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I think what people don't consider when thinking competitive is Meta.

Meta is pretty much the main concern for competitive players. In fact, meta is the reason you don't see them.

I played Dark Eldar extensively in 5th edition. The army had an incredibly short run of potential dominance, as a well made GK list was a very hard counter to them. 6th edition did them few favors as well. That being said, there are a few things still worthwhile that can be taken from DE:

HQ-Archon, Vect, Baron
Elites-Grotesques
Troops-Warriors, maybe Hellions
FA-maybe Reavers, Beastpacks
HS: Ravager, Voidravens
Transport-Venoms

DE are great when paired with Eldar to create deathstars. Beastpacks and Grotesques can be very effective when buffed with psychic powers. Warriors are still a solid troops choice. The Baron is a great addition to many builds as well. Units like Venoms, Ravagers, and Voidravens still have a place, despite a serve blow to mech.

However, it is easy to overstate some of these units. Venoms put out an average of 4 wounds on anything with a toughness value. 4 wounds can be very solid against a MC, not so much against 50 Guardsmen. In addition, most DE units lack duality. Finally, the only ally that really makes sense is Eldar, which puts a very limiting scope on what DE can do.

With the release of the new Tau and Eldar codices, it will be nigh impossible for an entirely DE list to compete in large events. The ability to play spoiler is still out there, as they do match up very well with some lists. The issue is that there are a number of extremely uphill battles, and these bad matches look to be frequent occurrences. My verdict would be to use them to supplement Eldar lists or not at all.

There is a Dark Eldar player at my store that wrecks alot of us on a regular basis. He brings like 5-7 raiders filled with Cabalites and just shoots you to death. Toughness 5+? Poison 4+. Got armor? TL Dark Lances. His only real weakness is someone with even more shots (Tau mostly, maybe Necrons assuming out Necron player brought lots of warriors) or have a way to get super close (Deep Strike armies).

So no, DE are still fairly good. Definitely far above bottom tier.

I can't think of a single TL darklance in the codex. I think you are overstating how good the Darklance firepower is from anything save ravagers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also abandoned my DE for some time. I've returned to favouring my SM and Tau. However, I have the itch to try DE again as I had a great deal of success in 5th.

I've got a few changes I'm making which means adding in a unit of reavers and cutting down the number of wychs to put them in venoms with haywire instead of in raiders with an agonizer.

I'm not really clear if this will hold up to Tau or IG, but its either give it a try or wait for a new codex. Considering how long DE went on the same codex prior to this one, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

There is an idea of completely changing directions with DE and going to a foot based shooting list - but that is essentially getting a whole new army. I'd probably just start a whole new army from a different dex first.

I'm actually really excited about Dark Eldar right now, although it's mostly when backed up by Eldar Allies or as Eldar Allies.

In my case, I'm thinking that standard venom/raider/ravager mech DE can be easily complemented by troop Wraithguard in Wave Serpents, and a Nightspinner.

What are Eldar lacking?
Durable troops choices.
Durable Vehicles.
Ignores Cover Weaponry.
Anti-vehicle apart from Dark Lances.
Volume of Non-poison Shots.

All of these are helped by the aforementioned Wraithguard, WS, and Nightspinner.

Wraithguard give you a troops choice that can't easily be shot off an objective, as well as some great anti-tank. You can also take Fire Dragons in another WS for more anti-vehicle if you need to.
Wave Serpents are incredibly durable, more so if there's a bunch of cheap venoms and raiders drawing away more fire from them. When each WS is quite expensive, it's worth it to take Venoms and Raiders to get armor saturation.
The Serpent Shield ignores cover entirely, the Nightspinner's barrage weapon almost always does, and its torrent flamer always does. This gives you several possible outs against cover-hugging cowards.
The Wraithguard act as great anti-vehicle, with S10, and furthermore, the volume of S6 and S7 on WS allows you to destroy lighter vehicles without having to waste precious Dark Lance shots against them.
Lastly, the amount of S6 and S7 that WS and Nightspinners put out is quite amazing.

This is the army I'm starting to build with DE/Eldar:

Baron
Spiritseer (1 or 2 with Iyanden)

2x Wraithguard in WS w/ SL, SC, Holo
Escort unit for Baron (Guardian Jetbikes replacing a Wraithguard unit? Scourges? Reavers? Hellions? Swooping Hawks or Warp Spiders?)
Venom or Raider Spam, with either Wyches, Warriors, or Blasterborn
As many Ravagers fit in the list
Nightspinner


This type of list also works well if Eldar is Main: Add a Jetseer and Guardian Jetbikes, put Baron in the unit, and start going to town.

Right now, DE w/o allies is a bit limited, but with Eldar allies or as Eldar allies, they seem to me to have tremendous potential.

This is a nooby question but what is "meta" and "deathstar".

DE are good and I think any competitive player who has played against high level DE player will agree with that. They also are such a hard counter to some really prominent builds in the Meta that it seems ridiculous to call them bottom tier.

With that said I can understand why this thread exists and some people think they are awful. There is no easy button with DE. Even the most powerful builds of DE require a skilled pilot to work. It's not like wraithwing that will win 2/3rd of their games on autopilot. So bad players can take the maxed out DE lists and lose horribly which won't happen with an army like necrons. That doesn't mean DE are bad.

 Insane Smile wrote:
This is a nooby question but what is "meta" and "deathstar".

The "meta" is the sort of opponents, lists and tactics that people tend to use overall in a community. You can have both local meta's, tournament meta's and you can also consider the overall 40k meta.

Deathstars are single units that take up a large chunk of your points and generally wreck anything they come in contact with. For instance, taking 10 tooled out Terminators in a Land Raider would be considered a Deathstar.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Insane Smile wrote:
This is a nooby question but what is "meta" and "deathstar".

The "meta" is the sort of opponents, lists and tactics that people tend to use overall in a community. You can have both local meta's, tournament meta's and you can also consider the overall 40k meta.

Deathstars are single units that take up a large chunk of your points and generally wreck anything they come in contact with. For instance, taking 10 tooled out Terminators in a Land Raider would be considered a Deathstar.

Thanks a lot. I'm liking the sound of deathstar units.

So, for those of you who are touting the success of DE, how do you deal with TEQ armies? Your poison weapons don't mean diddly against 2+ saves, and there's no way you have enough AP2 weapons to bring down all the TEQs you're going to face before they can wipe you.

Pony_law wrote:
DE are good and I think any competitive player who has played against high level DE player will agree with that. They also are such a hard counter to some really prominent builds in the Meta that it seems ridiculous to call them bottom tier.

With that said I can understand why this thread exists and some people think they are awful. There is no easy button with DE. Even the most powerful builds of DE require a skilled pilot to work. It's not like wraithwing that will win 2/3rd of their games on autopilot. So bad players can take the maxed out DE lists and lose horribly which won't happen with an army like necrons. That doesn't mean DE are bad.

If an army requires the elitist of the elitist to use and still is only on par with a min-maxed out Army then yes it's pretty bad.

DE bottom tier? certainly not! They are just a tricky army to use.

DE ended third on the norwegian championship.

How can an all TEQ army ever catch you given DE vehicles?

CMLs are their only weapon with reach. Certainly, that is going to be your big obstacle, but you can probably dance around them for a few turns before having to make a move on objectives.

A realistic TEQ list would feature a long range option or two, but target those down and then let the dance begin.

 Octopoid wrote:
So, for those of you who are touting the success of DE, how do you deal with TEQ armies? Your poison weapons don't mean diddly against 2+ saves, and there's no way you have enough AP2 weapons to bring down all the TEQs you're going to face before they can wipe you.

DE can spam that much poison shots that we force failed armour saves. I've had my Deathwing tabled in three turns by this.

I'm almost amused by some of the comments in this thread. It does not seem to matter that DE with and without Eldar allies have performed consistently well in 6ed. They are still being maligned because

A) People pick them up and play them like Smurfs.
B) The army takes a lot of skill to run successfully
C) People simply parrot others opinions bout DE without actually having played them or against them

I'm not saying that DE are the best list out there. But they can be competitive, they have done well at tournaments and 6ed actually improved them. If you are playing competitively you are likely using allies anyway regardless of your primary force so DE works well with Eldar allies - both lists improve when meshed. So I don't see the issue here. We discuss this quite a bit at thedarkcity.net - the obvious internet adversity to DE. Despite Mush's batreps illustrating that they can win even against heldrake spam, daemon FMC lists etc., they are still maligned

Yeah, except that the DE lists that perform well are generally of 2 types:

Seer Council deathstar
Beastpack deathstar

Sean Nayden, I think it is, places well frequently in east coast events. But most of his lists seem to revolve around abusing the combos between the two armies. I have yet to see pure DE fare particularly well in any events.

DE eat up my BA just fine. Both mech and jumpers.

 Dracos wrote:
I can't think of a single TL darklance in the codex. I think you are overstating how good the Darklance firepower is from anything save ravagers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also abandoned my DE for some time. I've returned to favouring my SM and Tau. However, I have the itch to try DE again as I had a great deal of success in 5th.

I've got a few changes I'm making which means adding in a unit of reavers and cutting down the number of wychs to put them in venoms with haywire instead of in raiders with an agonizer.

I'm not really clear if this will hold up to Tau or IG, but its either give it a try or wait for a new codex. Considering how long DE went on the same codex prior to this one, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

There is an idea of completely changing directions with DE and going to a foot based shooting list - but that is essentially getting a whole new army. I'd probably just start a whole new army from a different dex first.

If you decide to give it a try, perhaps you can ally in a seer council to roll with the Baron. Pretty much the dirtiest trick I've seen involving the two varieties of coneheads.

Didn't manage to get the games in, but I did manage to get some theory listing done.

I'll post them up later when I think I've got a tight list.

So far, I'm looking at a really tough Coven list with Wraith allies and a pure DE Sliscus list.

I think the Wraith/Coven will do better IMO.

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, except that the DE lists that perform well are generally of 2 types:

Seer Council deathstar
Beastpack deathstar

Sean Nayden, I think it is, places well frequently in east coast events. But most of his lists seem to revolve around abusing the combos between the two armies. I have yet to see pure DE fare particularly well in any events.

I agree that they are strongest with Eldar, but is that really a knock against them? I mean, outside of Tau and Necrons, is there any codex that is doing very well at the top levels without some sort of ally supplement?



I don't play with my DE nearly enough, but I'm always scoring the internet for good advice on them and tinkering with lists. I'll agree with others who said that DE can do well in 6th, just not the same way they did well in 5th. 20 man Warrior squads behind an Aegis are something that you never use to see in 5th, but a very good DZ scoring contingent in 6th. Another mistake I think a lot of people make are over relying on Homs to get your pain tokens. Use your guns, they are free. Use your vehicle based firepower to whittle troops down, and your footbased to finish them off. Also, speaking of vehicles, mech spam is no longer the most competitive build for any army.

I think another mistake people make in 6th is they think that "the top DE build is Venom Spam, and if that can't compete, they can't compete." That's just not true anymore. Vehicles are still useful mind you, but in a more restrictive and focused format.

And on that note, anti-vehicle is not nearly as important as it use to be. Stop over spending on 21+ Lances. A handful of dedicated anti-vehicle units (Ravagers/VOid Raven/Haywire) should be plenty sufficient for the modern meta.


I would love to see someone start a list with 120 Warriors+Splinter Cannons and move from there. It's so unconventional to most peoples idea of DE that I've never seen it done, but I think it could be surprisingly good.

Something like:

HQ(not sure which one)

Shardcarbineborn in Raiders


Aegis +
120 Warriors +Splinter Cannons, maybe blasters/Accolytes (or whatever the warrior Character is called) JIC.

Haywire or Heat Lance Reavers or Scourges

Ravagers or Void Raven.

Basically the idea is a lot of bases and stuff that kills bases, a modicum of anti-tank.



I'm also working on a Grotstar/Eldar build that I think could be pretty effective.

DE are very ally based. Almost anyone who can ally with DE do well with DE. Eldar-DE is still an incredibly combination with invisi-pack being even cheaper than last edition. Heck, you can even throw eldrad in now due to him gaining fleet.

I would love to see someone start a list with 120 Warriors+Splinter Cannons and move from there. It's so unconventional to most peoples idea of DE that I've never seen it done, but I think it could be surprisingly good.

I like Warrior blobs as well. The issue is the cost. 1320 for 120 Warriors with 2x Cannon per squad. Not alot left to work with at 1850. I think maybe 80 tops if one was to go to that extreme.

Speaking of allies, I'm assuming that psychic powers work on your allied detachment?

 JGrand wrote:

I would love to see someone start a list with 120 Warriors+Splinter Cannons and move from there. It's so unconventional to most peoples idea of DE that I've never seen it done, but I think it could be surprisingly good.

I like Warrior blobs as well. The issue is the cost. 1320 for 120 Warriors with 2x Cannon per squad. Not alot left to work with at 1850. I think maybe 80 tops if one was to go to that extreme.

Yeah, you're probably right. 80 would leave a lot more breathing room for more Dakka, and still give you plenty of scoring. Generally idea would be lots of bodies though. That's why I was thinking of pairing them with either trueborn in raiders, scourges, or bikes.

 LValx wrote:
Yeah, except that the DE lists that perform well are generally of 2 types:

Seer Council deathstar
Beastpack deathstar

Sean Nayden, I think it is, places well frequently in east coast events. But most of his lists seem to revolve around abusing the combos between the two armies. I have yet to see pure DE fare particularly well in any events.

But that is more or. Less true for most armies. I have not seen pure _____place well. Ig, wolves, space marines, blood angels, sisters, csm, Templars, eldar (though we shall see with the new book).

Essentially if you are not crons, nids or Tau (gk do ok but pure gk have not won anything that I'm aware of) then we should say you are bottom tier.

I think it depends on what you consider bottom tier. For many if it is not top tier it is bottom tier. For others because sisters is below it it is not bottom tier.

That being said DE's problem is not that it isn't good, its problem is that it is not reliable. DE more than most any other army relies on going first, getting night fight, having the right mission, having enough terrain, not having too much terrain etc. For DE a turn of bad rolls can be too much to recover from, and one bad play can lose the game for you. So this is the main reason I think DE are not top tier.

That being said, DE make a great pair with Eldar. I don't think DE + Eldar is top tier but it is good and fun to play with. If you are playing in an environment where performance is more important that fun then then stay away from DE but DE has given me some of the best games I can remember.

Maybe I don't notice because I play Dark Eldar with such a large number of tough units and did from the very start of the codex. My Urien build which is heavily melee oriented, still beats some serious you-know-what.

Combined arms is how i balance it. I have enough shooting to keep people scared of it but not enough to steal my melee oomph. Tightrope I know. But it wins way more than it loses so hooray.

 Jancoran wrote:
Maybe I don't notice because I play Dark Eldar with such a large number of tough units and did from the very start of the codex. My Urien build which is heavily melee oriented, still beats some serious you-know-what.

Combined arms is how i balance it. I have enough shooting to keep people scared of it but not enough to steal my melee oomph. Tightrope I know. But it wins way more than it loses so hooray.

This is how I'm planning my army to some extent.

I want a DE army that is different, but effective.

I'm thinking a massive unit of Grotesques, backed up by Blasterborn in venoms, Kabalites in Venoms and some Wraith allies. It will be a case of try and kill my army. They'll either be too fast for you to catch or too tough for you to deal with.

May I ask, how do you make your army that tough?

Breng77 wrote:

So sure their are a couple but assuming a 3+ is a far better assumption than 2+, and no 6 wound MC has a 2+.

*Cough* Tyrannofex.

Puscifer wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Maybe I don't notice because I play Dark Eldar with such a large number of tough units and did from the very start of the codex. My Urien build which is heavily melee oriented, still beats some serious you-know-what.

Combined arms is how i balance it. I have enough shooting to keep people scared of it but not enough to steal my melee oomph. Tightrope I know. But it wins way more than it loses so hooray.

This is how I'm planning my army to some extent.

I want a DE army that is different, but effective.

I'm thinking a massive unit of Grotesques, backed up by Blasterborn in venoms, Kabalites in Venoms and some Wraith allies. It will be a case of try and kill my army. They'll either be too fast for you to catch or too tough for you to deal with.

May I ask, how do you make your army that tough?

Personally, I'd advise against one massive unit of anything, as it helps your opponent to focus his fire. You want to have lots of opportunities so if one fails, you have fall backs. For that reason, multiple small units wherever possible. Perhaps that a little more difficult to do with grots though I'd still advise splitting them between 2 units at least, in a raider with trophies etc.

Well... to some extent I agree with you.

I was thinking however of using a large unit of Grotesques with tge Baron and a Spiritseer, with two units of Wraithguard with Scythes walking up the field. That is a brick no one can ignore as it will tear just about anything apart.