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I can definitively answer "maybe". If everybody and their brother used; DreadKnights, Riptides, WraithKnights, WraithLords, or anything Tyranid, then Yes!

Splinter weaponry makes monstrous creatures cry. Thing is DE have Ravagers for cheap access to mild anti-tank.

Against BelialWing, DraigoWing or whatever HeroHammerTerminatorWing army it can be rough even with Venom/Raider spam unless you sacrfice your anti-tank to use Disintegrators.

...so... yea... my answer is...umm... Maybe!

RancidHate wrote:
I can definitively answer "maybe". If everybody and their brother used; DreadKnights, Riptides, WraithKnights, WraithLords, or anything Tyranid, then Yes!

Splinter weaponry makes monstrous creatures cry. Thing is DE have Ravagers for cheap access to mild anti-tank.

Against BelialWing, DraigoWing or whatever HeroHammerTerminatorWing army it can be rough even with Venom/Raider spam unless you sacrfice your anti-tank to use Disintegrators.

...so... yea... my answer is...umm... Maybe!

DE are good against MCs and TDA, they always have been. 6th edition hasnt been a huge march towards MCs or TDA. Instead we are seeing lots of cheap infantry, which DE are not good at killing.

Which again is purely false. They are just fine at killing cheap infantry (as good as most other armies), they are just better than other armies at killing MCs and stuff. And there are lots of those in 6th (Nids, Daemons, Riptides, Wraithlord/knights).

Breng77 wrote:
Which again is purely false. They are just fine at killing cheap infantry (as good as most other armies), they are just better than other armies at killing MCs and stuff. And there are lots of those in 6th (Nids, Daemons, Riptides, Wraithlord/knights).

Without any barrage (or rather close to no blast at all), almost no ignore cover weaponry and without resilient assault units, DE are not fine killing cheap infantry at all. With 2+ or 3+ cover saves all around, poison weaponry is next to useless on cheap infantry.

DE possess
Template weapons that ignore cover.
Resiliant Assault Units (Beast Pack, Incubi)
Can ignore cover using allies if you wish.

2+ and 3+ cover are not all that plentiful really, and will be less common due to Tau and Eldar Ignoring them on a large scale.

By your argument only Tau and IG are useful against cheap infantry. Again simply put this is not true.

The amount of shots DE can put out make them awesome at taking out cheap infantry.
Seriously, DE have vast amounts of firepower, cover saves will fail when put up against a fist full of dice.

I believe Exergy and Mandor are speaking comparatively with other armies, comparing with armies that can bring a load of blasts, ignore-cover, what-have-you, DE isn't all that great against cheap infantry. This, by no mean, means that DE can't handle cheap infantry at all, it's just that other armies can do it more efficient.

So they are not IG or Tau? Sure, but if the arugment that cheap infantry is somehow a bad matchup it is false. You don't have to be the best at something to be good at it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And specifically what they said was DE are not Good at killing cheap infantry. Where I showed that they are better at it that

Marines (any book)
Sisters
CSM


Also likelyas good or better at it than
Eldar
Nids
Daemons (certainly using shooting)
Necrons (point for point DE warrior are better at it thatn Necron warriors)
Orks


SO they are Not IG, and Not Tau

So if you are not in the top 2 are you somehow bad at it.

Eh... You might wanna take a step back and calm down, there is no need to take it so personally... "Not good" =/= "Bad", it's just not good, it's somewhere below good, somewhere above bad.

ummmmm....so not taking it personally at all, but really Not good is more or less equal to bad in this game. Eithe ryou do something proficiently or you don't. Are they top tier at killing cheap infantry ? NO But they are above average at it at the very worst.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and based on the Dictionary Not good is the definition of Bad.

Dark Eldar's main role as an army is they can kill things. A whole bunch of things. A whole bunch of anything.

Killing stuff is what they do.

Their next main thing is getting killed themselves. It doesn't really matter what the opponent has, or even has left, they're going to kill a whole bunch of Dark Eldar things.

Consequently, anyone who thinks there's such a thing as an "easy" game against DE is genre-blind. It will always be a brutal, bloodbath of a game.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Dark Eldar's main role as an army is they can kill things. A whole bunch of things. A whole bunch of anything.

Killing stuff is what they do.

Their next main thing is getting killed themselves. It doesn't really matter what the opponent has, or even has left, they're going to kill a whole bunch of Dark Eldar things.

Consequently, anyone who thinks there's such a thing as an "easy" game against DE is genre-blind. It will always be a brutal, bloodbath of a game.

DE are the glass cannon army. Their troops and tanks are very fragile. Everyone kills DE well, very well in fact.

DE units are on the other hand, made to be very deadly. They are supposed to kill other things very very well for the points. Now when DE warriors kill Geq at the same effectiveness as IG Vets, similar to CSM or DA marines there are problems. That isnt killing things quickly, and the resulting return fire is going to wipe and expensive unit.

Breng77 wrote:
ummmmm....so not taking it personally at all, but really Not good is more or less equal to bad in this game. Eithe ryou do something proficiently or you don't. Are they top tier at killing cheap infantry ? NO But they are above average at it at the very worst.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and based on the Dictionary Not good is the definition of Bad.

There are always middle-ground's, it just depends whether you want to see it as clear cut black-and-white or not, really. I mean, marines are the perfect middle ground army, they aren't the toughest, they aren't the strongest hitting, one could even say they're "not good" at being toughest/strongest, but that still doesn't mean they're "bad", they just aren't as good as some other specialised armies.

When I read Exergy or Mandor's posts, that's what I got from it, and I agree with them, I just couldn't, for the life of me, read that they're saying "DE can't ever beat a horde of infantry", all I read is that they aren't as good as some other armies.

See if I were going to say something like that I might say they are middle of the road, not good has the connotation that they cannot do it well, which means they are then bad at it. I don't disagree with the above that they area effect
Y good at killing most things but might not win if you go into a war of attrition against those things.

 Exergy wrote:
Now when DE warriors kill Geq at the same effectiveness as IG Vets, similar to CSM or DA marines there are problems.

Well, none of those things are true, so I guess there's no problem here.

We should just agree to... agree... sorta agree, I guess. It's not like you're disputing that DE are better than other armies at what they're better at, you're just arguing because you don't seem to like the "not good" description, which is just kinda silly to me, no offence.

I generally don't like the notion they they are sub par at things that they are not sub par at. They are good at killing infantry, they are bad at durability. They are certainly not the best at everything no army is. I'm not claiming they are top tier as they have several bad matchups, but those have more to do with enemies being good at killing the de, or vehicle heavy builds than it does the de being bad at killing infantry.

Breng77 wrote:
I generally don't like the notion they they are sub par at things that they are not sub par at. They are good at killing infantry, they are bad at durability. They are certainly not the best at everything no army is. I'm not claiming they are top tier as they have several bad matchups, but those have more to do with enemies being good at killing the de, or vehicle heavy builds than it does the de being bad at killing infantry.

DE are certainly not bad at killing. They just lack certain weaponry that other armies have (plenty of) access to. Barrage and cover ignoring weaponry are big this edition, because extreme cover saves are easy to get. STR10 weaponry is vital to get vehicles off the tables or to cause instant death. Anti-flyer weapons are needed, because of the small number of extremely unbalanced flyers that are out there and being used by "everyone."

DE lack all of these weapons, or are unable to field them effectively or in numbers. That's why I think recent releases have not made DE better in that regard. In addition, 6th has severely nerfed DE mobility compared to other armies. DE are no longer the fastest army out there, not by a long shot. Assaulting is hardly worthwhile with DE, with only one codex choice still viable. Most DE armies these days focus on shooting alone. And other armies do this more effectively.

However, the release of the Eldar codex provides a lot of options for a Dark Eldar player to compensate for these shortcomings.

I agree with that DE is pretty gimped this edition.

We are out ranged, out strengthed, out numbered.
Honestly Dark Lances aren't that great, S8 against AV12 is horrible and with a default 5+ cover save for most things, us doing any damage to vehicles are kinda severely gimped.
36" range doesn't help either considering so many things can obliterate us once we are in that range, even Tau troops can wreck everything at that point.

Poison is and has always been good, but the thing is once you hit a mech spam, you're done for.
How on earth do we even stand a chance against a Wave Serpant List? None.
Every other army really just needs to bring 1-2 fliers and we are screwed half the time.
Our void raven and razorwing brings a good amount of fire power to AA & AI, but does not focus on either of them properly. Shooting missles mean that the Void Lances are pointless, and shooting void lances means that the missles are likely to do nothing.

How on earth do we even stand a chance against a Wave Serpant List? None.
Every other army really just needs to bring 1-2 fliers and we are screwed half the time.

Haywire Wyches dominate Wave Serpents, its basically an ideal target for them.

If you are losing just because the opponent bring one or two fliers, then you need a few lessons in target priority and "playing the mission, not the opponent."

Our void raven and razorwing brings a good amount of fire power to AA & AI, but does not focus on either of them properly. Shooting missles mean that the Void Lances are pointless, and shooting void lances means that the missles are likely to do nothing.

It's called versatility. It allows one unit to Alpha Strike the greatest threat on the board the turn it comes in, regardless if it is foot based, tank, or flyer. You are never "waisting" the other weapons because they are always there and and can shoot when their prime target becomes the biggest threat. That's like saying anytime you move a tank you are "wasting" most of its firepower by reducing it to snap shots.

DE, outside of a few viable builds (mostly revolving around ridiculously cheesy deathstars) are quite terrible this edition. It's unfortunate, but the massive amounts of str.7 that newer codices can put out is terrible for DE. Scythes will generally always alpha strike and each Scythe should be able to easily blow away a DE vehicle and face very little threatening return fire. Heldrakes can blow up DE vehicles easily with their vectors. HYMP Broadsides and Skyrays are great at destroying DE vehicles. Wave Serpents, much like Scythes, should almost always get the alpha strike and will almost certainly destroy a DE vehicle each turn.

If you want to play DE I recommend you ally in Eldar and use the battle brothers shenanigans to your advantage.

Good points by LValx, I think he lays out why DE Mech spam is generally a bad idea in this edition, as there are so many armies that efficiently take them down. Also, when you bring vehicles, Night Shields should really be autoincluded, as HYMP, Tesla, and the like are significantly reduced in effectiveness against Night Shields.

This isn't to say don't take any vehicles, just don't take them for their offensive capacity alone, because the won't be there long. Take the with a very specific goal of using their alpha strike and mobility in the first two turns, on the assumption they will be dead by turn 3.

If you want to play DE I recommend you ally in Eldar and use the battle brothers shenanigans to your advantage.

Complete agree with this.

Yeah, I would agree that Night Shields are now pretty much an auto-include. It helps a ton vs Tesla and very importantly helps you out range scatter lasers and HYMP.

I think Mech DE can still work, but the player has to be incredibly skilled and the terrain on the board must be adequate enough to allow DE to get the alpha strike.

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, I would agree that Night Shields are now pretty much an auto-include. It helps a ton vs Tesla and very importantly helps you out range scatter lasers and HYMP.

I think Mech DE can still work, but the player has to be incredibly skilled and the terrain on the board must be adequate enough to allow DE to get the alpha strike.

Yeah, good points. One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is a Duke build Beta strike. Duke, primarily, because skimming onto the board dramatically reduces the threat range of the passengers, but DSing doesn't (I don't think, it's been so long since I used DS with a transport, but my understanding is you can disembark on the turn you DS with Duke, and the fire like normal?). I might have to double check the rules on that one though.

Basically use your skimmers like modern fliers, hold them till turn two, and that way you don't even have to worry about going first or second. Probably would need either and Autarch or Comms or both, but you could add in some Void Raven/Crimson Hunters as well, particularly advantageous as they don't count against your reserve limits. Then some solid board presence to hold the fort turn one, like 2x20 Warriors or something.


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Actually, looking over it again, you count as cruising speed when DSing, so therefore you can't disembark. Damn. Read that idea on a DE blog and it intrigued me, should have known better to double check the rules myself first.

Dark eldar also have some of the coolest models. I probably would have played them if they were a more popular army, when I started I was told I should stay away from them because they're not that good. I have seen many opinions on them now, and it basically is, if you know how to play them they will wreck, but if you just try to brute force it you might as well concede now.

The emergence of big MCs in the new codices implies yes, but it all depends on your local meta.

Riptides are seeing alot of action at my local gaming club, so they're wrecking alot of Tau players...

And as a Demons/Tyranid player, I've always known the DE to be absolutely nightmarish.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

How on earth do we even stand a chance against a Wave Serpant List? None.
Every other army really just needs to bring 1-2 fliers and we are screwed half the time.

Haywire Wyches dominate Wave Serpents, its basically an ideal target for them.

If you are losing just because the opponent bring one or two fliers, then you need a few lessons in target priority and "playing the mission, not the opponent."

Our void raven and razorwing brings a good amount of fire power to AA & AI, but does not focus on either of them properly. Shooting missles mean that the Void Lances are pointless, and shooting void lances means that the missles are likely to do nothing.

It's called versatility. It allows one unit to Alpha Strike the greatest threat on the board the turn it comes in, regardless if it is foot based, tank, or flyer. You are never "waisting" the other weapons because they are always there and and can shoot when their prime target becomes the biggest threat. That's like saying anytime you move a tank you are "wasting" most of its firepower by reducing it to snap shots.

Haywire wyches are really good but again lack the way to actually get close before getting squads wiped out, MSU is really good I've tried it not bad at all, but if your opponent doesn't bring any mech then they become a waste.
I'm not losing because of fliers but as an overall, DE doesn't win in terms of fire power, range nor mobility to compensate for the weakness of them.

You get versatility, but for a really expensive amount of points compared to other fliers that people can offer.
At 200 points per for our DE fliers that most likely will get shot down by a quad gun before it does anything might not be the best thing to buy, it also competes with our HS slot which is the most important slot that we have and for that precious slot we aren't getting too much in return.

 DarknessEternal wrote:


Consequently, anyone who thinks there's such a thing as an "easy" game against DE is genre-blind. It will always be a brutal, bloodbath of a game.

This is simply not the case. As someone who gets rolled consistently by Necrons and IG with my De, I can say that DE are easily farmed by those. IG can ground an entire skimmer force in one turn by fire saturation alone: even the multilasers and heavy bolters on their armor can knock down the best DE skimmer. Add in autocannons, battlecannons, artillery and vendettas and unless you are playing a board so dense it'd be good for Infinity, there's not much you can do. Your guys will be on foot soon and dead after that. And that's not even including orders.

Meanwhile, range 36 dark lances get outranged by missiles, autocannons, lascannons and what have you, while not being terribly efficient at breaking AV12 like chimera-walls.

With necrons, their Resurrection takes enough bite out of poison and darklight weaponry that you can't clean them effectively,and their flyers can and will claim aerial control and pick off your best stuff at leisure.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, I would agree that Night Shields are now pretty much an auto-include. It helps a ton vs Tesla and very importantly helps you out range scatter lasers and HYMP.

I think Mech DE can still work, but the player has to be incredibly skilled and the terrain on the board must be adequate enough to allow DE to get the alpha strike.

Yeah, good points. One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is a Duke build Beta strike. Duke, primarily, because skimming onto the board dramatically reduces the threat range of the passengers, but DSing doesn't (I don't think, it's been so long since I used DS with a transport, but my understanding is you can disembark on the turn you DS with Duke, and the fire like normal?). I might have to double check the rules on that one though.

Basically use your skimmers like modern fliers, hold them till turn two, and that way you don't even have to worry about going first or second. Probably would need either and Autarch or Comms or both, but you could add in some Void Raven/Crimson Hunters as well, particularly advantageous as they don't count against your reserve limits. Then some solid board presence to hold the fort turn one, like 2x20 Warriors or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, looking over it again, you count as cruising speed when DSing, so therefore you can't disembark. Damn. Read that idea on a DE blog and it intrigued me, should have known better to double check the rules myself first.

Last edition I ran a real nasty null-deployment list with the Duke. Held everything in reserve and go 2nd. Opponent would shuffle around, spread his guys out or whatever, then I would start dropping in. I had a really good run with that list.

I agree with the experienced DE players in this thread, the models are awesome and will hold a special place in my heart, but they are not a competitive army in 6th for various reasons.

If I ever see an opponent take a carnefix out of the box (luckily not too often as they suck!) I go over to them and give them a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.