Raider w. Splinter racks and night shields

I'd drop the blaster, personally.

115 10 Kabalites w. Dark Lance
70 Raider w. night shields

I would definitely switch out the Lance for a Splinter Cannon

298 18 Hellions w. helliarch

With no upgrades, the Helliarch is really just a points sink. (Unless he's just there to eat the challenge-bullet for the Baron, in which case more power to you.)

Fast Attack
234 9 Reavers w. heat lances

Personally, I would break these down into 3 groups of 3. That way they can't all be eliminated by a single Markerlight-assisted shooting attack. If it were me, with the points I trimmed off up above, I might consider adding Cluster Caltrops in, but that's an upgrade not everyone recommends, and even in my own estimation the jury's still out.

Heavy Support
105 Ravager

With the points you trimmed off up above, I would definitely add some Night Shields here.

As a slight edit to my army, I would remove the helliarch and use those 10 points to put night shields on my ravager.

Good call.

Of course, take my advice with a grain of salt. I've only been playing DE for less than a year, and my win-loss record with them is about fifty-fifty.

I disagree with the above poster, you are not playing Venom Spam because it is boring and i like you for it. The list is good, The biggest thing i could say is you should 100% swap Hellions for a Beastpack, they are better in every way bar shooting and you have enough of that already. For the same points as your Hellions you get 3 Beastmasters leading 5 Khymerae and 4 Razorwings, thats almost 3x as many wounds with the same save or better then the Hellions and every single model hits a lot harder. They also benefit more from the Baron then Hellions do. I know it leaves you a little low on troops and at 1500+ you should get another troop choice, but the beastpack is such a good bully unit it's worth it.

I would drop the troop units down to 8 + blaster, i find this to be the best number between explosion damage and killyness. I would also drop the Trueborn down to 7 but try to pick up the carbines, they do so much more damage it's unreal.

Reavers are great, a very under used unit, they will do well. I do NOT recommend Caltrops, the Turbo Boosting should be used as a nifty plus when redeploying, not the entire stratagy. If you buy Caltrops and don't blade vane at every oppertunity you feel like you wasted them, and if ALL you do is turbo boost your wasting a great swiss army knife unit. Normal Blade should be enough to handle Pathfinders.

I like it, well done.

I'm keeping the hellions just because I love the models...I'm a sucker.

I did make a small note at the bottom which said that I'm switching out the helliarch for night shields on the ravagers.

As for the DL kabalites, I think I need the extra lance, as what Andy said. Considering what Andy said, however, I'm hoping (hoping) that if I can drop those 2 venoms the Duke's squad and that other raider, plus if I get those reavers near (I might do 3 squads of 3), I could take out enough stuff fast enough (say 2 vehicles and drop 2 10 man marine squads down to 3, so says the math) that I should be able to survive the retaliation if just barely enough to do some more damage on my next turn.

And then yeah, I guess I could easily drop my splinter racks since the Duke's squad won't need them, and that should allow me to keep all 7 carbines for a total of 1846. Alright! Thanks guys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually I would still have 9 points left... maybe throw a torment grenade launcher on my splinter cannon/blaster raider cause feth it! Any other ideas for 9 points?