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has anyone tried this with scourges (i havnt yet but want to) get 5+ of them in a group with a haemonculous with a hex rifle, leave the haemy first turn and take the token then proceed to do your scourgey business while the now naked haemy takes pot shots, or is that just waaaay too overcosted? i know its not competitive in any way shape and or form, but hey, it would give the scourges a double 4+ vs small arms fire and force your opponent to try to whittle them away through those saves, or shift some heftier firepower their way to take them down, and then they even have the 6+ invuln, far short of reliable, but hey, its something, and it will still net you FnP vs heavy bolters and such.

i also love the scourge models and have ten of them, i certainly think they are a dangerous unit that can not be ignored, but, like many DE units, are expensive and fragile.

or maybe skip the hexrifle and have your HQ pile into a raider with some wracks or something if you think that it is a waste of points. many players can justify paying the price tag to hook a haemy up with wyches, but what about other fragile units that would love FnP on the first turn? has anyone experimented with this tactic?

one other thing to add here, something i struggle with a lot for some reason, and i think it belongs in a beginner tips thread. in the heat of battle, it can be easy to forget power from pain (for me at least) and i will often times do myself out of acquiring pain tokens thanks to the order of how i shoot my units. a perfect example: the other evening i played against a gray knights player and decided that turn one, if nothing else, his tricked out dreadknight was going to be removed from the table. so, i proceeded to shoot ravagers, blasterborn in venoms, and anything else i could at it. my error occurred when the dreadknight had 2 wounds left and i shot with the three blasterborn in the venom first and managed a wound, then mopped up the final wound with my venom. duh! vehicles dont get pain tokens...this venom and its crew were taken out in my opponents following shooting phase (by melta so FnP wouldnt have made a difference, but still!) and if it had been another form of destruction, they may have lived, let alone resulting in more models surviveing the explosion from their transport being blown up. maybe its just me, i would consider myself a beginner, probably only played a dozen or so games with my DE (miraculously havnt lost one yet) but shooting order can really make a difference, especially with power from pain

I run scourges in my usual list (love the model, couldn't resist putting them on the board) and situationally, I will fork over my Haemonculus's pain token to them instead of my Wyches.

It all depends on the army I am facing. If it's an ork army with big huge crowds of greenskins, the wyches are going to get the pain token to tar pit as effectively as possible against some big bad nob squad or something. On the flip side, if it's say... Blood Angels MSU razorback spam, I know my wyches will be fine picking up a pain token on their own from a 5 man assault squad. So first turn, I'll deploy the wych raider next to the Haemonculus/Scourges unit, then embark the haemonculus on the raider (so he can use the raider to hose down infantry with a liquifier gun after the wyches disembark) and leave the pain token with the scourges. It does make them far more survivable than they usually would be.

Underpowered? What are they running then? DE can handle most builds.

HQs are mainly Haemonculi with Liquifier Guns, Vect, and either Baron or Duke. Haemonculi gives free FNP and Vect steals the int on a 4+. Baron is ok with beasts but I just haven't been sold yet, while Duke Sliscus makes wych cults nasty. HQs are pretty weak but can support the army quite a bit.

Troops...wracks become troops with a haemy and a 3 man squad can babysit a home objective. Hellions become troops with Baron but I really don't like them. 5 man squads of warriors w/blaster in a venom w/ 2 SC taken around 5 or so is a lot of anti-infantry. Wyches can be decent if give a haemy, hekatrix w/ agoniser, and a razorflail. The haemy stays behind while the girls run out and have a PW that needs 4+ and a razroflail rerolls to hit and wound. Put them in a raider for the extra DL.

Elites...2-3 4 man squads of blaster born that is trueborn with blasters in venoms like the warriors. The other "good" elites are Incubi but beware going through cover or into squads with too many power weapons. Leave those for your wyches.

HS...Ravagers. 3 of them with 3 lances w/ FF. In fact you need FF on all vehicles. Razorwings look nice and are ok if you go with a lot of DL. As in 10 man warrior squads with a raider. If you choose to go that route drop the DL for dissintegrators and trade up for the SC. Voidravens are ok if you want that extra punch of S as it is one of the few weapons that have a higher S than 8. Talos/Chronos do great in Cities of Death games but otherwise Ravagers.

Fast...Beasts are scary when taken with 5 Khymerae and 4 Razorwing Flocks, Reavers are good in groups of 3 with a blaster or heat lance since they can "hop" away, a tactic I saw someone use was 9 reavers with the D6 S6 upgrades (x3) and just flat out the whole game. Scourges are my favorite especially with a WWP on a heamy. They can run out of that portal with heat lances (2 in a 5 man squad) and pop a tank, then they can survive bolter fire by getting armor saves. Then running 2 with DL in a ruin can make for a small "sniper" squad.

Most other things I wouldn't worry about since they are either too expensive or just not that good...or both. There are two competative builds and a lot of semi-competative builds.

The semi-builds would include, Wych Cults, DL-Raider Spam, etc.

The competative builds would include Venom Spam and WWP. Having tried both I would have to give the edge to venom spam with just the scary number of anti-infantry shots.

Yeah, 3 Wrack squads are great for parking on objectives, and are a nice cheap way to get a venom.
I like to give them a Hex Rifle to take potshots with while they do it though.

DE don't really care about your Toughness or your Armour Value, most things are much of a muchness, with 80% or so of our stuff hitting on 3+, wounding on 4+, glancing on 4's / 2-5, penning on 5+, /6's etc.

It honestly leads to a reasonably.. samey gameplay though.

I've been running a list at 1500pts that's
2x Haemonculi (Liquifier Gun, Venom Blade) + 3 Grotesques (Ab w/ Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun) in Raiders (Flicker Field, Night Shield)
2x 10 Wracks (Ac w/ Venom Blade, 2 Liquifier Guns) in Raiders (Flicker Field, Night Shield)
2x 3 Wracks (ac w/ Hex Rifle) in Venom (Splinter Cannon)
2x Talos (TL Liquifier Gun, TL Haywire Blaster)
1x Razorwing (Monoscythes, Lances, Splinter Cannon, Flickerfield, Night Shield)

To bump it to 2000 is another Haem+Grot in Raider squad and another Hexvenom.

The razorwing drops missiles on things, but generally people ignore it to focus big guns on the 2 Talos walking towards them (people seems afraid of a S/T7 DE MC for some reason) which gives the rest of my stuff carte blanch to move in.

And it's pretty much always the same - deploy in cover (hiding mostly to limit enemy fire / very them into kill lanes) > move into position, (drop hexwracks on objectives / float them around, move raiders towards soft targets if available, preferably with cover for everything), shoot stuff, assault stuff, kill stuff, repeat. Honestly got bored of it atm, am currently thinking of silly lists to do for giggles and to serve more challenge - like a horde warrior army (150 Warriors / Trueborn? lol.) and some more varied fun things and/or focusing on my Tau more for variety.

Should make a Deathstar list with Vect and maybe Drazhar with a squad of maxed Incubi in the Dais and just slam them at things.

Hoss wrote:has anyone tried this with scourges (i havnt yet but want to) get 5+ of them in a group with a haemonculous with a hex rifle, leave the haemy first turn and take the token then proceed to do your scourgey business while the now naked haemy takes pot shots, or is that just waaaay too overcosted? i know its not competitive in any way shape and or form, but hey, it would give the scourges a double 4+ vs small arms fire and force your opponent to try to whittle them away through those saves, or shift some heftier firepower their way to take them down, and then they even have the 6+ invuln, far short of reliable, but hey, its something, and it will still net you FnP vs heavy bolters and such.

i also love the scourge models and have ten of them, i certainly think they are a dangerous unit that can not be ignored, but, like many DE units, are expensive and fragile.

or maybe skip the hexrifle and have your HQ pile into a raider with some wracks or something if you think that it is a waste of points. many players can justify paying the price tag to hook a haemy up with wyches, but what about other fragile units that would love FnP on the first turn? has anyone experimented with this tactic?

one other thing to add here, something i struggle with a lot for some reason, and i think it belongs in a beginner tips thread. in the heat of battle, it can be easy to forget power from pain (for me at least) and i will often times do myself out of acquiring pain tokens thanks to the order of how i shoot my units. a perfect example: the other evening i played against a gray knights player and decided that turn one, if nothing else, his tricked out dreadknight was going to be removed from the table. so, i proceeded to shoot ravagers, blasterborn in venoms, and anything else i could at it. my error occurred when the dreadknight had 2 wounds left and i shot with the three blasterborn in the venom first and managed a wound, then mopped up the final wound with my venom. duh! vehicles dont get pain tokens...this venom and its crew were taken out in my opponents following shooting phase (by melta so FnP wouldnt have made a difference, but still!) and if it had been another form of destruction, they may have lived, let alone resulting in more models surviveing the explosion from their transport being blown up. maybe its just me, i would consider myself a beginner, probably only played a dozen or so games with my DE (miraculously havnt lost one yet) but shooting order can really make a difference, especially with power from pain

while you could put a haemi with them to give them FNP i find it best to use their long range firepower to get their pain token. Blast things with venoms until they are near dead and then hope your scourges finish them off. A squad of 10 can have 4 spinter cannons, thats 24shots to hopefully put the pain on something. I have been running my talos with splinter cannons to do the same thing, get a pain token at range.

Today I fielded an Archon with Agonizer, Shadowfield and Combat Drugs. She was awesome! She was fielded with wyches and together they wiped out two squads of Necron warriors and a squad of Necron Destroyers.

I also fielded the Duke today as an HQ... he was okay. He did give the better roll for combat drugs, which was helpful, and he was deployed with 20 warriors with 2 splinter cannons, so the wound on a 3+ was also nice.


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Does anyone one here live anywhere near Highway 400 and Langstaff? If so, we have a good consistent group of mature players coming out through the week and every Sunday at Legends Warehous (legendswarehouse.ca). You should check it out... we are having tournies and a league. Always looking for new blood!

What type of load out do you guys think works best against Imperial Guard Tank Spam? I tend to try NOT to use a spam list when I play, because I like to enjoy the many different facets of my Dark Eldar army... but I ran into tank spam recently and I really wasn't prepared. Any thoughts?

In my experience the only way that Dark Eldar can deal with AV12 walls is with assault units which can hurt vehicles. Lances are incredibly inefficient against AV12, and even if you spam them as much as possible (even to the point of tailoring) you just end up in a messy brawl which you rarely win due to your lack of survivability. Against AV11 massed S8 does just fine, and obviously against lists which spam AV13 (Necrons and BA) or AV14 (Land Raider lists) it cleans up.

In short against Guard your Lances/Blasters probably aren't going to be enough to get the job done alone. This doesn't mean you stop taking them (you still take 3 Ravagers + Scourges/Lance Trueborn/Blasterborn) as you ideally want to open some vehicles up early so your Venoms can actually do something, it just means you need to bring Beasts, Wyches and/or a big unit of Hellions to create a balanced TAC list. Most of the time Guard won't be able to stop these units before they get at least one assault off (its the Rapid Firing Plasma and massed Lasgun fire which kills them), and they are either going to do a big chunk of damage to a static line of vehicles, or force him to keep moving and at least partially drop his firepower.

Haywire everywhere!

Wyches with Haywire 'nades, Scourges with Haywire Blasters, maybe even some Talos (I love Talos )

I mean, 3 Ravagers and 3 squads of wyches with Haywire Grenades in raiders should in theory take out 6-8 vehicles a turn.

This should have the added bonus of being reasonably well balanced against most enemies.

DE is my first army as I am somewhat new to the hobby but I wouldn't have it any other way. Out of about 15 games or so I have only lost 3 times. I'm happy with those numbers

Okay...so I am entering a tourney in two weeks and it is an 1850 point tourney. I have always played 2000 points and I am having difficulty finding a good balance for possible annihilation and objectives missions. I need scoring units, but I dont want too many easy kill points on the table. Any thoughts or opinions? Your help would be appreciated.

This is really specific & maybe inappropriate thread, but I love the hellion & scourge models. Can you guys think of a semi-competitive hellion troops w/ scourge support list at 1500?

I'm actually surprised many (but not all) dislike hellions - they are good for what they do.

A potential 24" assault, three attacks on the charge at str4, likely having followed a barrage of 2 poison shots per model. A unit of ten is going to deal just under 7 wounds as they fire in, and then another 7-8 wounds on the assault. If you toss the Barron in, that's 5 str6 attacks on the charge. AND they have Combat Drugs.

I know that many dislike them since they tend to be targeted as a squishy option amid an army of vehicles, but they have stealth, which helps a surprising amount.

Mind you do not need to build the 3 ravagers, 3 4 trueborn in venom list with dark eldar. How-ever: With dark eldar it is really important that your entier army works as a whole. Dark eldar are so fragile that it is not good to make an ufocused list.

So any ideas regarding the 1850 list to be balanced and ready for both assault based, creature based and tank based competitors?


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Darth Badguy wrote:This is really specific & maybe inappropriate thread, but I love the hellion & scourge models. Can you guys think of a semi-competitive hellion troops w/ scourge support list at 1500?

Your thread is perfectly appropriate. I started this forum so people could ask questions, talk strategy and get assistance and offer advice regarding Dark Eldar armies. Your question falls within that target.


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Does anyone else use Hellions? I have not yet, but I would be interested in hearing your expert opinions for and against. AND I really need advice on the 1850 list as mentioned above.... (by the way, I do not have any Hellions yet).


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I was thinking about going with all wych squads (to both deal with assaults and tanks - with haywire grenades), webway portals, a venom of Blasterborns and for heavy, maybe a Talos (or 2) and Razorwings (or Ravager and Razorwing)...

I use small hellion units for snatch and grab.

Assault into an existing close combat and hijack their uber character.

Zooom off with him, and drop onto a nice empty exposed part of the battlefield.

His turn, he will kill them off. If he doesn't you can Hit and Run away.

Your turn, you then fill him full of lead, without his ablative wounds unit to soak them for him..

I've used this tactic often, and it's a lot of fun, especially when you visualize a hellion board attempting to tow Ghazzy through the sky


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Talos are pretty good, but slow. They work best through WWP insertion.

Razorwings are damn pretty, and great for making infantry units DEAD DEAD DEAD (4 missiles, disintegrators and splinter guns... tasty!) but are fragile. They rarely last that long.

Ravagers are all around awesome. Best armour in the dex, and firing 3 DL/Dis cannon at 12'' move

Yeah... I like the sounds of the hellions... I love playing different and I love frustrating my opponents ... The grab and hit and run maneuvers both sound awesome.

The best way to use Razorwings is to put them in reserve. As long as you can get an infantry unit in the open on the turn they come in or before, it is dead. I run mine with the shatterfield missiles. 4 large blast str 7 shots, with rerolls to wound is insane. Every unit I have shot with it has either been completely wiped, or only had one or two models left. I have wiped lychguard, 30 man crusader squads, and even wraiths.

See, I rarely keep my Razorwing in reserve, and it's generally pretty survivable. To the point I'm considering buying a second.
I also run mine with 2 Lances / Splinter Cannon / 4 Monoscythes, so it's a versatile hunter - invaribly it looses its missiles at whatever (or sometimes even saves them for later! D then goes for either vehicle or TEQ hunting.

That said, I also have 2 Talos, 4-5 Raiders and 2-3 Venoms (holding a mix of Wracks and Grotesques) so I have a good number of reasonably tough threats to confuse them, and they tend to target the Talos over the Razorwing..

Do you run flickerfields on the razorwing? Or just keep it in cover from movement or terrain? I have terrible luck with my stuff getting shot, unless it has that save.

As a flier (well, fast skimmer at the moment), it would be tough to get cover saves for the razorwing. As such.. Flickerfields are a necessity.

Sorry, forgot that - I run flickerfields and nightshields.
And in my local store most tables have at least 1-2 pieces of terrain that'll give the Razorwing cover.

I usually run 2 Razorwings with night shields and flicker fields, and a Talos. The Talos usually is the primary target for my opponent, but it means at least one Razorwings survives the turn. I usually start in reserve with full Null deployment, which also confuses people. I do deploy on first turn in dawn of war... Allows me to get web way portals deep into enemy territory or near objectives. I am thinking of running 2 Talos and 1 Razorwings. I also just ordered 20 Hellions. They should be fun!!

Does anyone know if the Baron has his own model? Or do I have to create one??

There is no model as yet.

He's not hard to convert though

Massaen wrote:

lonekthx wrote:The Succubus takes the cake as the best HQ. She is a close combat monster for 85 points. 5 attacks with her agoniser at i8 ws8. Not to mention the standard 4+ dodge invul in CC. Give her a try, you'll fall in love.

As for the Haemy? I don't think he's worth the points.

Irony! Its the other way around for most!

The succubus is good - but is not a force multiplier. She kills around 2 MEQ a turn (not allowing for combat drugs) and thats great bang for buck... but a haemy with a liquifier will do just as well and gives a pain token to a unit. Combine that with a cheaper cost and 3 per HQ choice... you can see how good he is now yes?

There are a couple problems with your analysis.

First, the the haemy makes the unit lose fleet. No problem, keep him in the vehicle/separate from squad when they get out fine. But you have decreased the hitting power of the unit.

Second, the kills a haemy gets do not add to combat results. This is very important. An extra 2 wounds average, before combat drugs, can really swing battles.

I don't find the force multiplication you are attributing to the Haemy to be necessary. You can get FNP still without him, but there is no picking up a CC beast mid-game. The succubus really is a cheap CC boss.

Haemy is also a solid choice. For me personally, after I started using the succubus I never looked back. She outperforms her point value so often its just silly.

Kharrak wrote:I'm actually surprised many (but not all) dislike hellions - they are good for what they do.

A potential 24" assault, three attacks on the charge at str4, likely having followed a barrage of 2 poison shots per model. A unit of ten is going to deal just under 7 wounds as they fire in, and then another 7-8 wounds on the assault. If you toss the Barron in, that's 5 str6 attacks on the charge. AND they have Combat Drugs.

I know that many dislike them since they tend to be targeted as a squishy option amid an army of vehicles, but they have stealth, which helps a surprising amount.

they dont have stealth, the baron does. Taking hellions without the baron is criminally stupid as they are not troops and dont have stealth.

With the baron, a big unit can be alright, but its not going to solve all problems.

I personally have hellions being the absolute last thing on my dark eldar mind. I do very well with my army as it stands and i enjoy the reavers tactics more

my 1850 tournament list... i tok first this last weekend using it, undefeated on the day.

hq: baron
6x 5 warriors w/ 1 blaster, venom
3x 4 trueborn, w/ 4 blasters venom
beast pack w/ 3x razorwings, 4x kymarae, 3xbm
3x ravager w/ff

=1848

my 3 games where vrs 2 blood angel players and a necron army. pretty much tabled the crons and one of the BA, and won the second BA game from sheer speed and objective grabs. the beasts owned everything, and the worst they got was having the baron fail his save and get force weaponed, and i lost a few khymarae. otherwise they just curbstomped whatever they hit.

as for bikes.... yea they are good distraction units... but way to expensive for such a distraction/suicide unit. 22 pts a model base is horrible, and you almost need a unit of 6 or more, otherwise you loose one and the unit runs. my exp with bikes is that they just never do what they are supposed to.

DarthSpader wrote:my 1850 tournament list... i tok first this last weekend using it, undefeated on the day.

hq: baron
6x 5 warriors w/ 1 blaster, venom
3x 4 trueborn, w/ 4 blasters venom
beast pack w/ 3x razorwings, 4x kymarae, 3xbm
3x ravager w/ff

=1848

my 3 games where vrs 2 blood angel players and a necron army. pretty much tabled the crons and one of the BA, and won the second BA game from sheer speed and objective grabs. the beasts owned everything, and the worst they got was having the baron fail his save and get force weaponed, and i lost a few khymarae. otherwise they just curbstomped whatever they hit.

as for bikes.... yea they are good distraction units... but way to expensive for such a distraction/suicide unit. 22 pts a model base is horrible, and you almost need a unit of 6 or more, otherwise you loose one and the unit runs. my exp with bikes is that they just never do what they are supposed to.

What would you recommend for an 1850 list if I only have 2 venoms, 3 Raiders and 1 Ravager?

I do have beasts (lots of khymerae and clawed fiends, but no Razorwings), lots of wyches, Incubi, Wracks, lots of warriors, homonculi, a few jetfighters, a few talos, etc. Your help would be appreciated. Also, just out of curiosity, you run Baron with your Beasts? How does this benefit or hinder the squad or him? Thanks.

You can make razorwing flocks pretty easily. I just took the spike blade bits from the vehicle kits and glued them together such that they resemble bladed boomerangs. I then use the spears as a sort of stem to keep them up. 1 spear usually kept up 2-3 individual birds. Then put them on some 40mm bases. Total cost for making 5 razorwing flocks should be $5-10 as that's how much bases cost.

Couple that with my hellion beastmasters and LotR Khymerae (wargs). I spent about $70 for five beastmasters, ten khymerae, and ten razorwing flocks. And seeing as all are 100% GW models, they are legal in any GW tournament.