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 Red Corsair wrote:
So all in all I have to say I am impressed with how well I did against ALL tough matchups in maelstrom on a 6x4 table with 3 units lol.

Yeah its surprising how well it does. It's like some weird inverse of MSU. Also if you some how end up playing kill point...

 Red Corsair wrote:
placed all three of mine off his first placement forming a diamond, the other two were on the opposite edge. I won first deployment and took the side with the 4 objectives since their was more area terrain as well.

The Diamond objective placement strategy is ridiculously strong with this list, and can really help in the tougher matchups. Good to hear you managed to get some good mileage out of it. Smart to start everything on the board against Grey Knights, especially if you have the objectives in your deployment zone.

 Red Corsair wrote:
At 1850 I think I might cut some fat and try to take 4 units of 5 grots with WWP heamis ( dual cad) plus corpse thief. I think it would give me more flexibility and allow me to detach the haemis if I need more MSU for objectives OR to soak overwatch verse tau.

Really curious to see how that plays out. Definitely gives you more flexibility, but doubles your WWP/Haemonculus Tax. Why dual CAD? The Covenite Coterie detachment should have enough slots, or am I missing something?

Sounds sweet Red, sounds like some enjoyable plays, I agree that more grots would be really useful, would also help you pin armies more, split fire to some degree, allowing you access from more directions, i mean with pinpoint WWP and two slightly smaller units you could easily encapsulate vehicles, allowing one unit to shoot and charge and one unit to shoot another and also charge, so making huge effectiveness of your footprints. I suppose you can also in that force some really big decisions early Sounds agressive and fun

Yeh why dual cad out of interest?

Glad to hear of your experiences Red, the diamond formation seems powerful, as its to some extent a guaranteed placement. How were you finding the durability after the initial deepstrike? how were you DSing, reasonably aggressively?

What exactly is this Diamond Objective Placement Strategy?

Are talking about just placing them as close together?

 KiloFiX wrote:
What exactly is this Diamond Objective Placement Strategy?

Are talking about just placing them as close together?

Kind of.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t11700-br2-the-repugnant-ramblers-vs-serpent-spam-1250pts#131192

That is mush's batrep, it illustrates this better than just words.

If you look at the picture in the Objective Placement section of his batrep you can see that his opponent placed objective 1, and he clustered his 2,4 and 6 such that they are as close to each other as possible with some terrain inside the 'diamond'. That's why the shape is important -- its not just keeping objectives close but such that there's a good central location in between them, like a ruin or such.

Ahh, ok - thanks man.

Sorry boys, away from my book so I am probably brain farting that the coven coterie is only two HQ. Is it 4? If so then yea, no point in taking two detachments.

My theory on taking the 4 units is mainly to mitigate some of the tough match ups especially gunline tau. I rolled poorly, but to the same note, in every game I got the best warlord trait for the list and in the two games I used the WWP's I got both my units in. having 4 would allow me to mitigate bad rolls slightly and also avoid relying on multi charging.

Against my eldar opponenty I pulled off some spectacular multi assaults, but he even started identifying his errors and where he could have made it difficult or impossible, in future games this could make it harder as I'll be dedicating WAY too many points at softer less expensive targets, meaning I can't hide from shooting. Don't forget fellas that with 11 bodies it is difficult to benefit from rampage. Splitting the larger units in half not only gives you more flexibility but also will get you ~2 extra attacks per grot.

So while I love the 10 man units, I just see much more flexibility with 5 man units. To save points you could always use two units in raiders instead in smaller point games. Since they arrive turn 2 they are fearless anyway.

Biigest thing I took away from the toutrnament however is the corpse thief claw. It honestly had me wondering if I could squeeze either a second one into a list. It is such a MASSIVE unit itself and is so hard to run from. the amount of firepower it can take is criminal. I have to models to build three more taloi/cronos so I think a more practical solution will be taking a Dark artisan instead. I can WWP it turn 2 so I can increase the FNP of the claw formation and will add another high toughness threat.

hardest decision now is where to evolve to. More grot units or more MC's. Guess I'll just have to play more games lol.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Sorry boys, away from my book so I am probably brain farting that the coven coterie is only two HQ. Is it 4? If so then yea, no point in taking two detachments.

6 hqs, 8 elites and 4 heavies, its pretty slick in that regard. If your running four units of grotesques there's not reason not to take two from the grotesquery formation: 1 grotesquery (2 grots, 1 haemi), 3 haemies 2 grots (from covenite coterie), Corpse thief. You could take 2 grotesqueries if you only wanted two haemonculus.

 Red Corsair wrote:
My theory on taking the 4 units is mainly to mitigate some of the tough match ups especially gunline tau. I rolled poorly, but to the same note, in every game I got the best warlord trait for the list and in the two games I used the WWP's I got both my units in. having 4 would allow me to mitigate bad rolls slightly and also avoid relying on multi charging.

Against my eldar opponenty I pulled off some spectacular multi assaults, but he even started identifying his errors and where he could have made it difficult or impossible, in future games this could make it harder as I'll be dedicating WAY too many points at softer less expensive targets, meaning I can't hide from shooting. Don't forget fellas that with 11 bodies it is difficult to benefit from rampage. Splitting the larger units in half not only gives you more flexibility but also will get you ~2 extra attacks per grot.

So while I love the 10 man units, I just see much more flexibility with 5 man units. To save points you could always use two units in raiders instead in smaller point games. Since they arrive turn 2 they are fearless anyway.

There are a few things to consider going down the smaller squads route aside from the extra haemi/WWP/raider expenses:

-It reduces your defence. A 10 man unit is a lot scarier to charge than a 5 man unit. It's also a lot harder to tie up with chaff (as most chaff won't last more than a round of combat).
-It makes it easier for your opponent to score Tactical Objectives that revolve around destroying units.
-Your reserves work very differently. If I have 10 man units and I succeed two reserve rolls I have 20 models on the table, with 5 man units I only have 10. If I succeed only one roll with a 10 man unit I have 10 models on the table, with 5 man units I only have 5 (which can be easy to overwhelm if nothing else comes on). Reserves don't have to come on turn 2. If anything I'm quite happy to fail two reserve rolls on turn 2, because it gives me another shot at all 20 coming on at the same time turn 3 (and importantly reduces the number of turns my opponent has to kill them). But also it gives me WND against dangerous terrain that turn and if I'm going second I get Zealot on turn 4 which is the earliest my opponent can charge me.

Of course there are many positives to smaller squads in addition to what you mentioned:

-smaller footprint makes them easier to hide, and gives your more options on where to land when deep-striking.
-smaller units don't mind getting tied up by walkers.
-smaller units can score more objectives.

Just wanted to illustrate that there is a trade off involved. But the big one for me, is only succeeding one reserve roll and as a result having to be very conservative with my deep-strike (5 grots vs entire enemy army). Larger squads make you less vulnerable to divide and conquer. Still I'm really curious to see how MSU will go!

 Red Corsair wrote:
Biigest thing I took away from the toutrnament however is the corpse thief claw. It honestly had me wondering if I could squeeze either a second one into a list. It is such a MASSIVE unit itself and is so hard to run from. the amount of firepower it can take is criminal. I have to models to build three more taloi/cronos so I think a more practical solution will be taking a Dark artisan instead. I can WWP it turn 2 so I can increase the FNP of the claw formation and will add another high toughness threat.

Yeah, it sounds awesome, definitely something I want to try in higher point games.

 Red Corsair wrote:
hardest decision now is where to evolve to. More grot units or more MC's. Guess I'll just have to play more games lol.

For an army composition that doesn't have much in the way of variety there seem to be a lot of hard choices! It's kind of surprising that a simple assault army, can have so much depth. With most lists I can work out what I should evolve to with theory hammer. With this style of list though I feel I need to get a load of games in against a ton of different armies before working out which direction to take it in.

I agree that a DA would be a great addition, it complements the other units really well. In my opinion its sort of a multiplier, alone its ok, but the more units you get around it the better. So to that extent, a corpusthief claw and some grot units would be perfect. I I think trying to get another claw in there would be difficult, crazily scary if you did, but i think the DA is a good place to start.

So DA, groteserie, then Covens detachment with 3 haemy's and 2 grot units. Thats 4 grot units, each with a haemy, the DA and a claw. Not sure the min points on that, but i imagine pretty steep. I would run smaller grot units, potentially 5-7, sticking the larger with the groteserie to attempt to get maximum benefit from the haemy's buffs.

I have a feeling that 2x3 Grot units and 2x7 grot units could work really well. Yes you are giving your opponent a weak unit of 3 that if focussed is going to go down a lot quicker, but i mean if my opponent was whittling down a 3 man grot unit in order to get a single VP i'd be worried about what else i was doing wrong! He should be by this point facing some serious issues if you've managed to get him pinned in position, ready to charge with 3-4 grot units. Also as you mentioned, the footprint is much smaller, a 3 man grot unit can actually fit in some rather tight spaces due to the base shapes. Could be great for DSing into the middle of his ranks while you've got 5 talos at his front door and 2 grot units closing the flanks off. If you can get a 3 man grot unit behind say some sort of meatwall you can actually open up the field as he will have to pile in and draw his force inwards, but thats a very specific scenario in which it could be effective. You may not insta-gib his chaff, but 3 grots should hold them up for a bit, and you can always throw in another grot unit to help clear them up.

Really good tournament batreps, Red. Thanks very much for taking the time to write it up. I loved your list and, even though the sample size is still microscopic, between your experience and Mushkilla's, I'm really excited to see what appears to be more recognition that the Coven units, when played by good generals, cause the top tier armies lots of problems due to their resilience and the awesome board control they can have due to their large footprint. I would concur with the others who recommended adding a DA (or two if you're willing to shrink the Grot squads) to your list as you expand it, as it would be a great force multiplier. In your last game against the Tau, a DA giving your Corpsethief 4+FNP, re-rolling ones would've been huge as if your opponent focused on killing the DA (which is REALLY hard to do), your Grots and Corpsethief would've made it into CC and then it would be all over. The DA is kind of like a super Canoptek Spyder for the new Necrons. Everybody breezily states "oh just kill the Spyder" and your Wraith problem is solved. That's much easier said than done and doubly so for the DA which is much tougher than a Spyder. You might kill the Spyder/DA eventually, but by then the Talos/Grots are already into your lines.

For an all Coven list, do you think:

List A:
Dark Artisan
Corpsethief Claw
3 x Scaple Squadron

List B:
Dark Artisan
Corpsethief Claw
Grotesquerie
Scaple Squadron

....would be better?

I'd say the second list - since Grotesques are likely to be much more useful than Wracks.

Also, it means you're using every Coven unit.

Quick question: What, if any, is the best use of the hex rifle? I kinda like the idea of them, but I cannot think of where they would fit into an army.

I've got one idea for these lists, since many of the afformentioned formations include the Freakish Spectacle special rule (-1 leadership for every enemy unit within 12"), why not go unbound and include a Shadowseer or two? You can pick up that Mask of Shadows for another negative modifier to leadership and go to town. Then take a DE Haemie with Armor of Misery to make it really fun. It's something I'm considering.

 Lord Blackscale wrote:
Quick question: What, if any, is the best use of the hex rifle? I kinda like the idea of them, but I cannot think of where they would fit into an army.

You use them to create dioramas to decorate your shelves.

Still, I have used them on occasion. Generally, I give one to my Warlord-Haemonculus and another to his 5-man Wrack squad (if I can afford it), along with an Ossefactor (if only my Haemonculi could take those... ). Basically, the squad sits in a Raider on a backfield objective and takes pot-shots. It's a decent objective-holder, but you could probably trade out the hexrifles and not notice the difference.

If you're wondering why I use said unit, it was for a few reasons:

- I had some Wrack models I wanted to use.
- I wanted to try the Covenite Fleshcorps formation (though I've also done this with a codex-haemonculus).
- I'd been using a lot of melee Haemonculi, and wanted to try a ranged one (though putting him with Wracks also leaves me the option of melee).
- I wanted him to shoot from long-range, since his squad wouldn't be very survivable and I didn't want him on the front-lines.
- I'd been modelling a sorcerer-haemonculus and the Hexrifle fit his flavour.

Anyway, my Haemonculus's hexrifle occasionally does something noteworthy, like insta-killing killing a Painboy (albeit too late in the game to really matter) or rending a terminator to death. But, it can't do anything reliably and might average maybe one infantry model killed per 2 games. It's sad, because it's a weapon I really want to kile, but it's really not worth its cost. Maybe if it had Fleshbane or Shred, or if it caused ID on to-wound rolls of 6. Sigh.

In terms of targets, I'd probably aim for non-EW MCs, if they have any. Otherwise, perhaps try to pick special weapons out of squads (maybe aim at ICs, if you're feeling really lucky ).

In case you're wondering, I usually only end up with one of these units in my army. Theoretically, if I was using Fleshcorps again, I might add a Hexrifle to the other two Wrack squads. But, I usually just don't have the points for that - as I tend to cram as many minimalist-units into my lists as possible.

Glad you guys are gaining so much from my brief write up. I honestly love having those two massive grot units, and silly me not realizing I have 6 HQ's to play with actually opens up much more theory.

In both my first two matchups I found myself seriously worried about ID on those grots. There was a turn when a small 6 man interceptor squad had hammer hand and force active and I lost 4 grots in a puff of smoke. I mean, that's 12 wounds and although heavily force influenced armies are rare, that and Iyandin wraith heavy armies can really have you relying on your opponents dice to be flat. I have always been good at model positioning so I cycled the lead models in my first two games, especially against the Heavy D canons on my CTC so any lucky 6 would only finish off single wounders where possible, but with 3 units you can't always get away with this. Sometime your opponent is as good as you with positioning and it can be a nightmare.

Now, having said that, I believe getting urien in there would really help both the grots AND the CTC as it would get me EW by turn 4, turn three if I break off one squads WWP carrier after the drop and join the one unit. This gives major flexibility to the list allowing that unit to soak the potential counters.

My next list will probably be one of two lists:
#1
CTC: 5x Ichor injectors, 5x Chain flails

2 Heamy: WWP, FG
Heamy: FG
Urien Rackarth

2x 10 grot units w/ abberation

1845
#2
CTC:4x Ichor injectors, 5xChain flails

DA: Heamy:FG
WWP Talos: IJ, CF
Cronos: SS

2 Heamy: WWP, FG

2x 8 grot units w/ abberation

1850

The last tourny was 1700, so next increment will be 1850 most likely.

I like the second a little more right now overall, but I can really see list one ironing out some of the kinks in my original list and allowing me to adapt to hard counters.

Also I want to give props to Mushkilla for inspiring me to re-look at massed grots. I ran 10 with max haemies in 5th and had dreams of trying 20, but 6th and 7th had me preferring to scale back to 3-4 man units in raiders. So thanks Mush for reigniting my sick passion for all things made from recycled meat!!

I like what you did before with the Corpsethief Claw with Heat Lances. It gave you the ability to break transports and eat the juicy bodies on the inside for extra kill points. Putting two close combat weapons on them might be a waste, maybe you should mix it up for different situations? Three with Chain Flials and two with Ichor Injector should handle anything you come across. Even Wraithknights would worry.

Here's the list I was considering for 2k points.

Coven Supplement

Corpsethief Claw x5 Heat Lance

Dark Artisan - Spirit Probe, WWP, Chain Flials

Grotequerie - 7 Grots +1 Aberation w/ Scissorhand x2, Haemie w/ Syndric's Sump, WWP

Deldar
Haemie w/ WWP, Armor of Misery

Harlequins
Shadowseer ML 2, Mask of Secrets
Shadowseer ML 2

I know it's unbound, but I don't get ObSec with the Coven book and each formation includes Freakish Spectacle, so why stay bound? Deldar Haemie and Mask of Secrets for additional negative modifiers to Leadership and Psyker support. And I haven't even begun to mention the benefits of Hit and Run to large blobs or Groteques.

I have considered swapping out one of the Shadowseers for a Death Jester for the Shrieker Cannon, but I'm worried about all the rolls that need to happen to make it work. First I need to hit, then wound, then my opponent needs to fail any cover/armor saves, then he need to fail a moral... I would rather just nail my opponent twice with Psychic Shriek at -5 Leadership.

I actually took Haywire blasters since they have a 24" threat range before movement rather then a 9" I also didn't want to tempt myself into shooting poor targets and making my assaults longer.

The only real reason I took the HB's by the way was to combat imperial knights which I didn't face. Ad lance crushes the coven list flat, but against single knights if you shoot him down to 4 HP's before assaulting you have a solid shot at killing him smashing since your hitting on 3's and doing HP's on 3's with rerolls due to the smash rules. You are more then likely going to be assaulted by the faster knight as well, so if your savvy enough to get your closest model in terrain you actually have a shot at downing one without taking damage, though I'll admit this is very tough.

Incidentally I never played a single knight, at a store that usually has at least 2 if not more players fielding them. If not for knights I'd say always keep the TL splinter canons, they are much better against FMC's especially the demonic variety and they keep them cheap, I generally run them the first turn anyway.

In regard to ichor injectors and chain flails, I'd never leave home without them. They were clutch in both my winning games. Chain flails guraentees you can shred horde's and eternal warrior characters like draigo and Ichor injectors become important when you are down to your last couple models. I actually only killed the Iyandin WK which was his warlord with the scatter shield because of them. I did 4 wounds, 2 of which were ID and he failed the second he took. My taloi were on their last wounds each as well and died shortly after.

Your list is great, I am just less inclined to run so many books at once, especially unbound. Honestly I don't think you need too.

 vipoid wrote:
I'd say the second list - since Grotesques are likely to be much more useful than Wracks.

Also, it means you're using every Coven unit.

But what about the 6 Splinter Cannons and MSU that you would get with 3 x Scapel?

Or are Grots still much better?

 Red Corsair wrote:
I actually took Haywire blasters since they have a 24" threat range before movement rather then a 9" I also didn't want to tempt myself into shooting poor targets and making my assaults longer.

The only real reason I took the HB's by the way was to combat imperial knights which I didn't face. Ad lance crushes the coven list flat, but against single knights if you shoot him down to 4 HP's before assaulting you have a solid shot at killing him smashing since your hitting on 3's and doing HP's on 3's with rerolls due to the smash rules. You are more then likely going to be assaulted by the faster knight as well, so if your savvy enough to get your closest model in terrain you actually have a shot at downing one without taking damage, though I'll admit this is very tough.

Incidentally I never played a single knight, at a store that usually has at least 2 if not more players fielding them. If not for knights I'd say always keep the TL splinter canons, they are much better against FMC's especially the demonic variety and they keep them cheap, I generally run them the first turn anyway.

In regard to ichor injectors and chain flails, I'd never leave home without them. They were clutch in both my winning games. Chain flails guraentees you can shred horde's and eternal warrior characters like draigo and Ichor injectors become important when you are down to your last couple models. I actually only killed the Iyandin WK which was his warlord with the scatter shield because of them. I did 4 wounds, 2 of which were ID and he failed the second he took. My taloi were on their last wounds each as well and died shortly after.

Your list is great, I am just less inclined to run so many books at once, especially unbound. Honestly I don't think you need too.

You make a valid argument for Haywire Blasters, I'll use them instead.

 KiloFiX wrote:

But what about the 6 Splinter Cannons and MSU that you would get with 3 x Scapel?

Or are Grots still much better?

The thing is, even with 3x Scalpel Squadron, your list still isn't MSU - it has what amounts to 3 MSU units, and 2 mini-death-stars.

Regardless, my concern is that Wracks and Venoms are useless against vehicles - so against a mechanised enemy you'll have just two units capable of even scratching vehicles. In contrast, Grotesques can destroy most vehicles in combat (as well as being durable and exceptional against most infantry).

You'll have a bad day against drop pod armies unless you roll the bonus str though. It happened to me the other day, the guy had 4 drop pods that were obsec...

DirtyDeeds wrote:
You'll have a bad day against drop pod armies unless you roll the bonus str though. It happened to me the other day, the guy had 4 drop pods that were obsec...

That's true, but you'd be equally screwed with 3 Scalpel Squadrons.

 vipoid wrote:

DirtyDeeds wrote:
You'll have a bad day against drop pod armies unless you roll the bonus str though. It happened to me the other day, the guy had 4 drop pods that were obsec...

That's true, but you'd be equally screwed with 3 Scalpel Squadrons.

I apologized if I confused, I was not implying that a Scalple Squadron would single handedly stop ObSec drop pods, just implying that the Grotesque death stars will have a hard time tackling that many objective grabbers,

3 Scaple Squadrons is really 6 x Venoms and 6 x 5-man Wrack Units. Technically that's 12 separate Units.

But we're still saying 2 x Grots, 2 x Raiders and a Haemy is better?

 KiloFiX wrote:
3 Scaple Squadrons is really 6 x Venoms and 6 x 5-man Wrack Units. Technically that's 12 separate Units.

But we're still saying 2 x Grots, 2 x Raiders and a Haemy is better?

Depends, The lists are different styles.
3x Scalpel is a huge alpha strike list, you want to be coming in to get those VP's and giving your opponent a good peppering. The grot bombs are more about DSing on turn 2 and positioning for a turn 3/4 where you really put the pressure on the enemy. Like you said, the 3x scalpel is like 12 units in total, your playing a much more MSU style, most likely using the venoms to grab objectives rather than sitting on them like with the grot bombs.

I've been really encouraged by the experimentation (pun intended) that Muskilla and Red Corsair, to name a few, have done with all-Coven unit armies. I think the formations and the supplement allow us DE players to change how we think about DE tactics and I for one am really enjoying it so far. I'm tentatively hopeful that we may be seeing an evolution of the internal DE meta, away from Venom spam or using CWE to do all of the heavy lifting (seriously, most DE/CWE lists I've seen are basically just CWE lists with a WWP tax) and towards a more resilient board/objective control style of play with hard to shift Coven units. Not saying this will win a GT anytime soon, but it sure is fun to play around with to see what its limits are.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Also I want to give props to Mushkilla for inspiring me to re-look at massed grots. I ran 10 with max haemies in 5th and had dreams of trying 20, but 6th and 7th had me preferring to scale back to 3-4 man units in raiders. So thanks Mush for reigniting my sick passion for all things made from recycled meat!!

Thanks for taking the time to give it another go! Keep the tournament/game summaries coming, your insight from your game against has really helped evolve my own list.


My latest 1250 point list:

sweetbacon wrote:
I've been really encouraged by the experimentation (pun intended) that Muskilla and Red Corsair, to name a few, have done with all-Coven unit armies. I think the formations and the supplement allow us DE players to change how we think about DE tactics and I for one am really enjoying it so far. I'm tentatively hopeful that we may be seeing an evolution of the internal DE meta, away from Venom spam or using CWE to do all of the heavy lifting (seriously, most DE/CWE lists I've seen are basically just CWE lists with a WWP tax) and towards a more resilient board/objective control style of play with hard to shift Coven units. Not saying this will win a GT anytime soon, but it sure is fun to play around with to see what its limits are.

It's definitely a fresh and exiting take on Dark Eldar for me. I'm really excited to see how it will evolve and where others will take it. Not to mention it's a very practical event army (fits in a small carry case).

Always excited to give feedback to my fellow dark kin. I am really liking your improved 1250 list. It has a very scary presence for such a low point game. I also like how your creeping closer and closer to that corpse thief claw!!!! That unit is so much fun and I think when you jump to 1500 it will be the next logical step.

I can't wait for your next series of batreps, even if brief like mine, to see what match ups you face. Honestly my biggest fear is still multiple Imperial knights, I am not sure what we can do with coven only units to combat them other then toss cheap wrack units and venoms in the way which really doesn't jive with the playstyle and flare we are developing at the moment

That said, I think I am OK with conceding that particular match as I hate facing multiple knights anyway

@sweetbacon- Awesome man! I hope you have fun with it and be sure to share your experiences with it!

 Red Corsair wrote:
Always excited to give feedback to my fellow dark kin. I am really liking your improved 1250 list. It has a very scary presence for such a low point game. I also like how your creeping closer and closer to that corpse thief claw!!!! That unit is so much fun and I think when you jump to 1500 it will be the next logical step.

That's the plan.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I can't wait for your next series of batreps, even if brief like mine, to see what match ups you face.

My next game is against Grey Knights, which will be interesting with all that force. After that I'm going to try and get a game against Adamantine Lance (at 1250 which should be fun).

 Red Corsair wrote:
Honestly my biggest fear is still multiple Imperial knights, I am not sure what we can do with coven only units to combat them other then toss cheap wrack units and venoms in the way which really doesn't jive with the playstyle and flare we are developing at the moment

That said, I think I am OK with conceding that particular match as I hate facing multiple knights anyway

Knights are a pain no matter what army you play. The most annoying thing is when you kill them they kill everything nearby in the explosion, particularly units that try to take them out in assault. Adamantine lance is twice as deadly because of D3 S10 hammer of wrath (better make those 6+ gnarlskin saves!).

On another note I stumble across these to blog posts, which I thought were quite promising for this kind of play style:

Dark Eldar in ITC events

and

Simplify!

The first one covers the importance of making the "kill a unit" maelstrom objective hard for your opponent to score (valid in both the ITC format and regular maelstrom missions).

The second article is about making lists simple in terms of the rules you need to remember and the number of variables you need to juggle. I for one have been loving the simplicity of the list: No psychic powers, 3-5 units, little to no arcane wargear (WWP), 2-3 types of unit profiles (haemi, grot, talos), 2-3 weapon type (flesh gauntlest, splinter cannons, chain flails), and the coven power from pain table. I don't need to care about moral or anything that affects it because of fearless, and most of my units don't shoot so can almost always opt to run. The simplicity of the army in terms of rules, options and number of units means I can focus on the mission and positioning of my army as a whole.

Think about how many different rules you need to consider throughout the game - each round has movement, shooting, and assault moves from both players, all requiring some sort of statistical consideration. Playing well also requires you to see your movements one or two turns in advance, culminating in a T5-7 win scenario. How are you supposed to think about all of these paths while you're staring at charts, Universal Special Rules, and wargear effects?

You might only have one tool in the toolbox, but you'd be surprised the different ways you can use a hammer when you put your mind to it.

It's why I always take a Abberation with Scissor Hands, gives the guy rending and I'm not SOL when I play against that sort of stuff.