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As the thread title says, I'm curious as to why Dark Eldar are considered a weak army? They seem to bring some nice firepower, but have weak armor saves? Why are they weak, and how can you play DE to make up for their weakness?

I think it is the sheer cost of Dark Eldar units that are good, and the fact that you will get wiped out in any kind of shooting attacks, and against any half decent army they can do enough damage to cripple you if they can see you.

My solution, ally in some friends :p

They're a glass cannon that seems to be firing whatever silverware they can find rather than cannonballs these days. The trick would be figuring out how that works.

I'm not sure exactly on how to do that either, but I've heard that harlequins are something you'd probably want to add in.

As awesome as my daemons are, I see Dark Eldar as one of the biggest threats against me. Very few armor saves vs a crap ton of poison? Scarier than an army of space marines with "wasted" lascannon and melta shots. But that's paper to a single army's rock. And most other armies are fielding scissors.

Its basically that they have only one build that works. It's Venom Spam and that formation that buffs Talos.

Anything outside of Warriors, Venoms, Haemonculi, Grotesques, Reavers, Scourges with Haywire, and that very specific Talos formation is more or less complete garbage.

They are a glass cannon army that doesn't really hit that hard and relies heavily on cover and speed to stay alive. The problem is that most armies can ignore cover on various weapons now, and many armies have the speed to keep up with the DE. So their advantages designed to offset their natural weaknesses don't really come into play and you just end up short handed.

You can play around their weaknesses by using Dark Eldar models with the Craftworld Eldar codex.

They're an early 7th codex, so suffer from that large drop in power, and still lack any sort of decurion.
There are other armies, mostly Craftworld Eldar, that do everything the Dark Eldar do, better, and have more options. Over half the units are complete garbage, others are just sub-par, and only a handfull are above average, the Reavers, Grotesques, and Venoms.

Their biggest advantage is most of their stuff is dirt cheap. A squad of 3 reavers with a cluster caltrop is 73 points for a 3+ jink, D6 s6 HOW and 2 s4 HOW, plus combat drugs. The best Dark Eldar player I know of , Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics, has beaten many top tier lists with pure DEldar using reaver spam backed up by venoms. He's also done similarly well with less reavers, but a Corpse Thief Claw, sometimes backed up by a Dark Artisan, just to have a beefy unit, but that eats up a lot of points.

1) Corsair, Eldar or Harlequins Allies
2) Play more Coven

If you want to play Pure DE you NEED to play with some Coven, lots of Bikes, Scourges some venoms and you NEED to Kill fast, dont target 3-4 units to "hurt" you must have huge target priority and kill what you start to shoot at.

With Scourges either DS Heat lance or HWB hiding behind cover, Bikes either Caltrops or (but not both) a gun, DA/Grotequirer/CTC formation (either DA+Grots or CTC+Grots). MSU of Venoms with 5warriors (W/ or w/o Blasters up to you)

But in all honestly they are the weakness codex and you need to play at a lower power level or play with Allies.

What makes them weak?

1) Lower Survivablity (Same points just weaker, literally 1 less armor save across the full book, some places 2 less armor saves, DE bikes are 5+ ALL other Bikes are 3+ or 4+) Also vehicles are weaker: They just dont have the movements to keep them alive, also Harlequins gets 5+ invuls with 4+ for a turn without jink, Eldar and Corsairs can buy invuls that are better than DE 5++ on venoms, they can get Ignore shaken, 4++ rerolls etc.....
2) Lack of power. Literally b.c they have Lance and Poison they DONT get real fire power, Bolters are better 99% the time and Mass S6/S7 are better again 99% the time. Its the "Potential" as to what Poison and Lance "could" do, but sense GW doesnt use any math when balancing they would know that A few lance spams and Mass poison isnt a good thing, Poison cant even hurt Vehicles,
2.a) Poison, cant hurt vehicles, when you have a Nice 1 roll weapon you CANT mix and Match rolls, so a Blaster or a Lance/Haywire weapons dont do any good in those units.
3) Lack of Speed for a Fast fragile armor, Unlike ELdar, Harlequins and Corsairs their own Kin, DE DOESNT have JSJ, Run and Charge, Bonus pivot fliers etc...
4) Lack of Specialization and Special rules, Warriors have fleet.. they dont need fleet they need Battle focus, PFP doesnt help, NV doesnt help, 1/2 there special rules dont work again ATSKNF (literally it says it doesnt) there is just a huge list I can go through, just look at Eldar, Corsairs or Harlequins Points + Rules vs DE points + rules
5) Lack of Weapon options. No Shuriken, No Metla, on and on, They get 3 weapons thats it.... Haywire, Lance, Poison........ that leaves ALOT of holes to fill on things that they cant hurt or have a lack of killing power.
6) No Psychic Powers (This is fine) BUT because they dont have powers they are lacking game play, they also dont have Anti Powers or anything to give them a way to fill that power gap
7) Lack of buffs, like TL, furious charge, rending etc.. PFP FC doesnt count.
8) Lack of good HQ characters and Options for them (Veck, Baron, Lady M all where NEEDED and they took them away), HQ's cant take Bikes, Jet Packs, Skyboards or any other options, they lack fire power and Melee power. There is a good reason EVERY DE players takes the 10pts HQ.....

I can go on but its taking to long.

Edit: English hard sorry or grammer, trying to fix.

What makes them weak?

* Lack of flexibility - No decurion, very few decent formations, no force multiplier options.
* No ability to compete or counter psykers.
* Poor survivability, coupled with mediocre firepower and mediocre alpha strike capacity.

How to use them?
* Venomspam plus Reaverspam is still a competitive build.
* With allies-Freakshows are still a competitive build, and there are other possibilities if you're willing to support your list with other armies.

What makes em weak T3 just don't get hit in the open.

 oldzoggy wrote:
What makes em weak T3 just don't get hit in the open.

Harlequins, Corsairs and many Eldar are T3 and they all are leaps and bounds higher tier than DE.

Yes DE lack survival, but Eldar, Harlequins and Corsairs also have better saves, Invuls and better movements (JSJ, Run+Charge, Battle Focus, Reckless Abandon) etc.. DE vehicles are also weaker for the same costs with less Fire power. Corsairs and Eldar can mass fire S4-7 where DE cant, we can mass Poison and splash some S5 or S8, Poison with no rending or Strength and some Dark Lances is terrible fire power.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

8) Lack of good HQ characters and Options for them (Veck, Baron, Lady M all where NEEDED and they took them away), HQ's cant take Bikes, Jet Packs, Skyboards or any other options, they lack fire power and Melee power. There is a good reason EVERY DE players takes the 10pts HQ.....

Actually, the Succubus is pretty good when run with a Grotesquerie. Give her glaive and Armor of Misery and she shreds stuff. Her biggest flaw is there's nothing else in the codex that works as a meatshield for her

They're a glass cannon without the cannon. Usable in friendly settings but miles behind Eldar in all but the most specific circumstances (leadership shenanigans, coven units, Haywire Blaster Scourges and Reavers jump to mind). The problem is apart from the Haemonculus coven pain engines and Grotesques, none of the combat units actually work that well, despite the fact the book wants to be at least in part a CC army.

Alleviate this by being a shooting army. But it's mostly boring, because across the entire army you have exactly three weapon profiles, Splinter, Darklight and Dissies. Get's old fast.

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

8) Lack of good HQ characters and Options for them (Veck, Baron, Lady M all where NEEDED and they took them away), HQ's cant take Bikes, Jet Packs, Skyboards or any other options, they lack fire power and Melee power. There is a good reason EVERY DE players takes the 10pts HQ.....

Actually, the Succubus is pretty good when run with a Grotesquerie. Give her glaive and Armor of Misery and she shreds stuff. Her biggest flaw is there's nothing else in the codex that works as a meatshield for her

1 ok ish HQ that is considered lower in power isnt something to be proud of. Being S4 that you need to buy a weapon and being t3 isnt very good. My Corsair Prince with 2++ S4 AP3 rending does the same thing for the same cost, but also has more rules, pick and choose when to melee easier, can get Drugs that are better or Rage, not only with Assault nades but also Defensive ones, lastly he can get any artifact from any eldar race if you choose to.

I mean I like the Succubus I have 4 of them, But still DE hq's are weak :(

Lady M has insane rules I'd rather have her, the Baron is By Far are best HQ (IMO) but again cant have him

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
They're a glass cannon without the cannon. Usable in friendly settings but miles behind Eldar in all but the most specific circumstances (leadership shenanigans, coven units, Haywire Blaster Scourges and Reavers jump to mind). The problem is apart from the Haemonculus coven pain engines and Grotesques, none of the combat units actually work that well, despite the fact the book wants to be at least in part a CC army.

Alleviate this by being a shooting army. But it's mostly boring, because across the entire army you have exactly three weapon profiles, Splinter, Darklight and Dissies. Get's old fast.

I just want DE to have Shuriken as options ......

DE are very inflexible, and they suffered a massive loss of survivability from 5th to 6th. 7th removed a lot of options, and buffed a few, to the point certain units stand out above the rest.

This means most DE builds nowadays will be some variant of Reavers&Venoms, Grotesquerie and Support, or maybe the occasional Purge Coterie with the "Trueborn Upgrade" exploit.

Hellions and Wracks are terrible. Incubi aren't good but a minimum unit with Klaivex can hurt some things (10 points for the extra attack, WS, Init, and Rampage is key). Mandrake are awful as they cost like Marines yet lack any armor save at all. Hit them in melee (bikes with Hammer of Wrath in particular) and they just melt away. You "could" use them as infiltrators for scenario play...or take an Aspect Temple formation with Striking Scorpions...

I stopped playing my Dark Eldar after the last codex seemed to take more than it gave. The drive-by attacks from the Jetbikes were gone, the Ravager went up in cost whilst losing its firing all weapons whilst moving 12 rule. My razorwing flock got nerfed, and after a couple of editions ago, my passengers were reduced to snapfire if the raiders/venoms moved 7-12 inches I lost all love for them. Ap3 Huskblades, wyches being nerfed, wych special weapons being made mundane,Sathonyx gone, Malys gone. When the edition made them go from Str 3 to Str 4 hits when a raider's blown up (no benefit there to being open topped), it was one final middle finger.

Their idea is fast, hard hitting firepower. They're too few in number, and too easy to pin down. If they shoot they're standing still, and if they're standing still they're dead. They're easy to catch with deep strikers, and easy as hell to chew through. Just posting this has filled with me with ire again.

Norn Queen Yurel nailed it.

This last edition + abysmal codex was just brutal. Words can't express what a dumpster fire that last codex was.

It actually makes you want to give up on an army completely.

It's sad, because GW put a lot of time and effort into redoing the model range and it's currently up there as one of the best-looking armies in the game, then completely ruined it just a couple years later with garbage rules.

I wouldn't be surprised if DE sales tanked kinda hard after 6th came out, and then dried up almost completely when that joke of a 7th edition codex was released. I wonder if GW even knows why.

I've thought about just playing 5th ed codex honestly.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I've thought about just playing 5th ed codex honestly.

this x 100