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Okay so far my Idea is:
Troops

9x Warriors Blaster.Splinter Cannon/ Duke Sliscus/raider/nightshields/flickerfields
10x Warriors Blaster.Splinter Cannon Raider/nightshields/flickerfields
10x Warriors Blaster.Splinter Cannon/raider/nightshields/flickerfields

5 x wyches haywire grenades venom dual splinter cannons
5 x wyches haywire grenades venom dual splinter cannons



HQ
Duke Sliscus
Archon,Huskblade/Ghostplate armour combat drugs, soul trap

Elites
4x Incubi with Archon, Venom dual splinter cannons
4 x kabalite trueborn blasters/Venom dual splinter cannons

Heavy Support
Ravagers Dark lances, night shields, flickerfields X 3

I have to work out how much in points this is but as a rough idea what do you guys think?

I'm by no means a guru, let alone a DE expert, but here's what I understand:

MSU = win. I.E. not 3 squads of warriors in raiders, but 6 squads of warriors in venoms.

Witches are bad at everything but being cheap and expendable haywire grenade vehicle nukers.

Incubi are probably not a good investment, I imagine that the Duke nor the fully kitted Archon are either. If you get an Archon, a shadow shield (or w/e the 2++ save is) is apparently mandatory, with most other things being peripheral at best. Drugs are nice, but they're not required like the shield is. Soul-trap is also very peripheral at best. So far as the Incubi go, you want to tailer your army to one thing or another, otherwise it just won't execute well. Incubi can kill lots of things dead, but they'll be shot down so fast and murdered at range. Or, at worst, zerged down by something like a big squad of boys / termagaunts, or something else expendable that has weight of numbers on its side. Missing and matching a half-hearted leaning towards shootiness and a huge amount of points tied down in small, elite CC. If you want to do CC, run the beast blob.

The idea of the raiders is to put more dark lances and anti infantry fire platforms on the table

 FURIOSO wrote:
The idea of the raiders is to put more dark lances and anti infantry fire platforms on the table

Anti Infantry: 5 warriors in a venom with extra cannon. Blaster optional

More Lances: Ravagers dude just take friggin Ravagers. You can even buy Dark Lance bits on eBay and convert your three raiders to three Ravagers and they'll serve you a hell of a lot better

EDIT: I mean you already have one. Might as well go full turkey

I understand the idea, and honestly I like raiders more than venoms (primarily because I've got a lot of old raider models.. >_> ). But raiders are put down by little more than a stiff breeze, and with your kabalite wearing slightly thicker tissue paper for armor, you're going to lose your fire-core extremely quickly. Only having 3 of them on the field means that they should all go down turn 2 at the latest, and you'll be taking some heavy warrior casualties from that. So your anti armor (and generalist fire-core) are suddenly sprawled on the ground and largely dead. Tough times lie ahead.

Lots of small units in venoms is better simply because it spreads fire way more, and the dual splinter cannons are super strong for the early game.

So swap out the raiders for a bucketload of venoms? 3 ravagers are also made of wet tissue paper and I am considering swapping one out for a razorwing for AA so the general consensus is lose the raiders and get venoms, but won't groups of 5 warriors fill up my FoC quicker than squads of ten?

 bocatt wrote:

 FURIOSO wrote:
The idea of the raiders is to put more dark lances and anti infantry fire platforms on the table

Anti Infantry: 5 warriors in a venom with extra cannon. Blaster optional

More Lances: Ravagers dude just take friggin Ravagers. You can even buy Dark Lance bits on eBay and convert your three raiders to three Ravagers and they'll serve you a hell of a lot better

EDIT: I mean you already have one. Might as well go full turkey

Raiders are fine. They serve a different purpose than msu venoms do. They have xport capacity to take grots, they're mobile cover as they're relatively big, they get more lances on the table, they're also a fairly large distraction. If you take the duke, deepstrike them on and rapid fire with splinter racks. They're also a bit heartier than venoms. I think it's important to have a nice mix of both, and I run 4 raiders and 5 venoms personally with 3 ravagers. Never forget, a good rule of thumb with lance weapons is to try and take 1 lance per say 125 points.

I disagree that Venomspam being the only effective way to play Dark Eldar and that you cannot have an effective list using Raiders. The only thing that you need to be different between a Venomspam list and a gun boat list is that you need to have a bully unit from which you will use to force the enemy to play how you like. A great example of this is a Beast Pack, which is a very cheap, fast and survivable bully unit. What i would recommend is to drop the Archon, Incubi and Venom and instead take the Baron and a Beast Pack. In your list you are spending about 300pts on a unit that is dependent on a 2 HP AV 10 vehicle getting them into a prime positions for an assault, and if that venom gets popped then you are looking at 300pts down the drain.

Other then that straight swap then i would simply say well done on a good list, it will still be demolished by TauDar or Eldau but you will have more of a chance then if you used MSU because with a beast pack you can MAKE COMBAT and that can break a game vs tau.

Should I add some hellions in with the Baron as a harrassing unit, I have about 20 models that 've never actually used and i've always wanted to use them as a discouraging unit from assaults/deepstrikes etc.

Hellions are...lack luster. They are terribly fragile and lack AP to fight dedicated CC units. On the bright side, they have a good shooting profile. Sigh.

Put those hellion models to good use, get yourself some green stuff and either some Wargs, Ferishan Wolves, Horagaunts or Dire Wolves and make yourself some Khymerae. Then buy some Gargoyles and some large bases and make yourself some Razorwings. It's quite cheap how i have done it and looks better then those ugly khyermae models that cost and army and a leg.

I have heard that hellions make a great double tap/harrasment unit and with the baron the stealth rule makes them much more survivable, with a decent shooting profile to boot, does the baron give the beast units e.g khymerae stealth as well?

Not just stealth, also Hit'n'Run, offensive and defensive grenades, a LOS to help wound allocation and a 2++ for tanking wounds for Razorwings. In a recent big tourney (Feast of Blades i think) the winner was a big beast pack lead by the Baron and a Shardseer. The 4++ makes them a lot more survivable then the Hellions, a Khymerae has more strength 4 attacks (the hellions redeeming quality) then a hellion while the Razorwings have Rending and a bucketload of attacks AND wounds. Comparing Hellions to a Beast Pack will only make you depressed :(

Yeah I have just done that and it is kind of depressing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What's the best loadout for a beastmaster?

Naked, run them at the front of your beast pack. Get all but 1 killed off. The only reason you have beast masters is for Leadership, something the Baron covers totally. The one you are saving is to take a challenge since they are all characters, so if you want give *1* a venom blade.

So basically I can just give a basic hellion a venom blade and call him a beastmaster?

Only if you want to as the Venom Blade is optional, you could simply use your Hellions as Naked beast masters. No conversion needed, no special paint job, nothing. Just say ''Oh, these are beast masters''. 9/10 won't know the difference and the remaining won't care. A beast master is a guy on a sky bored wearing paper armour, why spend £11 (!!!!!!!!!!111!!) on a single beast master when 15 will buy you 4 + Baron? I made my entire beast pack for under £50. 15 for Hellions, 15 for Fell Wargs (You could use Dire Wolves, but I think Wargs look better) and 18 for Gargoyles. You don't even want to know how much dosh that would cost for using the ugly real models.

I kind of like the look of the GW khymerae but yeah i'll definitely use gargoyles for ripper swarms and hellions for beastmasters.

 FURIOSO wrote:
I kind of like the look of the GW khymerae but yeah i'll definitely use gargoyles for ripper swarms and hellions for beastmasters.

Dark Eldar doesn't have ripper swarms!

I meant razorwing flocks, my bad