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So I'm looking to start a small for (for the time being) for dark eldar. I know they are kind of lacking at the moment but what would be better to go with, the standard dark eldar or the Haemonculus Covens? I'm looking for some information on this and the general run down of this army. I know that they are super fast and have a lot of poison weapons, but that's about it.

Thanks!

If you want to use allies, Covens.

If you want to go mono faction, then vanilla DE.

are covens not that good>?

Covens are great, just lacking when it comes to anti armor and the such, also very limited in units so they can get stale.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Covens are great, just lacking when it comes to anti armor and the such, also very limited in units so they can get stale.

Thanks, so if I'm looking for more of the Fast flying guys then I need to stick with the standard Dark Eldar.

Is there anything in the way of books or supplements that gives Dark eldar formations and stuff?

Covens have a ton of awesome formations, the grotesquerie is a godsend, and the Corpsetheif claw can be awesome. Most are quite good.

Sadly not much in the way of formations or a decurion or the such. There were some whispers of it for a time but they have died down recently.

Make no mistake, the covens are fast, but slightly less fast than regular DE, and slightly tougher, and then there are exceptions, so the covens units will get insanely tough like Talos' and the regular DE will get insanely fast like Reavers.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Covens have a ton of awesome formations, the grotesquerie is a godsend, and the Corpsetheif claw can be awesome. Most are quite good.

Sadly not much in the way of formations or a decurion or the such. There were some whispers of it for a time but they have died down recently.

Make no mistake, the covens are fast, but slightly less fast than regular DE, and slightly tougher, and then there are exceptions, so the covens units will get insanely tough like Talos' and the regular DE will get insanely fast like Reavers.

So there is no mixing of the factions? I mean when I run chaos I run multiple groups like Iron warriors with black legion stuff etc so can that not be done here?
And the only formation stuff is basically for the covens?

The haemonculi coven is a supplement, those are still dark eldars not possible allies, so you can take any formation you want with your dark eldars. In that book there are some interesting formations but you need a CAD or a detachment from the dark eldar codex to play efficiently, as in the supplement there isn't any decent firepower available. I always take one (sometimes two) formation from the supplement. I suggest to have a look at the grotesquerie, the dark artisan and the corpsthief claw, other formations are not worth in my opinion. Corpse thief claw is really extreme though, as you have a single footslogging unit that costs 600 points without any upgrade. I think it's a very powerful formation but you need to build your list around those talos.

 Blackie wrote:
The haemonculi coven is a supplement, those are still dark eldars not possible allies, so you can take any formation you want with your dark eldars. In that book there are some interesting formations but you need a CAD or a detachment from the dark eldar codex to play efficiently, as in the supplement there isn't any decent firepower available. I always take one (sometimes two) formation from the supplement. I suggest to have a look at the grotesquerie, the dark artisan and the corpsthief claw, other formations are not worth in my opinion. Corpse thief claw is really extreme though, as you have a single footslogging unit that costs 600 points without any upgrade. I think it's a very powerful formation but you need to build your list around those talos.

Yeah I saw a battle report on youtube where Tabeltoptactics dude was testing a list for a big tournament against the riptide wing and the dark eldar barely pulled out a win, but he was running the corpse thief and some other formation behind them with the homunc and a chronos and talos.

yeah those guys were beefy as hell.

Because of the lack of comparable formations to current books, Covens is the way to go for some extra umph. Corpsethief & Grotesquerie can be used to great effect. Corpsethief is a HUGE points sink, but I absolutely love using it, as they are super durable (except against grav), and allow you a large swathe of board control. But as stated above, you pretty much need to build your list around it. And five Talos will uppercut your wallet.

If I had to start over with a DE army, Venoms and Reavers is where I'd start.

If you're not 100% set on a pure DE, Corsairs adds some very interesting and needed firepower. Honestly, I think Corsairs is a much more complete book than Dark Eldar and Covens combined.

And if you are 100% on pure DE, whatever you do, don't start comparing them to their Craftworld cousins because CWE just does everything better. And I don't mean don't use DE, I'm just saying that before long you might end up converting 30 plus DE warriors, wyches and scourages into EVIL Warp Spiders :-)

 KthuluQball wrote:
Because of the lack of comparable formations to current books, Covens is the way to go for some extra umph. Corpsethief & Grotesquerie can be used to great effect. Corpsethief is a HUGE points sink, but I absolutely love using it, as they are super durable (except against grav), and allow you a large swathe of board control. But as stated above, you pretty much need to build your list around it. And five Talos will uppercut your wallet.

If I had to start over with a DE army, Venoms and Reavers is where I'd start.

If you're not 100% set on a pure DE, Corsairs adds some very interesting and needed firepower. Honestly, I think Corsairs is a much more complete book than Dark Eldar and Covens combined.

And if you are 100% on pure DE, whatever you do, don't start comparing them to their Craftworld cousins because CWE just does everything better. And I don't mean don't use DE, I'm just saying that before long you might end up converting 30 plus DE warriors, wyches and scourages into EVIL Warp Spiders :-)

Yeah I've played against enough Craft world Eldar with other armies to know they are the strongest cheese around.

Now I've never heard of Corsairs? what is this?

Also, just as a side note.... where the heck can you get the Grotesque models at???? I've looked on GW (sold out), ebay (old ass small metal models), and amazon (nothing) so where can you get those things? plus having to buy like 6 of them is just hurtful lol.

MitchellTyner wrote:


Also, just as a side note.... where the heck can you get the Grotesque models at???? I've looked on GW (sold out), ebay (old ass small metal models), and amazon (nothing) so where can you get those things? plus having to buy like 6 of them is just hurtful lol.

Almost every one scratch built their own ones, converting is the way to go. I bought a fantasy ogres box, there were six dudes and quite easy to convert into grotesques, i added some masks spared from the talos kit and some tentalces, hands and accessories spared from the same kit, also gave them 50mm round bases. Green stuff for modelling the necks. Those models cost me less than 2 original grotesques, but they're still almost 100% GW plastic. Also vargheist and chaos spawns are very appropriate to be converted into grotesques, but quite pricey.

From what I can tell the usual Grotesque conversions (to get away from the monopose) is Crypt Horrors with leftover Talos bits

Crypt Horrors are common, as are Ogre Kingdoms models, modified with Talos bits. Rat Ogres from the Island of Blood set are another popular choice. (The new Rat Ogres would look dynamite, too, but the price point is the same as the stock Grot model.)

I've also seen people take the prepainted Confrontation Wulfen and prepainted Dreamblade minis and converting them into Grots, then repainting them. This is far and away the cheapest option.

Crypt Horrors with Talos bits is what I did, works a treat. As for Talos, I used a set of Skaven Storm Fiends to convert into 3 Talos. The caveat here is that you do need Talos bits but I run a Corpsthiefe Claw and Dark Artisan so 4 boxes of Talos plus a box of Storm Fiends saved me about £50 on getting 7 Talos boxes.

Personally, since I don't play in a super competative meta I like running pure DE with both a mix of standard Kabal and Cult units with Covens formations. Whilst a CTC is expensive points wise, and is best with an attendant DA formation to give them the 4+ FnP with re-rolls of 1's but coming out at nearly 1000pts, I find that in 2K games it still leaves me with enough space to fill it with Warriors in Venoms, Reavers, Incubi or Scourge and not feel like I'm too short on units.

For Taloi, I've had good results with converting old metal wraithlords into pain engines. You can frequently find them on eBay for ~$10, and they look awesome when they're finished!

 KthuluQball wrote:
Because of the lack of comparable formations to current books, Covens is the way to go for some extra umph. Corpsethief & Grotesquerie can be used to great effect. Corpsethief is a HUGE points sink, but I absolutely love using it, as they are super durable (except against grav), and allow you a large swathe of board control. But as stated above, you pretty much need to build your list around it. And five Talos will uppercut your wallet.

If I had to start over with a DE army, Venoms and Reavers is where I'd start.

If you're not 100% set on a pure DE, Corsairs adds some very interesting and needed firepower. Honestly, I think Corsairs is a much more complete book than Dark Eldar and Covens combined.

And if you are 100% on pure DE, whatever you do, don't start comparing them to their Craftworld cousins because CWE just does everything better. And I don't mean don't use DE, I'm just saying that before long you might end up converting 30 plus DE warriors, wyches and scourages into EVIL Warp Spiders :-)

Wait, are any other kind of warp spiders? Judging by the faces some of my opponents make them when I bring them (on fething tournaments, mind you) I thought they were default baby-eaters.

whelp, I noticed that the UK webstore still has the models in stock but the US store doesn't. Super Sigh. Talked to my local GW store dude and he said he couldn't requisition them to be sent to the store. Sigh again.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wow scratch that. Know why I like my local red shirt. He called in today and found out they back in the store on the 25th lol. I'm good with that lol

Lord Kragan wrote:


Wait, are any other kind of warp spiders? Judging by the faces some of my opponents make them when I bring them (on fething tournaments, mind you) I thought they were default baby-eaters.

HAHAHAHA

Yeah, even at the tryhard tournaments I get the same reactions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MitchellTyner wrote:
Yeah I've played against enough Craft world Eldar with other armies to know they are the strongest cheese around.

Now I've never heard of Corsairs? what is this?

Also, just as a side note.... where the heck can you get the Grotesque models at???? I've looked on GW (sold out), ebay (old ass small metal models), and amazon (nothing) so where can you get those things? plus having to buy like 6 of them is just hurtful lol.

Corsairs are from the Forge World Imperial Armour book Doom of Mymeara. Essentially Corsairs are an Eldar pirate faction and have access to units across the different Eldar codices. They're really cool, the rules are fluffy but competitive and you can pretty much make up your own faction using the entire range of Eldar models. Absolutely recommend checking it out.