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I'm looking to start a Dark Eldar force once I've completed my Eldar, and I'm hoping for a solid CC element to the army. The HQ's especially stand out to me as being well-suited to the business of ripping and tearing. What I'm caught between is the Archon and the Succubus as to the best HQ, and how to equip them properly. The plan would be to have these characters be the Warlord and join a unit of Incubi in a Venom to hunt characters and anything else suitably threatening.

Here's what I was thinking for specific builds at 160 points:

Archon
-Webway Portal
-Shadow Field
-Agonizer

Succubus
-Webway Portal
-Archite Glaive
-Armour of Misery
-Blast Pistol

The Succubus has the advantage of a slightly better statline for CC, AP2 weapons, Leadership shenanigans, and the ability to threaten vehicles on the initial Deep-Strike. The Archon has a 2++ save for much greater survivability, and greater wound output vs. high-toughness models.

I'm interested to see what people more experienced with Dark Eldar would say to be the better loadout, or if there are other viable builds that I have missed.

Personally, I'm not impressed with the Shadowfield.

I prefer the Archon because he's slightly cheaper than a Succubus (the way I run them), but the Succubus does CC much better. That being said, neither one of them is truly phenomenal in melee; their handlers are usually doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, combat wise.

Take the Succubus.

The only time I would take the Archon is either if all i want was a Webway Portal or i was extremely point short. The problem is that either the Archon is really cheap but effectively useless, or exorbitantly expensive and....only fairly useless. Take the Succubus, give her the Archite Glaive and Armour of Misery to taste and throw her into combat with something not great at it. It's about the only effective HQ choice we have. Don't bother with the Webway portal or the Blast Pistol, You have a venom, that should be transport enough.

However, i wouldn't use her with Incubi. Consider the Succubuss' average damage output is 2 wounds at AP 2, while another Incubi is 1 wound at AP 2. I would honestly just get another Incubi in the unit. The real damage dealer in the unit is the Klaivex, with rampage he is usually rocking 5 attacks at Ws 6 Str 4 all for a very cheap 30pts.

I run the Succubus with a unit of Grotesques in a Raider. Grotesques are a great unit, they are high toughness to be flesh-shields, rampage so they have a high wound output but lack in Ld, Initiative for sweeping advances and a source of assured AP. The Succubus gives them all of these things.

Like many of these guys said, you're going to find the combat versions of our hqs to be lack luster. It's better to use grotesques from the haemonculus supplement if you want to smash things to pieces.

Alex's point about using a Succubus in a unit of Grotesques is good, and I'll certainly be trying that out.

I've had decent experiences with an Archon in close combat, especially with a huskblade + soul trap combo. Yes, it's only AP3, but I find that, as I ally with Eldar most of the time, I have enough AP2 and Rending knocking around anyway. However, this doesn't really seem to be a popular option?

 The Shadow wrote:
Alex's point about using a Succubus in a unit of Grotesques is good, and I'll certainly be trying that out.

I've had decent experiences with an Archon in close combat, especially with a huskblade + soul trap combo. Yes, it's only AP3, but I find that, as I ally with Eldar most of the time, I have enough AP2 and Rending knocking around anyway. However, this doesn't really seem to be a popular option?

I think people quickly dismiss CC HQs with out AP 2 because they can't reliable kill a lot of the other CC HQs. Its definitely a problem, but I think its a little overblown. Most of the time I don't really want my archon in CC with enemy HQs with a 2+ I prefer him to kill the other stuff. Those kind of HQs and units are frequently S6+ and well geared to make the fight risky even if I did have AP2. The best way way to kill things with a 2+ is shooting. Stab the shooty, shoot the stabby as always.

Trystis wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Alex's point about using a Succubus in a unit of Grotesques is good, and I'll certainly be trying that out.

I've had decent experiences with an Archon in close combat, especially with a huskblade + soul trap combo. Yes, it's only AP3, but I find that, as I ally with Eldar most of the time, I have enough AP2 and Rending knocking around anyway. However, this doesn't really seem to be a popular option?

I think people quickly dismiss CC HQs with out AP 2 because they can't reliable kill a lot of the other CC HQs. Its definitely a problem, but I think its a little overblown. Most of the time I don't really want my archon in CC with enemy HQs with a 2+ I prefer him to kill the other stuff. Those kind of HQs and units are frequently S6+ and well geared to make the fight risky even if I did have AP2. The best way way to kill things with a 2+ is shooting. Stab the shooty, shoot the stabby as always.

Yeah, this is my thought exactly. Combat HQs often simply ID my Archon and/or have a good invulnerable save. I also use my Archon with a squad of incubi (who bring the AP2) and like to use my Archon's shadowfield to soak up overwatch for the unit, which runs the risk of it shorting out and making fights with enemy HQs even more risky. I think one of the advantages of Dark Eldar is their mobility, and so I can get my Archon to where he'll do the most damage and where he'll avoid the scariest threats. And, of course, if my opponent's HQ is only rocking a 3+ I can simply choose to direct my Archon there instead.

Might be a silly question, as I'm pretty new to DE myself - but if you want at CC-focused HQ to go with Incubi, what about Drazhar?

Archons used to be fairly killy. My old build of huskblade/venom blade archon plus grot retinue routinely hunted the biggest game around. The most memorable for me was when they once got shot down behind enemy lines had a plane crash on top them then waded through 88 gaunts to kill a couple tervigons. Even got lucky wit a few riptides and some broadsides among other things. Things that take ap2. Meeeeemories.. but those days of uber threatening archon of death are gone so you'll hear some bitterness.

Anyway on topic I now roll almost exclusively with fuegan as my combat HQ of choice. Hes pretty much the eldar incarnation of drazhar with a badass splitfire melta. He explodes most things he even looks at and bitch slaps SHWs around in combat too. I've had him to S10 a few times (rules debates elsewhere please). Otherwise I'll opt for asurman (both modelled as DE of course). And this is what I would recommend to the OP since you own eldar already. Just take 1 bike unit + HQ if you don't want eldar.

On DE exlcusive HQs the agonizer is really the best option left and its basically just a power weapon. Otherwise the succubus is cheap with high stats but NO durability outside of combat and not much inside either due to ID abound. If I had to run a DE HQ (I run royal court) I would probably take an archon with SF and huskblade or agonizer and call it a day.

The issue with Drazhar btw is that incubi are plenty killy already. You want them cheap and since drazhar doesn't have grenades he doesn't bring anything to the unit that more bodies wouldn't accomplish better. If he wasn't stupidly restricted to incubi I would take him pretty often.