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Hi,
So iam in the process still of making my first Dark Eldar army. Basicly Iam just looking for a little advice see if there is anything anyone else would do to improve this list. I havnt played it yet and most of its not bought yet, so feel free to point out things too me.

HQ
haemobculus1 65
-hex rifle

haemobculus2 75
-casket of flensing
-venom blade
-vexator mask

Elites
5 true born 160
-dracon
-spintercannonx2
-venom with spinter cannon and night shield

Elites
4 true born 128
-3 blasters
-dracon
-venom with spinter cannon and night shield

Elites
4 Bloodbrides 137
hydra gauntlets
-venom with night shields and splinter cannon



troops

10 warriors 180
-spinter cannon
-raider with night shields and spinter rack

10 warriors 180
-spinter cannon
-raider with night shields and spinter rack

10 warriors 180
-spinter cannon
-raider with night shields and spinter rack

10 warriors 180
-spinter cannon
-raider with night shields and spinter rack

10 warriors 180
-spinter cannon
-raider with night shields and spinter rack

5 wyches 145
-razorflail
-5 haywire
-venom with night shields and splinter cannon


heavy support

ravager 125
-flickerfield
-nightshield

ravager 125
-flickerfield
-nightshield

fast attack
-3reavers 86
-cluster caltrops

1999

OR....

HQ
haemobculus1 65
-hex rifle

haemobculus2 65
-casket of flensing
-venom blade

Elites

4 trueborn 143 (haemunculus1 joins)
-splinter cannon x2
-venom with splinter cannon and night shields

4 true born 138
-4 blasters
-venom with splinter cannon and night shield

4 hekatrix 127 (haemunculus2 joins)
-venom with night shields and splinter cannon

troops

10 warriors 170
-raider with night shields and splinter rack

10 warriors 170
-raider with night shields and splinter rack

10 warriors 170
-raider with night shields and splinter rack

10 warriors 170
-raider with night shields and splinter rack

10 warriors 170
-raider with night shields and splinter rack

5 wych's 145
-razorflail
-5 haywire
-venom with night shields and splinter cannon

heavy support

ravager 125
-flickerfield
-nightshield

ravager 125
-flickerfield
-nightshield


fast attack

Reavers
6x22 176
-heat lance x2
-Cluster caltrops

1959

(Do you think i should drop the Reavers and add something else?)

Basically homunculus 1 goes with the true born, and they keep there distance for the first turn or 2.
Haemonculus2 goes with the bloodbrides and along with the other wyches and reavers make a dash for the opponent.

From there.. i have no real idea XD

Thank You for your time,
-jackblg-

I'm no dark eldar player but I will try to help out.

Think like a dark eldar would. You are a fast army that has nice bonuses like feel no pain and posion so use this to your advantage.

I would field less warrior.

Get a raider and archon because I have seen these do very well on the battlefield. Incubi are also great in close combat.

Temper my advice with that of other players though as I have never used dark eldar.

 ashfire wrote:
I'm no dark eldar player but I will try to help out.

Think like a dark eldar would. You are a fast army that has nice bonuses like feel no pain and posion so use this to your advantage.

I would field less warrior.

Get a raider and archon because I have seen these do very well on the battlefield. Incubi are also great in close combat.

Temper my advice with that of other players though as I have never used dark eldar.

I know exactly where you are coming from, but at the same time i wanted almost 35-50 warriors so I can shoot alot from the raiders/venoms.

The Archon I didn't take because I have already got 2 haemunculi.

But We will see what other people thing, who knows i may be wrong maybe warriors arnt as good as i thought??

Haemonculus as warlord, brave man, you are. They have paper for save, while FNP is good, they aren't all that great if that's the only save they got, especially since it's only a 5+ now, and totally deniable given DE's toughness. Not saying haemy can't be your warlord, but just remember he's worth 1 VP, fragile as hell, and on boats that are also fragile as hell, so... be careful how you use them. I personally think liquifier is better than casket, not only is it reusable, but also more consistent, a casket only has 1/3 a chance to outperform liquifier's S, but just as good a chance at delivering less hits(no to-hit for templates). And vexator mask is just not worth it, I don't think any army would really struggle with a normal ld test.

Your trueborns need not be at maximum size, much less a dracon, who aren't even giving you a better ld anyway. Trueborns have the advantage of allowing minimal size squad to bring all the weapon you'd want, so don't waste it, if you don't have time or can't be bothered to read the link, here's a quick summary: given the fragile nature of DE, more models in an unit doesn't necessary mean a tougher unit, it's often better to use smaller size unit so to minimise losses, and may allow you to field more units, more units mean a tougher army because enemy units usually can only shoot at one unit at a time.... So... I'd drop the splinter trueborns down to 3 models, no dracon and just 1 vanilla trueborn with 2 splinter cannon... borns. Same for the blasterborns, unless you could afford a 4th blaster. And while we're on the topic of trueborns, or any DE unit really, try not to mix roles, I see that you want to put your hexrifle(AI) haemy with your blasterborns(AT), that's a terrible idea, because while your haemy is sniping, the blasters are (kinda) wasted, or while your blasterborns are ATing, your haemy is wasted, and again, because DE is fragile, the unit may not even get a chance to fire their guns again! Try and keep the unit focus on either AI or AT.

Your bloodbrides are likely gonna be tarpit, don't expect them to be good at damage output. I'd try to squeeze in a hekatrix with special weapon and preferably PGL over getting a wych weapon, you could use a character who does better in challenge than haemy, PGL and will also allow the unit to take overwatch better. And because of the low strength AP- of bloodbrides, even if you manage to get 6 on your hydra gauntlets, don't expect to see a major boost in damage... It's a decent tarpit unit because everyone except for the haemy have a 4++ on top of FNP. Also remember haemy will deny the unit their fleet reroll.

Your troop choices are mostly ok, I'd consider taking away the splinter cannon, you're getting some extra distance, but at 12", you're not actually doing a whole lot of extra damage, since SC doesn't benefit from the racks. Your HWG wyches should either be using no wych weapon or a shardnet, razorflail ups their combat potential ever so slightly, but if they're thrown into AT suicide task, those 10 points are wasted... A shardnet however, allows them to tie down walkers if they fail to kill it in one turn, which would be really annoying for your opponent to have his/her expensive walker tied down by 5 weak wyches.

Ravagers can do without flickerfield, it's of very limited use, most of the time, you should be able to use jink save. A lot of the ignore cover weapons should struggle to hit due to nightshields. Stay at 36" with ravagers whenever possible.

Reavers are tad suicidal size, not bad for distraction or last second objective scorer/denier unit, just don't be surprised if they die quickly, and actually try to turn it into your advantage.

Overall, I think your list is very AI heavy for a 2k(or 1999+1) list, I would probably try and squeeze in more AT, may be even take out a couple of gunboats. DE need those AT units because a lot of the guys can't do anything to vehicles, even if it's AV10.

Baronyu wrote:


Ravagers can do without flickerfield, it's of very limited use, most of the time, you should be able to use jink save. A lot of the ignore cover weapons should struggle to hit due to nightshields. Stay at 36" with ravagers whenever possible.

What about Tau? 2 Markerlight hits and that Jink save is gone, not to mention markers bringing in Seeker Missiles (which ignore cover when fired from to a Markerlight hit) or Smart Missile Systems. The Night Shields will help but shouldn't be your only source of protection, as if you do end up in range you're going to be blasted from the sky. The Flickerfields provide a safety net.

Baronyu wrote:
Haemonculus as warlord, brave man, you are. They have paper for save, while FNP is good, they aren't all that great if that's the only save they got, especially since it's only a 5+ now, and totally deniable given DE's toughness. Not saying haemy can't be your warlord, but just remember he's worth 1 VP, fragile as hell, and on boats that are also fragile as hell, so... be careful how you use them. I personally think liquifier is better than casket, not only is it reusable, but also more consistent, a casket only has 1/3 a chance to outperform liquifier's S, but just as good a chance at delivering less hits(no to-hit for templates). And vexator mask is just not worth it, I don't think any army would really struggle with a normal ld test.

Your trueborns need not be at maximum size, much less a dracon, who aren't even giving you a better ld anyway. Trueborns have the advantage of allowing minimal size squad to bring all the weapon you'd want, so don't waste it, if you don't have time or can't be bothered to read the link, here's a quick summary: given the fragile nature of DE, more models in an unit doesn't necessary mean a tougher unit, it's often better to use smaller size unit so to minimise losses, and may allow you to field more units, more units mean a tougher army because enemy units usually can only shoot at one unit at a time.... So... I'd drop the splinter trueborns down to 3 models, no dracon and just 1 vanilla trueborn with 2 splinter cannon... borns. Same for the blasterborns, unless you could afford a 4th blaster. And while we're on the topic of trueborns, or any DE unit really, try not to mix roles, I see that you want to put your hexrifle(AI) haemy with your blasterborns(AT), that's a terrible idea, because while your haemy is sniping, the blasters are (kinda) wasted, or while your blasterborns are ATing, your haemy is wasted, and again, because DE is fragile, the unit may not even get a chance to fire their guns again! Try and keep the unit focus on either AI or AT.

Your bloodbrides are likely gonna be tarpit, don't expect them to be good at damage output. I'd try to squeeze in a hekatrix with special weapon and preferably PGL over getting a wych weapon, you could use a character who does better in challenge than haemy, PGL and will also allow the unit to take overwatch better. And because of the low strength AP- of bloodbrides, even if you manage to get 6 on your hydra gauntlets, don't expect to see a major boost in damage... It's a decent tarpit unit because everyone except for the haemy have a 4++ on top of FNP. Also remember haemy will deny the unit their fleet reroll.

Your troop choices are mostly ok, I'd consider taking away the splinter cannon, you're getting some extra distance, but at 12", you're not actually doing a whole lot of extra damage, since SC doesn't benefit from the racks. Your HWG wyches should either be using no wych weapon or a shardnet, razorflail ups their combat potential ever so slightly, but if they're thrown into AT suicide task, those 10 points are wasted... A shardnet however, allows them to tie down walkers if they fail to kill it in one turn, which would be really annoying for your opponent to have his/her expensive walker tied down by 5 weak wyches.

Ravagers can do without flickerfield, it's of very limited use, most of the time, you should be able to use jink save. A lot of the ignore cover weapons should struggle to hit due to nightshields. Stay at 36" with ravagers whenever possible.

Reavers are tad suicidal size, not bad for distraction or last second objective scorer/denier unit, just don't be surprised if they die quickly, and actually try to turn it into your advantage.

Overall, I think your list is very AI heavy for a 2k(or 1999+1) list, I would probably try and squeeze in more AT, may be even take out a couple of gunboats. DE need those AT units because a lot of the guys can't do anything to vehicles, even if it's AV10.

The Haemonculus might have a paper save and the casket and stuff might not preform massivly well, but I quite like them. Vexator mask I can understand.

The trueborn, I was unaware of the minimal size squad thing, same with the dracon i thought it made sence to take one.. guess I was wrong. And Yes my blasterborns where not meant to be in the same squad as the haemonculi, looks like I've done the wrong squad XD. It was meant to be the unit with the splinter cannons.

As for the bloodbrides, the PGL makes more sense now that I have read it again.

The SC where there for if the transport goes early I can still do some shooting.. My Wych's have a razorflail because i like the look of it, I know its silly but i cant help it. I don't think i will have too many problems dealing with Tanks and the likes.

The Ravangers, Iam personally going to keep the flickerfields on them, simply because it means i don't Have to move them every turn to gain the jinks save. And I do plan to stay at 36" or so,,

The Reavers are a suicidal unit, I was thinking about possibly taking more.. If I can find the points.

My list maybe Very AI heavy, but I do have a lot of Dark Lances too like 11... Not sure how I would take more AT though,,,

Thanks for your advice, I shall take it on board and try to rework my list.

Reavers + Heat Lance= Lance weapons dropping their AV and rolling 2 dice to pen. They're also an extremely fast unit, so they can get somewhere quickly. Squads of 6 are very effective from what I hear. I have 3, and they...aren't very effective at that size.

Also, haywire grenades are perfectly viable options for anti tank. My favorite, actually. It's nice to drop the AV of a LR, but you still need to roll decently with a lance to score a pen. Haywires drop the number you need to roll to a 2 from a 4. Pitch a grenade, assault with grenades, glance to death, rinse, repeat. Plus, your Venom can still run around and shoot 12 times after the Wyches get shot to bits until it gets glanced down by a Marine scratching himself. Plus, in a squad size of 5, you're looking at 10 points to possibly drop a 250pt tank whose 5pt Storm Bolter upgrade actually has a chance of dropping one of your boats.

11 lances= a very decent amount, if you actually had that many. You have roughly 4. Remember Dark Eldar do not split fire, so each Ravager counts as 1 lance. It sounds silly, but trust me, you're going to get more 1s and 2s with a Ravager than you will any other unit ever. It's a strange phenomenon that I can't quite explain. Whenever you need those things to hit, they absolutely will not. On top of that, chances are you're going to need to focus several Raiders on one ship if you're going to fire on tanks out of desperation and miss at least one or two of *those* shots. That's if you can get optimal targets every turn and don't lose a lance the entire game. Plus, every lance from a Raider means you lose the AI on board the turn you fire it. Keep this in mind when you're calculating your lances fielded versus "actual" lances.

So there's my experience with Dark Eldar and tanks. From what I've read on the forums it doesn't vary too much. Granted, I hope yours ends up a bit better of course.

One last little edit: Remember that most Dark Eldar units look incredible on paper and in the codex. Frequently, once you get plastic to table, they're a different beast entirely. Not to say they're bad, they just play in a way that a stat line can't convey properly.

 EmbracetheChaos wrote:
Reavers + Heat Lance= Lance weapons dropping their AV and rolling 2 dice to pen. They're also an extremely fast unit, so they can get somewhere quickly. Squads of 6 are very effective from what I hear. I have 3, and they...aren't very effective at that size.

Also, haywire grenades are perfectly viable options for anti tank. My favorite, actually. It's nice to drop the AV of a LR, but you still need to roll decently with a lance to score a pen. Haywires drop the number you need to roll to a 2 from a 4. Pitch a grenade, assault with grenades, glance to death, rinse, repeat. Plus, your Venom can still run around and shoot 12 times after the Wyches get shot to bits until it gets glanced down by a Marine scratching himself. Plus, in a squad size of 5, you're looking at 10 points to possibly drop a 250pt tank whose 5pt Storm Bolter upgrade actually has a chance of dropping one of your boats.

11 lances= a very decent amount, if you actually had that many. You have roughly 4. Remember Dark Eldar do not split fire, so each Ravager counts as 1 lance. It sounds silly, but trust me, you're going to get more 1s and 2s with a Ravager than you will any other unit ever. It's a strange phenomenon that I can't quite explain. Whenever you need those things to hit, they absolutely will not. On top of that, chances are you're going to need to focus several Raiders on one ship if you're going to fire on tanks out of desperation and miss at least one or two of *those* shots. That's if you can get optimal targets every turn and don't lose a lance the entire game. Plus, every lance from a Raider means you lose the AI on board the turn you fire it. Keep this in mind when you're calculating your lances fielded versus "actual" lances.

So there's my experience with Dark Eldar and tanks. From what I've read on the forums it doesn't vary too much. Granted, I hope yours ends up a bit better of course.

One last little edit: Remember that Dark Eldar looks incredible on paper and in the codex. Once you get plastic to table, they're a different beast entirely.

Reavers + Heat Lance is something I had not thought about. I also think 3 might not be enough to really be effective..

Haywire grenades I understand completely, maybe i should take more wych's?

As for the lances yes.. I dont have 11 lances that can target different things, only 7 can hit different things (with 3 and 3 being on the Ravangers). The whole roll more 1 and 2's I can understand.. when I used to take Terminators in Blood angles I would constantly roll 1's...
I had not considered the fact that I would loose the AI from using the darklance on the raiders, thank you for pointing that out.

I wont know how mind ends up for a long time as Iam still working my way through buying and painting stuff XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Baronyu wrote:


Ravagers can do without flickerfield, it's of very limited use, most of the time, you should be able to use jink save. A lot of the ignore cover weapons should struggle to hit due to nightshields. Stay at 36" with ravagers whenever possible.

What about Tau? 2 Markerlight hits and that Jink save is gone, not to mention markers bringing in Seeker Missiles (which ignore cover when fired from to a Markerlight hit) or Smart Missile Systems. The Night Shields will help but shouldn't be your only source of protection, as if you do end up in range you're going to be blasted from the sky. The Flickerfields provide a safety net.

I do play against Tau, Which is one of the reason's why I have Flickerfields, so yes you are correct.

@A Town Called Malus

Markerlights would be under that nightshield debuff as well, as well as smart missile, seeker missiles could be a problem, but then you also have units to discourage those markers to get close for their 30" marking, so like I said, "very limited use" not "absolutely useless", they're just points that could be spent elsewhere, I think... Until the next codices get all the long range ignore-cover weapons (inevitably), I think DE can still do with NS jink saves. Obviously, if points can't be spent elsewhere, then I'm not gonna say no for some extra safety measures.

@jackblg

The problem with wyches and razorflail is that, you're wasting points, razorflail doesn't do anything in AT, and you likely won't be able to use them for tarpit if they're used for AT, still, shardnet will be more useful for tarpit than razorflail, if you really like them, I don't understand why they aren't on your bloodbrides, they're actually much more reliable than hydra gauntlets, don't look at the D6 and think you can get 6, because if you can get 6 all the time, I'm calling you a wizard.

Ravagers only have to move 0.00001" to claim jink save, there is just very little reason to not move them, IMO, you're playing DE, not a gunline army, that 12" move(you can shoot all weapons after moving 12") can make a difference between shooting at front armour or side armour if you play them right. But like A Town Called Malus said, and my response to him, I wasn't saying FF is bad, but points could be spent elsewhere if possible.

11 DLs is hardly enough at 2k, I'd say, or here be maths. Simply put, DL can miss and fail to glance, (5th ed dubbed it the Dark Glance for a reason), and given that all our units are made of wet tissue paper(in fact, I think wet tissue paper may be tougher!), you should look for more AT as it really isn't terribly hard to take down all your AT units early on and leave you with nothing to deal with mechs, also, as EmbracetheChaos mentioned, ravagers can shoot at 1 mech each per turn. Just imagine facing a much better balanced DE skimmer list, once your AT are gone, what are your options to make your opponent unload those infantry?

Reavers and heat lances are great, but melta range is 9", plus their jetbike 12" movement, and JSJ 2D6" repositioning, you'll still be a bit suicidal with them, but hey, if you get the melta in, you should be able to pop something.... Fingers crossed. However, you do need a bigger unit for them to be reliable. And remember, Tau loves units that rely on jink/cover, who'd also be staying in the killzone after the shooting.

HWG wyches are indeed a very good choice for AT, but while they can do a lot of damage in combat, they are... hmm... I guess it depends on how tactically minded you are, and how much your opponent knows about DE, because you know, it doesn't take a whole lot to shoot down their venom and take away that scary AT unit. If you plan to rely on HWG wyches, you need to play them well, hide them, move them up quick, deploy them and footslog if you have to(provided you have enough target for your opponent), just remember that their effective range is 8", and they're made of thin air.

Baronyu wrote:
@A Town Called Malus

Markerlights would be under that nightshield debuff as well, as well as smart missile, seeker missiles could be a problem, but then you also have units to discourage those markers to get close for their 30" marking, so like I said, "very limited use" not "absolutely useless", they're just points that could be spent elsewhere, I think... Until the next codices get all the long range ignore-cover weapons (inevitably), I think DE can still do with NS jink saves. Obviously, if points can't be spent elsewhere, then I'm not gonna say no for some extra safety measures.

@jackblg

The problem with wyches and razorflail is that, you're wasting points, razorflail doesn't do anything in AT, and you likely won't be able to use them for tarpit if they're used for AT, still, shardnet will be more useful for tarpit than razorflail, if you really like them, I don't understand why they aren't on your bloodbrides, they're actually much more reliable than hydra gauntlets, don't look at the D6 and think you can get 6, because if you can get 6 all the time, I'm calling you a wizard.

Ravagers only have to move 0.00001" to claim jink save, there is just very little reason to not move them, IMO, you're playing DE, not a gunline army, that 12" move(you can shoot all weapons after moving 12") can make a difference between shooting at front armour or side armour if you play them right. But like A Town Called Malus said, and my response to him, I wasn't saying FF is bad, but points could be spent elsewhere if possible.

11 DLs is hardly enough at 2k, I'd say, or here be maths. Simply put, DL can miss and fail to glance, (5th ed dubbed it the Dark Glance for a reason), and given that all our units are made of wet tissue paper(in fact, I think wet tissue paper may be tougher!), you should look for more AT as it really isn't terribly hard to take down all your AT units early on and leave you with nothing to deal with mechs, also, as EmbracetheChaos mentioned, ravagers can shoot at 1 mech each per turn. Just imagine facing a much better balanced DE skimmer list, once your AT are gone, what are your options to make your opponent unload those infantry?

Reavers and heat lances are great, but melta range is 9", plus their jetbike 12" movement, and JSJ 2D6" repositioning, you'll still be a bit suicidal with them, but hey, if you get the melta in, you should be able to pop something.... Fingers crossed. However, you do need a bigger unit for them to be reliable. And remember, Tau loves units that rely on jink/cover, who'd also be staying in the killzone after the shooting.

HWG wyches are indeed a very good choice for AT, but while they can do a lot of damage in combat, they are... hmm... I guess it depends on how tactically minded you are, and how much your opponent knows about DE, because you know, it doesn't take a whole lot to shoot down their venom and take away that scary AT unit. If you plan to rely on HWG wyches, you need to play them well, hide them, move them up quick, deploy them and footslog if you have to(provided you have enough target for your opponent), just remember that their effective range is 8", and they're made of thin air.

Yeap i agree with that completely 100% I do plan on changing a few things to make each unit a little more specialized in the task at hand.,