From the Void- Dark Eldar Tactica for 7th Codex

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**sweetbacon**

Scalpel Squadron, I'll grant you (although I'm not sure I've actually seen it earn First Blood). Our metas must be very different though, as I've never seen anybody run a Scarlet Epicurean in person so far. It seems like the Coven formations, other than the Scalpel Squadron, that people like are Dark Artisan, Grotesquerie, and Corpsethief.

**vipoid**

sweetbacon wrote:
I agree with allowing the Acothyst and the Haemie to take one. That seems like the best option. What I don't understand about the Ossefactor is why even bother introducing it if only one model in a unit that not a lot of people take to begin with can purchase one? God forbid that Wracks actually do something semi-useful in the shooting phase.

Well quite.

Jimsolo wrote:

Not a lot of people use wracks? Virtually every list I'm seeing (or playing) uses a Scalpel Squadron, Scarlet Epicureans, or both.

Really?

I've seen virtually no lists with Scarlet Epicureans, and most of the ones with Scalpel Squadrons use them for a null-deployment, rather than for the wracks themselves.

Jimsolo wrote:
For 15 pts I think the ossie more than earns its biscuits.

I agree. The problem is the 50pts of wracks you have to take to access it - 4/5 of which will be sitting, picking their noses (somehow), whilst the 5th member fires the ossefactor.

I'm sure you could make some kind of lightbulb-esque joke out of that. "How many Wracks does it take to fire an ossefactor? Five. One to actually fire it, two to torture innocents, one to get their haemonculus a cup of blood and one who tries to pick his nose through his mask."

sweetbacon wrote:
Scalpel Squadron, I'll grant you (although I'm not sure I've actually seen it earn First Blood). Our metas must be very different though, as I've never seen anybody run a Scarlet Epicurean in person so far. It seems like the Coven formations, other than the Scalpel Squadron, that people like are Dark Artisan, Grotesquerie, and Corpsethief.

This is what I've seen as well.

**Alcibiades**

Well not having actually played Dark Eldar

, it however seems to me that, more than for most other units, the Wracks serve as ablative wounds for the special weapon(s) and/or Acothyst that do most of the actual damage.

Ossefactors are excellent weapons. It is actually a 65-point weapon defended by 4 ablative wounds. The other Wracks aren't "sitting around doing nothing"; they're sitting around being wounds.

**rollawaythestone**

I've been playing some games against a local Dark Eldar player. I've been getting my butt kicked by Raiders full of Warriors with Splinter Racks and Nightshields. They have been blowing my Flying Tyrants out of the sky. With a 3+ Jink they are incredibly durable to my Tyrant's fire (even with E-grubs) and their shooting suffers no ill effects from Jinking. It seems like an incredibly powerful unit - permanent 3+ cover with tons of twin-linked poison shooting. I suppose this loadout isn't more popular because Wave Serpents would shred this unit, but it seems really powerful to me. What are your thoughts? Any strategic advice for facing these as Tyranids?

**vipoid**

Alcibiades wrote:
Well not having actually played Dark Eldar , it however seems to me that, more than for most other units, the Wracks serve as ablative wounds for the special weapon(s) and/or Acothyst that do most of the actual damage.

Thing is, I can think of Warriors as ablative wounds for my Blaster. The difference is that they're cheaper and still have guns to fire when they're not being shot at.

**SarisKhan**

rollawaythestone wrote:
I've been playing some games against a local Dark Eldar player. I've been getting my butt kicked by Raiders full of Warriors with Splinter Racks and Nightshields. They have been blowing my Flying Tyrants out of the sky. With a 3+ Jink they are incredibly durable to my Tyrant's fire (even with E-grubs) and their shooting suffers no ill effects from Jinking. It seems like an incredibly powerful unit - permanent 3+ cover with tons of twin-linked poison shooting. I suppose this loadout isn't more popular because Wave Serpents would shred this unit, but it seems really powerful to me. What are your thoughts? Any strategic advice for facing these as Tyranids?

Gunboat Raiders are the core of my army. Eldar seldom appear in my local meta and I've yet to meet any on a battlefield, fortunately.

Hive Guards are good against them. Position the Guards behind BLoS cover and fire those S8 shots with Ignores Cover. They're pretty cheap, too.

**pesce5279**

Your hive tyrants should be smashing those gunboats with their Egrub flamers. The boats get no jink saves from flamers and the guys inside are taking D6 S5? (not sure what the str is on the Egrubs) hits.

**DaKKaLAnce**

The flamer has a 9" range, He can easily avod it and shoot him with lots of twin link shots.

**SarisKhan**

DaKKaLAnce wrote:
The flamer has a 9" range, He can easily avod it and shoot him with lots of twin link shots.

Yes, that's what I've learnt to do after some unpleasant experiences.

**DaKKaLAnce**

I always wait for my Nid friend to make a move first with his flying circus of MC. Just make sure you are far enough from the distance that needed for him to hit you with Flamers.

**Red Corsair**

rollawaythestone wrote:
I've been playing some games against a local Dark Eldar player. I've been getting my butt kicked by Raiders full of Warriors with Splinter Racks and Nightshields. They have been blowing my Flying Tyrants out of the sky. With a 3+ Jink they are incredibly durable to my Tyrant's fire (even with E-grubs) and their shooting suffers no ill effects from Jinking. It seems like an incredibly powerful unit - permanent 3+ cover with tons of twin-linked poison shooting. I suppose this loadout isn't more popular because Wave Serpents would shred this unit, but it seems really powerful to me. What are your thoughts? Any strategic advice for facing these as Tyranids?

Wait...seriously? Flyrants have access to E-grubs, a heavy flamer with haywire to boot. So it gets an auto S5 hit PLUS a free haywire hit, both ignoring that jink save PLUS it does a D6 s5 no save wounds to the warriors. I can't tell you the number of times my brother has managed to do 2 HP to my raider AND kneecap the occupants, it gets worse with acid spray and drool canons that thanks to torrent can hit multiple hulls if you get bunched up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

DaKKaLAnce wrote:
The flamer has a 9" range, He can easily avod it and shoot him with lots of twin link shots.

Your exaggerating greatly. Its 24" between deployment zones, indecently that's how far a flyrant swoops lol, so each one can burn 9" into that DZ. You can hid a raider or two but unless you hug the edge of your table end to end somethings getting fethed up. Your also deployed like crap to impact any other nid models and your still fishing for snap shots. Even if it takes two turns who cares, turn one you jink any lace shots and hopefully you own a malenthrope making it a 2+ save but no templates next turn you burn them boats.

Best defense against nids are coven units.

**rollawaythestone**

Red Corsair wrote:
rollawaythestone wrote:
I've been playing some games against a local Dark Eldar player. I've been getting my butt kicked by Raiders full of Warriors with Splinter Racks and Nightshields. They have been blowing my Flying Tyrants out of the sky. With a 3+ Jink they are incredibly durable to my Tyrant's fire (even with E-grubs) and their shooting suffers no ill effects from Jinking. It seems like an incredibly powerful unit - permanent 3+ cover with tons of twin-linked poison shooting. I suppose this loadout isn't more popular because Wave Serpents would shred this unit, but it seems really powerful to me. What are your thoughts? Any strategic advice for facing these as Tyranids?

Wait...seriously? Flyrants have access to E-grubs, a heavy flamer with haywire to boot. So it gets an auto S5 hit PLUS a free haywire hit, both ignoring that jink save PLUS it does a D6 s5 no save wounds to the warriors. I can't tell you the number of times my brother has managed to do 2 HP to my raider AND kneecap the occupants, it gets worse with acid spray and drool canons that thanks to torrent can hit multiple hulls if you get bunched up.

Yeah, seriously. Chances are the E-grubs are going to cause 1 Glance. Then d6 to the occupants, but from turn 2 on they get a Feel No Pain against those wounds. With a 3+ Jink the 6 Devourer shots is tough to land blows. It's really tough for a Flyrant to down a Raider (even with E-grubs) and not get blown out of the sky in return. Two Flyrants tag teaming a Raider will work, but it's not easy. Particularly if the Raiders get the drop on the Flyrants. Although I had some abysmal rolls, I flew two Flyrants out of reserve and had them tag team a pair of raiders with their E-grubs and Devourers and didn't do more than 2 glances and maybe ~4 dead Warriors. The following turn the two Raiders downed both Flyrants.

It's a really strong unit and after that game I am totally afraid of them.

**Mushkilla**

On another note, one of my 40k heroes (Fritz) has posted a video on youtube describing the tactics illustrated and discussed in The Repugnant Ramblers battle reports regarding diamond/triangle objective placement. Good to see it being promoted.

**vipoid**

Red Corsair wrote:
it gets worse with acid spray and drool canons that thanks to torrent can hit multiple hulls if you get bunched up.

I agree with everything else you've said, but this is an important point - a flamer has to be positioned to cover as much of the vehicle as possible. This actually makes it quite difficult for torrent flamers to hit multiple vehicles, as the template has to be positioned along the length of the raider.

I just thought I'd mention this as it's a rule many people seem to miss.

**Solar Shock**

vipoid wrote:
Red Corsair wrote:
it gets worse with acid spray and drool canons that thanks to torrent can hit multiple hulls if you get bunched up.

I agree with everything else you've said, but this is an important point - a flamer has to be positioned to cover as much of the vehicle as possible. This actually makes it quite difficult for torrent flamers to hit multiple vehicles, as the template has to be positioned along the length of the raider.

I just thought I'd mention this as it's a rule many people seem to miss.

I didn't think this was true?^^
I was under the understanding that the flamer rules (don't have my BRB on me) have to hit as many models in a unit as possible - or something along those lines, and thus it could be positioned to hit 2 vehicles pretty easily, as once you have a hit on a vehicle with a template you can't score any more hits on that vehicle with the same template.

Could you clear that up for me vipoid?

**vipoid**

Against infantry, it has to be positioned to hit as many models as possible in the target unit.

Against vehicles, the template has to be positioned to cover as much of the target-vehicle's hull as possible.

I don't have a rulebook handy, but I *think* both are under the rules for template weapons. They're definitely on the same page.

**Solar Shock**

vipoid wrote:

Against vehicles, the template has to be positioned to cover as much of the target-vehicle's hull as possible.

ah that definitely rings a bell. Pretty sure that is the wording, which does indeed seem to make it difficult to get multiple.
I think the argument was;

If you have a dude with a flamer and two vehicles in front of him (say two raiders sideways), you could aim for the furthest away, thus placing the template so that the larger end is covering the furthest away while the narrow end passes across the closest, resulting in you hitting both; while still adhering to the rule of; the template has to be positioned to cover as much of the target-vehicle's hull as possible.

But obviously that in itself has its own limitations;
IE

you could then only assault the furthest away vehicle, which now might be difficult for BLOS etc...

Only really works if the two vehicles are extremely close and you have a certain position (in most cases you require some part of the secondary targets hull to cross the narrow end of the flamer)

But thanks for the clarification vipoid

**vipoid**

No worries.

It's actually more of a pain for Torrent Flamers - since they will almost always have the 'freedom' to position the template lengthways over the raider (thus preventing them from hitting any other targets).

There are ways around this - like making sure that the target vehicle is just barely within the flamer's range (so you can hit a closer one, as you describe), but is requires careful positioning.

**Red Corsair**

Yea my brother is a great player and he makes that sort of trick without much effort, i mean premeasuring is a thing now. Anyway the bigger point was that it is not easy to counter flyrants with splinter boats, usually by the time they can rapid fire a huge chunk have been "no escaped" lol. Generally the best I get are 10-12 shots twin linked (10 early game from range then about the same after my squads been neutered but can rapid fire) thats about 3 hits for 1.5 wounds and .5 failed saves.... yea that hardly will be killing a flyrant any time soon.

Also my brother still uses hive guard, which despite worse BS can reliably wreck a skimmer a turn. I know they have limited range, but basically all these tools make it so we don't want to use our best trait, mobility. If you play the range game, the bug player is dominating the table.

I should state my brother has been using malenthropes which are FW, and I know not everyone uses FW. Those things are crazy good and there is no efficient way to kill them since we don't ignore cover.

That said, my coven force can literally walk through his whole army unless he tailors for it with boneswords/whips and swarmy, which he will admit is not a reasonable list that he'd normally take and wouldn't do it.

The no escape rule makes perfect sense fluff wise but it is seriously a crippling rule for our transports against certain foes.

**HawaiiMatt**

Red Corsair wrote:

The no escape rule makes perfect sense fluff wise but it is seriously a crippling rule for our transports against certain foes.

Well, they needed to balance the over-whelming advantage of open topped transports as an assault platform... man it's hard to type while laughing sarcastically.

-Matt

**vipoid**

I think what annoys me even more is that they called the rule "no escape".

What do you mean "no escape"? My vehicle doesn't even have a roof.

**Solar Shock**

vipoid wrote:
I think what annoys me even more is that they called the rule "no escape".

What do you mean "no escape"? My vehicle doesn't even have a roof.

This^^

A vehicle with an 'ard case, is goin to be way more brutal under flame attacks, i mean you literally can't get out and the case is going to act like an oven

I mean you could literally roast the dudes inside simply by flaming the outside! roast em like chicken

**Red Corsair**

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Red Corsair wrote:

The no escape rule makes perfect sense fluff wise but it is seriously a crippling rule for our transports against certain foes.

Well, they needed to balance the over-whelming advantage of open topped transports as an assault platform... man it's hard to type while laughing sarcastically.

-Matt

Thanks for making me spew my coffee

**vipoid**

Solar Shock wrote:
vipoid wrote:
I think what annoys me even more is that they called the rule "no escape".

What do you mean "no escape"? My vehicle doesn't even have a roof.

This^^

A vehicle with an 'ard case, is goin to be way more brutal under flame attacks, i mean you literally can't get out and the case is going to act like an oven I mean you could literally roast the dudes inside simply by flaming the outside! roast em like chicken

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. And, god help those marines if you get the flamer into a fire-point (Hah!).

On another topic, does anyone have any thoughts on anti-skitarri tactics?

**Red Corsair**

I honestly think we will match them quite well, they are basically veteran guardsmen in carapace with no transports, nothing we can't manage. I think our fliers will absolutely devastate them if they aren't careful with spacing.

**mercury14**

My region's annual GT is coming up in a couple weeks and I plan on playing DE with Harlequins. I'm looking at running three units of Trueborn + Venoms with 3-4 blasters each and then pressuring my opponent with Reavers, Skyweavers, and Wyches to tackle MCs.

I recently painted up 10 Scourges though and I've never used them before... And I'm hearing that people have had success with them using HW blasters over Trueborn. Any thoughts on this in my draft list?

Dark Eldar CAD:

Lhamaean
- Venom

7x Wyches, Hekatrix, haywire, hydra
- Raider with DL, NS

7x Wyches, Hekatrix, haywire, hydra
- Raider with DL, NS

5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster
- Venom

5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster
- Venom

5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster
- Venom

6x Reavers, 2x HL, 2x Caltrops, Arena champion (Warlord?)
6x Reavers, 2x HL, 2x Caltrops
6x Reavers, 2x HL, 2x Caltrops

FAOLCHU'S BLADE

3x Skyweaver, 3x Zephyrblade, 3x HWC
3x Skyweaver, 3x Zephyrblade, 3x HWC
3x Skyweaver, 3x Zephyrblade, 3x HWC

Voidweaver, prismatic cannon

____
1848

**Ascalam**

Putting together a 500 pt list for our local league.

No allies allowed, one source only.

Any suggestions for a fun list ?

**Solar Shock**

500 pts? For fun i'd myself probably take a court heavy list. going with a sort of 'aristocracy evening entertainment' feel. Like a sporting event for the most powerful DE.

So grab some venoms fill a couple with some courts and then just bring some so warriors with blaster in venoms.

**Gamerely**

At 1000 points, what would you suggest to take on a heldrake? I brought a Razorwing, but so far, every time I've brought it I've either missed or failed to even glance another flier with lances. And if I have to jink, I'm pretty much boned. But especially against a heldrake. Any suggestions? It'd be overly fantastic if ravagers had skyfire.

**DaKKaLAnce**

Gamerely wrote:
At 1000 points, what would you suggest to take on a heldrake? I brought a Razorwing, but so far, every time I've brought it I've either missed or failed to even glance another flier with lances. And if I have to jink, I'm pretty much boned. But especially against a heldrake. Any suggestions? It'd be overly fantastic if ravagers had skyfire.

You could get the bomber instead to up the chances that you will pen. Against the drake. But the fighter is a lot more flexible. The helldrake is sadly one of those fliers we can't ignore since it is a torrent flamer that will instant kill out HQ's in the transports and not allow FnP for most of our units.

You could use 2 fliers if you are dedicated to stoping it. The sooner it is down, the better.