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Granted, their list of skilled players is definitely up and down, but Steve seems to be doing pretty well with his Dark Eldar force over on MiniWarGaming. This, combined with the two DEldar players at my store both being excellent players, makes me wonder what makes the DEldar so "bottom tier". Is it that they are so fragile or over priced, or is there a deeper flaw that I'm missing? Is it merely that they are completely outclassed by top tier armies?

Very fragile, especially as more and more armies gain the ability to ignore cover. Many units are kinda meh because assault is meh and they lack psychic powers/defense. They can allie in things to fix this but as a pure army they suffer.

They are also pre necron so they don't have a mega formation that gives crazy bonuses.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Very fragile, especially as more and more armies gain the ability to ignore cover. Many units are kinda meh because assault is meh and they lack psychic powers/defense. They can allie in things to fix this but as a pure army they suffer.

They are also pre necron so they don't have a mega formation that gives crazy bonuses.

They only bothered to do any work on one part of the army and screwed over most of the rest of the codex - Wyches, Ravagers etc.

Compare it to the 7.5 edition Eldar Codex where everything got better or at the very worst stayed similar.

Its frankly pathetic that Wyches and even elite versions of the same are WS 4 - the same as an Eldar guardian............... they could have made them decent combatants but they could not be bothered to even look at the rules except to take haywire grenades away.

Their biggest issu is they are eldar -5, they are slower than eldar, do not pack that big a punch compared.

Their HQ selection is terrible, unless using covens, then really meh. Elites have 1 decent selection and 1 that is situational. Troops have only 1 usable option. FA is only good for transports and the heavy is only good with covens.

They are only good as a taxi service now.

Poor play skill... I've won / placed in prize bracket in many RTT's I've gone to, with my dark eldar, since hte new book's been out.

 Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Poor play skill... I've won / placed in prize bracket in many RTT's I've gone to, with my dark eldar, since hte new book's been out.

Do you use Wych Cults?

Their main forms of damaging units, Poison and Lance, aren't nearly as effective as they were before.

Ignore Cover becomes more and more prevalent and they don't have good armour saves, like Necrons/SM, or the bodies to not care, like Orks and Tyranids.

HQ does nothing for the army, unlike Warbosses, Librarians, Synapse creatures, Farseers, Autarchs etc.

Horribly outclassed by Craftworlds. Whatever DE can bring, Craftworlds can usually match it and better (e.g. Fire Dragons > BlasterBorn. Swooping Hawks > Scourge. Windrider Jetbikes > Venoms).

A mechanic that favours longevitity in battle when DE are all about fast lightning strikes.

No flavour in the Codex. Only really catered for one aspect of the whole of DE fluff, neglecting the other parts.

So ignoring the fact that Eldar exist, do you think less Ignores Cover would make them a viable army, or like the IG codex, would they still be bogged down by bland units?

To be fair, the two really good DE players at my store spam much of the same units and their lists are almost identical.

There HQ section is still a mess. Succubus and Archons bring near nothing to the army, mostly cause assault is meh and overwatch rocks them hard. The Hemi is ok but still meh. the best is really to take a single court member in a venom to fill the slot and load up on troops and bikes.

Dark Eldar's biggest problem is that they were designed before the 7.5 edition change in design philosophy. While they do have some great formations in the Haemonculus Covens book, the main codex has only Realspace Raiders in terms of usefulness, and only if you just want to spam empty Venoms or Raiders.

Dark Eldar units lack flexibility, and have limited options for anti-tank. Poison works on infantry and MCs, and nothing else. Their anti-vehicle ability boils down to spamming Dark Lances and Hayvire Scourges at range; everything else has to close to melee range.

Unit quality in the book in all over the place. Some units are borderline unusable (except Hellions, who just are unusable), while others are great, and most of the rest is of middling quality. Granted, the Covens book makes their units much better, but that's only about a third of the book.

Furthermore, Dark Eldar have been overshadowed by their Craftworld cousins. Why play DE when you can play the most overpowered single book in the game? Craftworld Eldar eclipse Dark Eldar in everything except melee capability, and the Wraithknight more than makes up for that. From a purely competitive standpoint, mono-DE are bottom tier. They are only taken either as allies to Craftworld Eldar or as part of a Freakshow army with Harlequins.

With all that said, at anything other than GTs Dark Eldar are a middle-tier army. The good and decent units they do have are very capable in the right hands, and they have some nasty melee abilities. Thier shooting, while relying on spam, can decimate anything with a Toughness value and they render heavy armour units irrelevant. In friendly games, Dark Eldar are a force to be reckoned with, and they can ally with Harlequins to make a top-tier Freakshow army.

Currently, Dark Eldar suffer from being a glass cannon army, minus the cannon.

This is especially evident in melee. I mean, you'd think that glass cannon units would hit harder than the more resilient units of other armies. Nope. Instead, we're stuck with a bunch of S3 guys with naff-all in the way of special rules. And, our Archon has no AP2 weapons, and pays as much as a power fist for a AP3 weapon with poison 4+. In fact, our HQ section is probably the worst of any codex. They all have pitiful offence, pitiful defence, and no support abilities.

In terms of shooting, our weapons are badly outdated. Dark Lances were never good weapons, but at least they worked in 5th. Now, we're paying premium prices for a single-shot weapon (which is never twin-linked) that struggles to penetrate AP12, and which needs a 6 to explode it. They just end up as badly-overpriced hull-point strippers. And, we can't even rely on meltaguns at close range because our warriors and trueborn aren't allowed them. All we get is yet more overpriced lances.

Poison is... outdated. It was pretty nice in 5th, but that was before you could get Gargantuan Creatures in regular games - which are immune to what is supposed to be our best weapon against such creatures. Also, with the number of 2+ saves, FNP, extra wounds and such, poison just isn't very useful anymore. Especially when other armies are touting Grav and D-weapons. We also recieved no bonuses in terms of skyfire or ignores cover... or anything to indicate that this was a 7th edition book.

And then there were the nerfs. So many units and wargear were nerfed into oblivion - none of which needed to be, and are now utterly worthless. Not to mention the number of units and bits of wargear that were just removed outright.

The worst thing for me though, is that the book is so boring. There's no life or flavour in it. Anything with the merest hint of fluff or effort from the last book was deleted and replaced with generic, useless drivel (assuming it was replaced at all). Not including special characters, there are 5 unique rules in the entire book. One of those is PfP, and 3 more are 'Dodge'. So much wargear and so many units are abysmal to the point where taking them is handicapping yourself, and we didn't have an abundance of either to begin with. There's no flexibility or interesting options, just a load of bland, repetitive choices. Our HQs are probably the worst for this - with no interesting rules (no rules whatsoever, in fact) and laughably tiny wargear selections. Even PfP was blandified (with the original rule basically being stolen for Daemonkin, and turned into the far better Blood Point system), leaving us with a single table that's about as thrilling as watching an Archon fill out his tax returns. Also, rather than rewarding us for killing enemies, it just withholds our special abilities until long after we needed them - to the point where the game can literally end before we're allowed all our special rules.

 jreilly89 wrote:
So ignoring the fact that Eldar exist, do you think less Ignores Cover would make them a viable army, or like the IG codex, would they still be bogged down by bland units?

To be fair, the two really good DE players at my store spam much of the same units and their lists are almost identical.

Ignores cover has a lot to do with it. When Ap 2 spam was king, DE did well by relying on cover saves and strong alpha firepower.

However, other codexes have now overshadowed the army by changing what they take. Being able to destroy 4 transports a turn is not crazy for many of the top tier armies any longer, more than that is possible for many, and DE need their transports to stay viable.
They also lack punch. Poison doesn't work against GMCs very well, and MC's come with 2+ saves nowadays. Dark lances are way to expensive to spam in decent numbers. Haywire is good against tanks, but you don't see tank spam anymore. It's mainly MC, bikes, really tough infantry spam, which DE fail against.
The speed increase of other armies has also really hurt the DE. While they used to be the fastest army by a wide margin, eldar now outrace them, and many SM, Necron, and even tau armies can compete in speed for a majority of their units (especially when the transports start to die).

A big problem is one that BA suffer from as well. They are closely related to another army that is better in every way, and this makes them look even worse.

[quote=TheNewBlood 670200 8254043 e288ea0d33fa04b886d3e7e4e17ba5ac.jpg
With all that said, at anything other than GTs Dark Eldar are a middle-tier army. The good and decent units they do have are very capable in the right hands, and they have some nasty melee abilities. Thier shooting, while relying on spam, can decimate anything with a Toughness value and they render heavy armour units irrelevant. In friendly games, Dark Eldar are a force to be reckoned with, and they can ally with Harlequins to make a top-tier Freakshow army.

The above has really hit it right on the head, Dark Eldar do nothing better then everybody else and do a lot of things worse. Admittedly, i enjoy my Dark Eldar and like Dalymiddleboro I have had a lot of success in local tournaments but at no point did i feel i was winning due to my army rather then either my skill or their mistakes. Dark Eldar are just about as fast as Eldar, and in maelstrom missions this *can* be enough to pull wins from a lot of armies, but we just don't hold a candle to a fully efficient and well played competitive army.

But speed can only go so far, our firepower is mediocre at best, our non-coven melee (I have a soft spot for Incubi, but i am under no illusions they are good) are not anything to write home about and finally our speed does not make up for our fragility. We have just been out paced armybook wise, and i look forward to a new book which hopefully fixes all our problems with fluffy and unique rules and formations. I CAN DREAM.

If we get a crummy little reprint like Tau have gotten, i will be thoroughly miffed.

Dark eldar codexes were written before the "Decurion" and their power level is much more tame than all the codexes which have come more recently. This is a problem for all of the early 7th codexes.

Outside of a WWP letting another unit pop somewhere and kill something, they have very little synergy. Most of the newer codexes have layers of rules for units chosen in formations within a detachment which allow them to synergise well with each other.

They also suffer from the moderate balacing of early 7th codexes, where the units were left more or less the same- or made worse by stripping options and upping unit size so as not to be "overpowered" compared to the still 6th codexes, the more recent 7th codexes did not have to worry about this so you saw no real removal of options/power/rules from units and generally an addition of more rules/ options/ and or a lowering of cost.

I think a comparison might be useful. Let's compare out elite anti-tank to that of Eldar - Blasterborn vs Fire Dragons.

5 Blasterborn with 4 blasters - 4 S8 AP2 Lance shots at 18", PfP, 5+ armour, no grenades - 120pts

5 Fire Dragons with 5 Fusion Guns - 5 S8 AP1 Melta shots at 12", +1 to the damage table (so, explode any vehicle on a 4+), Battle Focus, 3+ armour, melta bombs, can be BS5 in formation - 110pts.

So, the blasterborn have slightly more range. In exchange, they have to sacrifice:
- Melta (vastly better than lance)
- AP1
- +1 to damage table
- 1 special weapon
- Melta Bombs
- 3+ armour

And, they actually pay 10pts for the privilege of losing all the above.



All I can say is that I'm eagerly awaiting the Corsairs book, which seems to be 'Dark Eldar: Good Version".

 vipoid wrote:
I think a comparison might be useful. Let's compare out elite anti-tank to that of Eldar - Blasterborn vs Fire Dragons.

5 Blasterborn with 4 blasters - 4 S8 AP2 Lance shots at 18", PfP, 5+ armour, no grenades - 120pts

5 Fire Dragons with 5 Fusion Guns - 5 S8 AP1 Melta shots at 12", +1 to the damage table (so, explode any vehicle on a 4+), Battle Focus, 3+ armour, melta bombs, can be BS5 in formation - 110pts.

So, the blasterborn have slightly more range. In exchange, they have to sacrifice:
- Melta (vastly better than lance)
- AP1
- +1 to damage table
- 1 special weapon
- Melta Bombs
- 3+ armour

And, they actually pay 10pts for the privilege of losing all the above.



All I can say is that I'm eagerly awaiting the Corsairs book, which seems to be 'Dark Eldar: Good Version".

I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. Trueborn may occupy the same slot as Fire Dragons, but the Dark Eldar's best equivalent are Scourges. 120 points gets you a 4+/6++ save, PfP, Jump Infantry, and four Haywire shots at twenty-four inches and BS4. At ranges, they are much better at stripping Hull Points than Fire Dragons, and cheaper when you consider the Exarch requirement.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think a comparison might be useful. Let's compare out elite anti-tank to that of Eldar - Blasterborn vs Fire Dragons.

5 Blasterborn with 4 blasters - 4 S8 AP2 Lance shots at 18", PfP, 5+ armour, no grenades - 120pts

5 Fire Dragons with 5 Fusion Guns - 5 S8 AP1 Melta shots at 12", +1 to the damage table (so, explode any vehicle on a 4+), Battle Focus, 3+ armour, melta bombs, can be BS5 in formation - 110pts.

So, the blasterborn have slightly more range. In exchange, they have to sacrifice:
- Melta (vastly better than lance)
- AP1
- +1 to damage table
- 1 special weapon
- Melta Bombs
- 3+ armour

And, they actually pay 10pts for the privilege of losing all the above.



All I can say is that I'm eagerly awaiting the Corsairs book, which seems to be 'Dark Eldar: Good Version".

I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. Trueborn may occupy the same slot as Fire Dragons, but the Dark Eldar's best equivalent are Scourges. 120 points gets you a 4+/6++ save, PfP, Jump Infantry, and four Haywire shots at twenty-four inches and BS4. At ranges, they are much better at stripping Hull Points than Fire Dragons, and cheaper when you consider the Exarch requirement.

I have to agree with you here. DE can do just fine in a casual environment (thus why I'm not too worried about starting them). But they are not competitive. Not against the new shiny 7.5 ed codexes

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. Trueborn may occupy the same slot as Fire Dragons, but the Dark Eldar's best equivalent are Scourges. 120 points gets you a 4+/6++ save, PfP, Jump Infantry, and four Haywire shots at twenty-four inches and BS4. At ranges, they are much better at stripping Hull Points than Fire Dragons, and cheaper when you consider the Exarch requirement.

Why is that more appropriate?

Aside from being in a different slot and a different type of unit, you've also given them much more limited weapons. If the enemy has no vehicles, Fire Dragons can still go MC-hunting, whilst Scourges are pretty dire against anything that isn't a vehicle.

Furthermore, I still don't see why this excuses Trueborn being so abysmal.

vipoid, obviously Night Vision balances it out

 Frozocrone wrote:
vipoid, obviously Night Vision balances it out

Ah, of course! It all makes sense now.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think a comparison might be useful. Let's compare out elite anti-tank to that of Eldar - Blasterborn vs Fire Dragons.

5 Blasterborn with 4 blasters - 4 S8 AP2 Lance shots at 18", PfP, 5+ armour, no grenades - 120pts

5 Fire Dragons with 5 Fusion Guns - 5 S8 AP1 Melta shots at 12", +1 to the damage table (so, explode any vehicle on a 4+), Battle Focus, 3+ armour, melta bombs, can be BS5 in formation - 110pts.

So, the blasterborn have slightly more range. In exchange, they have to sacrifice:
- Melta (vastly better than lance)
- AP1
- +1 to damage table
- 1 special weapon
- Melta Bombs
- 3+ armour

And, they actually pay 10pts for the privilege of losing all the above.



All I can say is that I'm eagerly awaiting the Corsairs book, which seems to be 'Dark Eldar: Good Version".

I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. Trueborn may occupy the same slot as Fire Dragons, but the Dark Eldar's best equivalent are Scourges. 120 points gets you a 4+/6++ save, PfP, Jump Infantry, and four Haywire shots at twenty-four inches and BS4. At ranges, they are much better at stripping Hull Points than Fire Dragons, and cheaper when you consider the Exarch requirement.

While that may be a closer comparison Fire dragons will most likely be taken in the aspect host formation, so one of the models will be a exarch(4 FD+1 exarch)- putting them at the same points cost as the scourges. They still have a better save, melta bombs, and now are all BS5 and will most likely be able to run 6" and fire at full BS, so effectively now have a 6" move+ 6" run and then a 12" shooting range- should they for some reason not be in a transport or some such. Haywire is of no real use versus MCs or infantry, meltaguns still do nasty things to both and in many infantry cases remove FnP or worsen RP rolls due to causing ID versus T4 or lower.

However the really important thing is the scourges look way cooler.

The problem with Deldar is that they were a weaker codex in 5e, and when they were updated what they lost was nearly double for what they gained. Currently there is only 1.5 ways to play them: kabalite warriors in raiders, one raider being an archon caddy for the webway with blasterborn, and maybe a unit or two of scourges. The half is the same thing, but allying in eldar or harlequins to cover them in Divination or biker spam. Want to use wyches? Go cry in a corner. Want an archon with a venom blade and ghostplate? HA! Want to use those cool mandrake models you painted up? To bad, watch them explode off the field.

It's essentially the same problem that chaos and BA has: there is only one specific way to play competetively

autumnlotus wrote:
The problem with Deldar is that they were a weaker codex in 5e, and when they were updated what they lost was nearly double for what they gained. Currently there is only 1.5 ways to play them: kabalite warriors in raiders, one raider being an archon caddy for the webway with blasterborn, and maybe a unit or two of scourges. The half is the same thing, but allying in eldar or harlequins to cover them in Divination or biker spam. Want to use wyches? Go cry in a corner. Want an archon with a venom blade and ghostplate? HA! Want to use those cool mandrake models you painted up? To bad, watch them explode off the field.

It's essentially the same problem that chaos and BA has: there is only one specific way to play competetively

I disagree. Dark Eldar have some decent options competitively. There's Venom/Raider Kabalite spam, Haemonculus Covens, and allying with Harlequins for a Freakshow.

Also, if this thread has proven anything, Trueborn suck. Scourges, on the other hand....

I'm not going to argue that Hellions are good, but isn't their price reflective of DE being designed as a reserve-based army (I think this is obvious both from looking at all the units that can deep strike and from the way that power from pain works), and they can deep strike, whereas Reavers cannot?

 TheNewBlood wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The problem with Deldar is that they were a weaker codex in 5e, and when they were updated what they lost was nearly double for what they gained. Currently there is only 1.5 ways to play them: kabalite warriors in raiders, one raider being an archon caddy for the webway with blasterborn, and maybe a unit or two of scourges. The half is the same thing, but allying in eldar or harlequins to cover them in Divination or biker spam. Want to use wyches? Go cry in a corner. Want an archon with a venom blade and ghostplate? HA! Want to use those cool mandrake models you painted up? To bad, watch them explode off the field.

It's essentially the same problem that chaos and BA has: there is only one specific way to play competetively

I disagree. Dark Eldar have some decent options competitively. There's Venom/Raider Kabalite spam, Haemonculus Covens, and allying with Harlequins for a Freakshow.

Also, if this thread has proven anything, Trueborn suck. Scourges, on the other hand....

First off: discussing allies as an advantage adds nothing to the discussion since it is just the ally carrying the lists. Second haemonculus cult is so far away from the book I consider it a separate army entirely, and better then Deldar. In most ways. Ultimately they are similar to Sisters of Battle in power and choices: you have only one real choice, and the lists are always identical.

Alcibiades wrote:I'm not going to argue that Hellions are good, but isn't their price reflective of DE being designed as a reserve-based army (I think this is obvious both from looking at all the units that can deep strike and from the way that power from pain works), and they can deep strike, whereas Reavers cannot?

Hellions are 13ppm. They can't get any cheaper at their current statline.

Sure, they can Deep Strike, if they want to get shot off the board. Hellions have a 5+ save and nothing else. Any cover saves comre from terrain, and they're T3, so the Feel No Pain from PfP doesn't do a whole lot for them.

Hellions in combat are like Wyches, but worse. They're only slightly more durable against shooting, and don't have the Wych's 4++ in melee. Hellions have the same statline and access to Combat Drugs, but fewer attacks base and on the charge due to Hellglaives being two-handed and no grenades of any type. The Helliarch's stunclaw is terrible, and he doesn't have the durability to win any challenges. Basically, Hellions are Wyches, but worse in every conceivable way. I would sooner run Hecatrix Bloodbrides and Mandrakes than Hellions. Those units have somewhat more durability, and are leagues better in CC (which isn't much). I could find a use of Bloodbrides and Oni-wannabees. I cannot say the same for Hellions.

autumnlotus wrote:First off: discussing allies as an advantage adds nothing to the discussion since it is just the ally carrying the lists. Second haemonculus cult is so far away from the book I consider it a separate army entirely, and better then Deldar. In most ways. Ultimately they are similar to Sisters of Battle in power and choices: you have only one real choice, and the lists are always identical.

Freakshow is usually about 50/50 in points between Harlequins and Dark Eldar, split between one allying with the other. And by looking at tournament placings, it's clear which army is carrying the other.

Haemonculus Covens is not a different book from the Dark Eldar codex. It is an expansion. You cannot use the Covens book without the Dark Eldar codex, as the Covens book contains no unit or wargear listings other than new relics. The two books both have the Dark Eldar faction, which is why you can use the formations and detachments from one source in the other (and why you can't have either as an Allied Detachment). For all intensive purposes, the two books are both Dark Eldar and should be treated as such.

I agree that at a GT-level tournament mono-DE are near the bottom in power and rely heavily on the monobuild. In any other meta, Dark Eldar are in okay shape, being solidly mid-tier in power and criminally overshadowed by Craftworld Eldar.

autumnlotus wrote:
Ultimately they are similar to Sisters of Battle in power and choices: you have only one real choice, and the lists are always identical.

But the Dark Eldar usually pay a much heavier price for every mistake. My CSM mate found this out the hard way when he tried out a small Deldar force vs my SoB. He just forgot how soft those Raider things are and thought sending two (one with Warriors, one with Wyches) at the lone 10-girl squad holding an objective would be a win. So he scooted up ready to destroy me next turn and for some reason also had both Raiders very close together. Flamer+Hflamer open up with some added bolters, both Raiders explode and most passengers die. My sisters then charged and killed the rest in CC. Only an Ork Trukk blows up as easily and even then fewer orks die. Other armies would have fared better still.

You have to be really good at using your army to make the Deldar work.

Spetulhu wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
Ultimately they are similar to Sisters of Battle in power and choices: you have only one real choice, and the lists are always identical.

But the Dark Eldar usually pay a much heavier price for every mistake. My CSM mate found this out the hard way when he tried out a small Deldar force vs my SoB. He just forgot how soft those Raider things are and thought sending two (one with Warriors, one with Wyches) at the lone 10-girl squad holding an objective would be a win. So he scooted up ready to destroy me next turn and for some reason also had both Raiders very close together. Flamer+Hflamer open up with some added bolters, both Raiders explode and most passengers die. My sisters then charged and killed the rest in CC. Only an Ork Trukk blows up as easily and even then fewer orks die. Other armies would have fared better still.

You have to be really good at using your army to make the Deldar work.

To be fair to deldar if you face sisters with them you shouldn't ever use raiders xD way too many flamers and melta to murder open topped vehicles. If I had to make a list to fight them it would likely be reavers and scourges with grotesques deepstruck in with webway.

autumnlotus wrote:
To be fair to deldar if you face sisters with them you shouldn't ever use raiders xD way too many flamers and melta to murder open topped vehicles. If I had to make a list to fight them it would likely be reavers and scourges with grotesques deepstruck in with webway.

Aye, that would have worked much better. But this wasn't a preplanned Deldar vs SoB game - we had collected a few of the guys around three battlefields with all-comers lists and randomly drew opponents. The Raiders worked much better against his other foes that day.

But the point was that one single mistake cost him heavily, probably worse than any other army would have suffered if they sent two transports into the same spot.