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 Lokas wrote:


I also go to great lengths to tell my opponent that they count as regular warriors and have back up warriors if my opponent tells me they're not cool with that. Which has only happened once thus far.

One opponent got huffy? Wow, I would be in serious trouble as I have some trueborn that look normal and some that are decorated to show their stance.

manishdra wrote:
I see almost everyone using a sybarite with an squat Kabalites... I have in all my games (against tyranids) never had any close contact with my kabalites, so the sybarite was always very useless... Is he worth the point for the one time you get cc?

And with the 6th E... what can I use the best against those bloody monstrous creatures? I have no elite yet, but they are on my birthday wish list....

If as a Dark Eldar you have a problem with monstrous creatures, you're doing it wrong :p
Really wrong.. As in deliberately working at letting them live.

Splinter weapons and lances dont give a damn about their high toughness and lances dont care about their armour save.
Dissies ignore the armour save and have a fair chance of hurting mc's.

Throw some splinter weaponry and / or some lance fire at them, and they should fall over.

Was gonna say... Monstrous Creatures are about the only thing I *don't* struggle against!

 eldartau1987 wrote:


One opponent got huffy? Wow, I would be in serious trouble as I have some trueborn that look normal and some that are decorated to show their stance.

Huffy?

Oh no.

He was just a newer player, didn't know the Dark Eldar codex at all, so the whole looks like a sybarite but not a sybarite thing made him a little uncomfortable, he said so, so I pulled out some basic warriors instead. It was all handled politely. It wasn't like the blown up terror stories you hear all over dakka about TFGs throwing dreadnaughts and smashing models with a hammer. He expressed discomfort, so I acquiesced and pulled out my alternative models.

OH!

I just assumed ( sorry for doing that to you) that you were dealing with a TFG. The bunker where I play has a few guys who whine and cry about that stuff. They are all 40k players O.o.

No worries.

It's more common to see true TFG stories than it is to see stories about reasonable gamers being reasonable to each other.

But does the sybarite give the whole squat +1 Leadership? Not that my kabalites ever ran... they never got the time or lost with the leadership test..

Let's I say it different... has there something changed so I might win from the Tyranids (with to much mc's)? I got some usefull tips some while ago, but that was before the 6th and my wyches are know shot out of their vehicle and in the open before they can assault... I have got some rasorwings but last time the dices kept him to long from the board... and then they forgot their glasses because my missiles were scattered everywhere except where I needed them.

You always use the highest Ld in the unit, if you've bought a sybarite, then yes, your unit becomes Ld9, until the sybarite is dead.

As for MC, what kinda list do you run? It really is hard to imagine DE having serious trouble against them, we do have plenty of weapons(see: Ovion's reply) to deal with their high toughness, so without knowing your list and what changes you're willing to make, the best advice is to as Ovion said: more splinter/lance.

Dissies have always failed miserably against MC's for me. MC's being T6, rolling 5's to wound is not something my dice are capable of.

DL's and mass poison gets it done easy enough.

I got some usefull tips some while ago, but that was before the 6th and my wyches are know shot out of their vehicle and in the open before they can assault

Tactics have changed somewhat in 6th. Making it into true cc with another squad isn't as easy to do any more and live through it. Wyches seem to be getting used more as an AT unit and used less to assault other troops. Still do-able, just not as adviseable.

Personally, I never really tried to engage MCs in close combat. If I did, it was as a last resort with Wyches, because of the 4++ save, and that's not changed, but the primary tactic is still to pour splinter fire at them.

 Foo wrote:
Personally, I never really tried to engage MCs in close combat. If I did, it was as a last resort with Wyches, because of the 4++ save, and that's not changed, but the primary tactic is still to pour splinter fire at them.

wracks do pretty well, usually get their FNP and their posioned weapons put out a ton of wounds

Has anyone played around with small, 3 "man" squads of trueborn, armed with 2 splinter cannons or 2 dark lances as a cheaper alternative to venoms and ravagers? And with any success?

(it's probably not the best combo but say you're all out of venoms, don't own the models or you've filled all three heavy slots with ravagers already and you need a couple of more dark lances in your list.)

Deploy in cover and atleast you won't get one shotted by a LasCanEQ...

Is it viable at all?

I wouldn't consider doing that... You'd be giving up one of the biggest strengths of DE, which is their mobility. I think it'd be an easy kill point for your opponent.

Most missions aren't KP any more.

Purge the Alien is the only one that comes to mind.

Replace KP with First Blood.

It's a decent way to get Dark Lances though. Sniper teams die to a stray fart, but they might do some damage.

 Lokas wrote:
Replace KP with First Blood.

It's a decent way to get Dark Lances though. Sniper teams die to a stray fart, but they might do some damage.

^^ meant that. Still kinda stuck in 5th. My issue is they don't have very good mobility, and they are super fragile. But go for it, if you have no other options right now.

A 2 Lance Trueborn squad is 86 points.
They are T3, with 3 wounds overall and a 5+ save.
Furthermore, they cannot move and fire effectively.
If they take 1 wound, they have a chance of fleeing.

3 With 2 Splinter Cannons is 56 points, and on foot face much the same problems as above, though are slightly more mobile.

However, 3 Trueborn with 2 Cannons in a Venom, makes 4 Splinter Cannons for 20-24 shots a turn (DakkaVenom). It's even a unit I've used to great effect. I tend put Night Shields on to protect it from the small arms return fire though.

It's one of those things I'd consider if I had a stray <100 points to spend and had filled up most of my other slots.

I wouldn't field three of them, because that's only six lances you're adding (the equivalent to 2 Ravagers) for 260~ points. Not to mention they still all die to a stray fart and you're basically giving first blood away.

The dakkavenom is something I would use if I ever needed more anti-infantry killing power in my lists. This is rarely the case though, so while definitely a good choice, not one I personally use.

On a thought (and a different variant of the Venom Spam list I haven't seen before... though it may already exist) that might be fun to work towards:
1x Haemonculi w/ Liquifier Gun, Hex Rifle
3x 3 Kabalite Trueborn w/ 2 Splinter Cannons
On Venom w/ Add. Splinter Cannon 363
6x 5 Wyches w/ Haywire Grenades
On Venom w/ Add. Splinter Cannon 750
2x Voidraven Bomber w/ Flickerfield 310
1498
Not a big fan of the classic 'Venom Spam' lists, but I do want to work towards owning 9 Venoms, 12 Raider/Ravagers, a pair of Tantalus anyway, so

I like that list, but I foresee it having trouble with transport heavy lists and flier heavy lists.

Although the 6+ flier lists are pretty much a hard counter to DE, since even 3x voidravens and a quad-gun aren't going to put enough of a dent in that.

As for why I'd see it having trouble with transport heavy lists, the majority of its anti-tank power is in the haywyches. Haywyches, in my experience, are a very poor choice for killing transports. Not because they struggle with it, haywyches don't struggle at killing anything with an armor value. It's that they'd kill it and then the contents would pour out to evaporate them, so you trade 60 points of wyches for 35-60 points of transport, but you lose a scoring unit in the bargain. Considering how important scoring units are this edition, that's not a fair trade.

 Lokas wrote:
I like that list, but I foresee it having trouble with transport heavy lists and flier heavy lists.

Although the 6+ flier lists are pretty much a hard counter to DE, since even 3x voidravens and a quad-gun aren't going to put enough of a dent in that.

As for why I'd see it having trouble with transport heavy lists, the majority of its anti-tank power is in the haywyches. Haywyches, in my experience, are a very poor choice for killing transports. Not because they struggle with it, haywyches don't struggle at killing anything with an armor value. It's that they'd kill it and then the contents would pour out to evaporate them, so you trade 60 points of wyches for 35-60 points of transport, but you lose a scoring unit in the bargain. Considering how important scoring units are this edition, that's not a fair trade.

Unless you block the access points, then the squad inside evaporates with the vehicle, making 10 haywyches in a raider seem almost viable, though open topped would be a problem, methinks. But that's just my opinion.

You'd have to block every inch of the hull.

Which is actually possible to do with 10~ wyches using full distance between bases. I do it quite often when I can, it's a great way to make whole squads go bye-bye. However, it's trick to get the movement necessary to completely surround a vehicle.

And if you don't completely surround it, they emergency disembark, pass their pinning test (because I have yet to see a single one of these failed in 6th) and shoot up the haywyches.

It's easier if you use two units , one coming in from either side

It serves me well for orks and DE both..

As Ascalam said, if you two it would be easier, and usually you'll want the transport destroyed if its got MEQs or something in it, which in any case you probably outnumber them almost 2-1

Oh, no doubt. That's how I usually do it, two venoms splitting off to charge either side of the rhino/razorback/whatever.

However, there's still a lot of factors involved here. Terrain, interfering units, random charge length, etcetera etcetera.

Having actually put this tactic to work in-game as many times as I possibly can (especially when there is an expensive unit trapped inside that metal box) I can confidently say that it's fething fantastic. When it works. There's a lot that can go wrong though, and haywyches should not be your only method of dealing with transports. Even if the meta has shifted away from transport spam, it's still a good idea to have some back up AT.

Ravagers fulfill this role in my lists, although sometimes Reavers get forced into it, and the Voidravens could work well enough depending on how many transports your enemy has.

Say you'd want to equip a squad of 6 reavers with both 2 cluster caltrops and 2 heat lances.
Would you (assuming I interpret the rules correctly) go for the "all eggs in one basket" approach and give the cluster caltrops upgrades to the models armed with heat lances or would you prefer to give them to models armed with the stock splinter rifle to avoid loosing a model armed with both upgrades to say precision shots or focus fire?

You'd seperate them out.

But it's also really expensive, especially being you can't use both in a turn, andeach needs different positioning to be effective.

You basically get an expensive jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none unit.

Were this fifth, I'd say all your eggs in one basket. Gives you more ablative wounds.

With wound allocation what it is today, I'd agree with Ovion. Separate them out, and moreover, don't take them in the same unit.

Most of my reavers just use heat lances in squads of 3, and in an upcoming battle my list has 18 reavers, which makes things quite hard to keep track of IMO, and there is almost too much to shoot at, and bladvanes are just as good for dealing with infantry, so I don't think there is really too Much need for the caltrops.

 Lokas wrote:

And if you don't completely surround it, they emergency disembark, pass their pinning test (because I have yet to see a single one of these failed in 6th) and shoot up the haywyches.

well I have yet to pass one of those... EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!!