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 jreilly89 wrote:
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?

If you're *not* an amazing player, the army just doesn't work at all and gets blown to pieces by an equally low skilled opponent with another army in most cases. The army is just very hard to play fundamentaly.

Beyond that, the advantages its built on really are not as great as they once were. Dark Lances aren't as capable as they once were, nor as spammable as they once were. DE Mobility is no longer nigh unmatched, but rather the mobility of the game in general has dramatically increased (due to the profusion of things like Cavalry, Flyer transports, FMC's Drop Pods, etc relative to older editions), leaving the DE's relative advantage here rather weak. It also doesn't help when you have armies like Craftworld Eldar with, if anything, even more mobility, while also being significantly more resilient (compare particularly the Jetbikes) while also packing far more firepower, and all the Eldar units got their WS & BS increased as well, leaving DE with very few, if any, advantages over their Craftworld kin who are basically better in every way. Add to that their army-wide poisoned weaponry is incraesingly less functional in a game with things like Decurion RP, GC's, Knights, TWC-deathstars, etc.

TL;DR the speed advantages they used to have are no longer as great as they once were, the weapons they rely on are not as functional as they once were, and all of their disadvantages are just as relevant as they've always been.

I realize all the anger towards poisoned weapons against certain creatures here but do ossefactors help this fight a little? It's 24" str 1 ap 2 fleshbane with d6 hits with a strength the same as the dead model's toughness. By itself it's not too hot but combined with blaster fire on monsters with ossefactors to finish them off when somebody takes squads it should be ok vs stuff like monsters.

Even if that doesn't work there's still a couple fleshbane weapons in the DE armory. The necrotoxin missile I wouldn't count on but the fact Talos can take ichor injectors (being monsters they also avoid armor) and in the haemonculus book can amass quite a lot of Talos with them means gargantuan creatures should cry at least a bit. Not to mention Lethal dose is still there even if it's somewhat unlikely.

Even the Dark Eldar Flyers were screwed by the new Codex - do they get Vector Dancer - no they don't. Is the fluff all about the flyers being supremely agile?
Yep - they even use the wings as precision weapons.

Dark Eldar are a poor 7th edition codex in a world of 7.5 Codexes........

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I realize all the anger towards poisoned weapons against certain creatures here but do ossefactors help this fight a little? It's 24" str 1 ap 2 fleshbane with d6 hits with a strength the same as the dead model's toughness.

Bear in mind that those d6 hits only hit the model's unit. So, if you're aiming at a single monster, then they're worthless.

In any case, the problem with the Osseffactor is that it's only available in Wrack squads, and then only 1-per-5. Because whilst every other army is allowed weapon-spamming elites, ours have the same weapon limitations as troops.

But who cares, right? I mean, it's such an amazing weapon that it solves all our problems taking down Wraithknights and such. I mean, all we need is... 1040pts of Wracks. Yep. A mere 16 units of Wrack will be able to take down a Wraithknight. The Osseffactor is just that awsome.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Even if that doesn't work there's still a couple fleshbane weapons in the DE armory. The necrotoxin missile I wouldn't count on but the fact Talos can take ichor injectors (being monsters they also avoid armor) and in the haemonculus book can amass quite a lot of Talos with them means gargantuan creatures should cry at least a bit. Not to mention Lethal dose is still there even if it's somewhat unlikely.

There are two problems there.

1) Talos move 6" per turn. Wraithknights move 12". Are you seeing the problem yet? A Wraithknight has no reason to let a Talos get anywhere near it, unless I wants to for some reason.

2) And that's assuming that the Wraithknight is merely ignoring the Talos. The Talos has no meaningful shooting, let alone against the WK. Hence, it can neither force the WK to come to it, nor inflict any meaningful damage on it. In contrast, a Wraithknight has 2 D-weapons. If it feels obliged, it can easily turn the Talos into a puddle of goo.

Put it this way - there's a reason you don't see Eldar players asking on forums how to deal with Talos or Ossefactors.

Once again I said wracks would 'finish off' a monster. In the case of the talos vs wraithknight maybe there's a way you can hold it down for a while with something till the talos get there (if that's even possible).

Not gonna lie that I've been gone since 5th edition and will be starting up dark eldar so I'm sure you know more than me about it. I'm just throwing up suggestions. I'm sure you've thought of it already though.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Once again I said wracks would 'finish off' a monster.

But that's the point - you're acting as if it's easy for us to just take off the other 5 wounds. It isn't.

Even if you use a combination of poison and dark lances, you're still looking at an investment of 1000+pts.

And, this is whilst trying to fight the rest of the army, when it does everything we do but better.

Talos and Chronos suffer by not being jump MCs; they'd be very useful then. (which explains why they aren't since someone at GW obviously hates DE)

The only way I can see the cronos or talos being somewhat useful is through the covens formations, either corpsetheif or dark artisan. On their own kinda terrible as MCs go.

I know Wyches got boned. Glad i wasn't overly invested in any of those!

I love the Dark Eldar codex though. It took away the Baron which people were pretty mad about (good riddance though) Made Wyches suck. On the plus side? Made Mandrakes suck less. and the haemonculus Coven book is pretty good with its formations.

The Grotesquerie is awesome.

Dark Eldar require a stomach for losses a lot of players don't have. I expect to lose all my Raiders turn one. All part of the plan. There's people who cannot handle that thought. Lol.

 Jancoran wrote:
I know Wyches got boned. Glad i wasn't overly invested in any of those!

I love the Dark Eldar codex though. It took away the Baron which people were pretty mad about (good riddance though) Made Wyches suck. On the plus side? Made Mandrakes suck less. and the haemonculus Coven book is pretty good with its formations.

The Grotesquerie is awesome.

Dark Eldar require a stomach for losses a lot of players don't have. I expect to lose all my Raiders turn one. All part of the plan. There's people who cannot handle that thought. Lol.

Unfortunately for me I'm planning on starting a Wych Cult Army to go with my upcoming Eldar army, so this'll be interesting.

 War Kitten wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I know Wyches got boned. Glad i wasn't overly invested in any of those!

I love the Dark Eldar codex though. It took away the Baron which people were pretty mad about (good riddance though) Made Wyches suck. On the plus side? Made Mandrakes suck less. and the haemonculus Coven book is pretty good with its formations.

The Grotesquerie is awesome.

Dark Eldar require a stomach for losses a lot of players don't have. I expect to lose all my Raiders turn one. All part of the plan. There's people who cannot handle that thought. Lol.

Unfortunately for me I'm planning on starting a Wych Cult Army to go with my upcoming Eldar army, so this'll be interesting.

Oh dear. Well I suggest the Raiders over venom as transports if you want to shove them right into somone's facesI the extra hull point can really matter and the Wyches seem, to me, to need a feew more bodies to pull off their missions. which is totally fine. Just need to be aware of it.

Oh dear is right. I must be a masochist to run a wych cult. Although, given the general DE theme that may work out.

 Jancoran wrote:
I love the Dark Eldar codex though.

Why?

 Jancoran wrote:
It took away the Baron which people were pretty mad about (good riddance though)

Why good riddance?

 Jancoran wrote:
Made Mandrakes suck less

Possibly, but it's not the kind of praise you'd boast about in the blurb.

 Jancoran wrote:
I expect to lose all my Raiders turn one. All part of the plan.

"I defeated his minions, and he cackled and said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I discovered his secret fortress. 'Exactly as I planned.'
I breached his defenses, and still he said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I slew him in single combat, and with his dying breath he gasped, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I stood over his grave and I said, 'You never really got the hang of planning, did you?'"
— Jenna Moran, Nobilis

 vipoid wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I love the Dark Eldar codex though.

Why?

 Jancoran wrote:
It took away the Baron which people were pretty mad about (good riddance though)

Why good riddance?

 Jancoran wrote:
Made Mandrakes suck less

Possibly, but it's not the kind of praise you'd boast about in the blurb.

 Jancoran wrote:
I expect to lose all my Raiders turn one. All part of the plan.

"I defeated his minions, and he cackled and said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I discovered his secret fortress. 'Exactly as I planned.'
I breached his defenses, and still he said, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I slew him in single combat, and with his dying breath he gasped, 'Exactly as I planned.'
I stood over his grave and I said, 'You never really got the hang of planning, did you?'"
— Jenna Moran, Nobilis

I just love the whole feel of it.

the Baron was abused badly and never used for his real intended purpose so he had to go.

I happened to use mandrakes (Mandrake fun) and then they changed them. so they got Balefire all the time in the updated codex which was an upgrade from the tactica you see utilized in this bat rep where a Haemonculus had to go join the unit. They were more of a themed type of thing and though i wouldn't really recommend them as a real strong tournament option, they are absolutely a little surprising and pickup game worthy.

As for losing Raiders: I have a pretty cavalir attitude towards that given my strategy with them. Relatively annoying to remove. fast. Assault vehicles. so good. And of course if some survive all the better! and some usually do. Well turn one anyways. Yay for surviving Raiders

 Jancoran wrote:

I just love the whole feel of it.

Fair enough. As you may have guessed, I despise the whole feel of it.

 Jancoran wrote:

the Baron was abused badly and never used for his real intended purpose so he had to go.

The reason he was never used for his intended purpose was that Hellions were so bloody abysmal.

Also, he was only abused because of the stupid battle-brothers ally system. Even if you wanted to leave Battle Brothers intact, removing Fortune from Eldar would have served the same purpose, whilst also purging rerollable invulnerable saves from the game.

Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

I still don't see why he had to go. Other than GW coudln't be bothered making a model for him. Or Vect, or Malys or the Decapitator, or the Duke...

 Jancoran wrote:
Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

Why on earth did he ''have to go''? He was litterally the only thing that made Beast Packs worthwhile, have you tried using a Beast Pack recently? I have. I spent ages converted up a Baron and a full beast pack which is just...underwhelming. No Hit'n'run means when their startling amount of attacks bounce off armour, they can't leave combat. No stealth means i have to put the Khymerae at the front to get any save at all, yet the Khymerae do most of the damage. No grenades means when i charge into an ork horde behind a wall, i strike last and hence lose half my models, losing combat.

The Baron, The Lady and The Duke didn't need to go, the reason they went was because GW was to lazy to make models for them and didn't want 3rd parties to make money off doing so. If you think there was some tactical sense behind their removal your giving GW FAR to much credit.

Well... I don't think it matters much what GW's thinking was on it. I was offering my reason for being glad of his departure. Though it is very easily within the realms of possibility to see a Dataslate for him come out. Ultimately it's their call not mine but He was asking me, not GW, so that's why I don't miss him.

I still use beast Packs so I don't really know what to say on that. In my normal Dark Eldar army they really help me saturate the place and i prefer armored targets for them to go after, generally. So i try to have them avoid normal troops unless the normal troops are trimmed down to size already.

Beastpacks are one of the things I do like in the codex also. Sslyth are pretty damn cool. And i love Grotesques.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

Why on earth did he ''have to go''? He was litterally the only thing that made Beast Packs worthwhile, have you tried using a Beast Pack recently? I have. I spent ages converted up a Baron and a full beast pack which is just...underwhelming. No Hit'n'run means when their startling amount of attacks bounce off armour, they can't leave combat. No stealth means i have to put the Khymerae at the front to get any save at all, yet the Khymerae do most of the damage. No grenades means when i charge into an ork horde behind a wall, i strike last and hence lose half my models, losing combat.

The Baron, The Lady and The Duke didn't need to go, the reason they went was because GW was to lazy to make models for them and didn't want 3rd parties to make money off doing so. If you think there was some tactical sense behind their removal your giving GW FAR to much credit.

It was that change that finally made my friend who played DE just thrown in the towel and sell off his army. He took the time to carefully convert a baron up, painted it well. Took the time to plan out a hellion army... including ordering a ton of boxes of them. Then the update dropped, he saw how pitiful it was and noticed Baron was gone. Put lightly, he was angry. Cancelled his order, packed his stuff up. It was all on ebay two days later. The guy ran an army heavy on raiders, ravagers,venoms and wyches, and was really excited about running hellions. The way he put it, the codex update specifically made everything he owned unplayable and he just did not want any more disappointment. From what I've been reading in this thread, he may not of been far off.

 Mr_Piddlez wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

Why on earth did he ''have to go''? He was litterally the only thing that made Beast Packs worthwhile, have you tried using a Beast Pack recently? I have. I spent ages converted up a Baron and a full beast pack which is just...underwhelming. No Hit'n'run means when their startling amount of attacks bounce off armour, they can't leave combat. No stealth means i have to put the Khymerae at the front to get any save at all, yet the Khymerae do most of the damage. No grenades means when i charge into an ork horde behind a wall, i strike last and hence lose half my models, losing combat.

The Baron, The Lady and The Duke didn't need to go, the reason they went was because GW was to lazy to make models for them and didn't want 3rd parties to make money off doing so. If you think there was some tactical sense behind their removal your giving GW FAR to much credit.

It was that change that finally made my friend who played DE just thrown in the towel and sell off his army. He took the time to carefully convert a baron up, painted it well. Took the time to plan out a hellion army... including ordering a ton of boxes of them. Then the update dropped, he saw how pitiful it was and noticed Baron was gone. Put lightly, he was angry. Cancelled his order, packed his stuff up. It was all on ebay two days later. The guy ran an army heavy on raiders, ravagers,venoms and wyches, and was really excited about running hellions. The way he put it, the codex update specifically made everything he owned unplayable and he just did not want any more disappointment. From what I've been reading in this thread, he may not of been far off.

Agreed - I did not even bother buying that codex (or any since) - the sheer amount of nerfs to a large portion of the army - especially when compared to what happened later to the 7.5 codexes was sickening.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mr_Piddlez wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

Why on earth did he ''have to go''? He was litterally the only thing that made Beast Packs worthwhile, have you tried using a Beast Pack recently? I have. I spent ages converted up a Baron and a full beast pack which is just...underwhelming. No Hit'n'run means when their startling amount of attacks bounce off armour, they can't leave combat. No stealth means i have to put the Khymerae at the front to get any save at all, yet the Khymerae do most of the damage. No grenades means when i charge into an ork horde behind a wall, i strike last and hence lose half my models, losing combat.

The Baron, The Lady and The Duke didn't need to go, the reason they went was because GW was to lazy to make models for them and didn't want 3rd parties to make money off doing so. If you think there was some tactical sense behind their removal your giving GW FAR to much credit.

It was that change that finally made my friend who played DE just thrown in the towel and sell off his army. He took the time to carefully convert a baron up, painted it well. Took the time to plan out a hellion army... including ordering a ton of boxes of them. Then the update dropped, he saw how pitiful it was and noticed Baron was gone. Put lightly, he was angry. Cancelled his order, packed his stuff up. It was all on ebay two days later. The guy ran an army heavy on raiders, ravagers,venoms and wyches, and was really excited about running hellions. The way he put it, the codex update specifically made everything he owned unplayable and he just did not want any more disappointment. From what I've been reading in this thread, he may not of been far off.

Agreed - I did not even bother buying that codex (or any since) - the sheer amount of nerfs to a large portion of the army - especially when compared to what happened later to the 7.5 codexes was sickening.

For me, it wasn't just the nerfs - it was the lack of even a shred of effort. It was one of those books where you could tell that no one on the design team cared one iota about the army. There was no attempt whatsoever to inject any fluff, flavour or life into it. It was like they'd just put the 5th edition one into some sort of soluless codex-updating machine. One which malfunctioned half-way through the process and deleted every unique rule, as well as eating several pages.

 Mr_Piddlez wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Perhaps. But he had to go. If they made him an "upgrade character", it would have been far better. They didn't go that route. So yeah. Glad to see him gone. I play Dark Eldar and Eldar got more use out of him than we did. It was just... It was bad.

Why on earth did he ''have to go''? He was litterally the only thing that made Beast Packs worthwhile, have you tried using a Beast Pack recently? I have. I spent ages converted up a Baron and a full beast pack which is just...underwhelming. No Hit'n'run means when their startling amount of attacks bounce off armour, they can't leave combat. No stealth means i have to put the Khymerae at the front to get any save at all, yet the Khymerae do most of the damage. No grenades means when i charge into an ork horde behind a wall, i strike last and hence lose half my models, losing combat.

The Baron, The Lady and The Duke didn't need to go, the reason they went was because GW was to lazy to make models for them and didn't want 3rd parties to make money off doing so. If you think there was some tactical sense behind their removal your giving GW FAR to much credit.

It was that change that finally made my friend who played DE just thrown in the towel and sell off his army. He took the time to carefully convert a baron up, painted it well. Took the time to plan out a hellion army... including ordering a ton of boxes of them. Then the update dropped, he saw how pitiful it was and noticed Baron was gone. Put lightly, he was angry. Cancelled his order, packed his stuff up. It was all on ebay two days later. The guy ran an army heavy on raiders, ravagers,venoms and wyches, and was really excited about running hellions. The way he put it, the codex update specifically made everything he owned unplayable and he just did not want any more disappointment. From what I've been reading in this thread, he may not of been far off.

We had a similar experience in our group. Since 3rd, our most competitive player/best player has always used DE as his main army. He didn't take it to major tournaments all the time (though still quite often) but it was his biggest most played force by a large margin. His army list was similar (baron with beast pack, transport spam, he even ran Vecht now and again just because he loved the idea of him), with wyches being the main anti-tank in the last dex.

As soon as the new dex dropped he was forced to shelve the wyches and baron unit, which were his favorites. He tried it out a few times, but it really can't compete with the GMC's (poison should be -1 to wound, not -2), transport spem, and re-rollable saves that are seen so commonly. They aren't as fast as they used to be either, relatively speaking. Armies like SM and necrons, who have usually been a lot slower, can match their speed in many ways with stronger units.
He hasn't sold anything (none of us really drop anything, since we can use it for other specialist games or Dark Heresy), but he hasn't played it in a while. He switched to Iyaden and Imperial fists since then.
Really sad. I never could beat his old Dark eldar army (something like 50 draws and over 100 loses), but he's dropped in quality as a general despite playing a stronger force. Still, the new DE he was just getting crushed with, so he had to change.

I am surprised the Baron's "demise" was enough to cost him his interest in an entire codex, but people like what they like.

Wyches were decent previously but not world beaters so it does surprise me that this affected his decision much. BEFORE that newer softbound codex, Wych cult was of course the winning way to go, but once it got modernized again (by the the softcover Codex) I felt there were a lot more options and people who kept playing a Wyche cult force were doing it because they had the models already. The Hardbound book severed that cord completely (competitively speaking) and made Wyches into a totally different type of a unit which, frankly, I would highly recommend taking only if you have a Succubus to lead them, which informs your list a lot.

All I can say is, hopefully he can find some passion for it again. I play so many armies so often that I never really get burnt out on one. I just keep cycling because I have more fun that way and it makes me a better General. Dark Eldar as a force have taught me a great deal though as strategy goes so I appreciate them a lot from that perspective.

 Jancoran wrote:
I am surprised the Baron's "demise" was enough to cost him his interest in an entire codex, but people like what they like.

Wyches were decent previously but not world beaters so it does surprise me that this affected his decision much. BEFORE that newer softbound codex, Wych cult was of course the winning way to go, but once it got modernized again (by the the softcover Codex) I felt there were a lot more options and people who kept playing a Wyche cult force were doing it because they had the models already. The Hardbound book severed that cord completely (competitively speaking) and made Wyches into a totally different type of a unit which, frankly, I would highly recommend taking only if you have a Succubus to lead them, which informs your list a lot.

All I can say is, hopefully he can find some passion for it again. I play so many armies so often that I never really get burnt out on one. I just keep cycling because I have more fun that way and it makes me a better General. Dark Eldar as a force have taught me a great deal though as strategy goes so I appreciate them a lot from that perspective.

I loved Wych Cults since the start but they were weak in the 5th Ed codex and the new 7th just smashed them into the ground with insulting things like WS4 for their elite versions,
They chopped out almost evey single SC - cos they couldn't be bothered to make models.
They couldn't be bothered to make the flyer Vector Damcers - because?
They got rid of Flicker fields for the most part and then made lots of cover saves - so they could ignore them with the 7.5 codexes.

As others said there was zero interst in making a codex - seemingly only pushing on to focus effort on the Eldar and other 7.5 codexes.

I have a similar collection that alos includes pretty much all the armies - it just depressing to compare them to eachother at the moment......even more than previously.

Yeah, in their old codex the beast pack with baron was easily the best thing in the codex. It was a solid deathstar that could compete with other deathstars at the time and still get the job done. It gave the DE a central force to plan their strategy around, since a lot of the codex was still pretty bad.

The biggest weakness of the beast pack was it couldn't handle tanks, and skimmers were very popular. Wyches were relatively fast with the transport and had haywire. They were one of the better anti-tank units in the dex, since dark lances haven't been good in a long while. It made them weak against flyers, but a lot of armies were weak against flyers at that point in time, so you just had to take a fortification and run with it. It was still a fast dynamic assault force, which was a bit of a rare breed.

Nowadays I would say the amount of re-rollable saves, speed increases, and GMCs running around have done more to neuter the DE than their codex (although it certainly didn't help). They have an extremely hard time standing up to the top tier dexes, and eldar just look more attractive as an army in every way. I can't blame him for dropping the army.

Akiasura wrote:

Nowadays I would say the amount of re-rollable saves, speed increases, and GMCs running around have done more to neuter the DE than their codex (although it certainly didn't help).

The thing is though, our codex is the reason those things hit us so badly. It was abysmal even when it was first released, and only got worse with every further release.

The problem is, we just have so few options or useful rules - meaning anything that neuters one of our weapons (say, MCs gaining immune to poison or the vehicle damage chart rendering Dark Lances worthless) cripples us.

Take Marines. If something hurts their missiles, they can switch to lascannons or grav or plasma or multi-meltas. If something hurts our Dark Lances, we can switch to... nothing. Likewise, if poison becomes less effective, we have no alternative. Even many of our special weapons can only offer more poison. It would be like if you replaced marine special weapons with hurricane bolters, storm bolters and heavy bolters. Are bolters not effective? Well tough, because all you're allowed is more bolters.

Perhaps the worst part is that Soulfright weapons might have solved quite a few issues... if they hadn't been rendered worthless against virtually every codex.

 vipoid wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Nowadays I would say the amount of re-rollable saves, speed increases, and GMCs running around have done more to neuter the DE than their codex (although it certainly didn't help).

The thing is though, our codex is the reason those things hit us so badly. It was abysmal even when it was first released, and only got worse with every further release.

The problem is, we just have so few options or useful rules - meaning anything that neuters one of our weapons (say, MCs gaining immune to poison or the vehicle damage chart rendering Dark Lances worthless) cripples us.

Take Marines. If something hurts their missiles, they can switch to lascannons or grav or plasma or multi-meltas. If something hurts our Dark Lances, we can switch to... nothing. Likewise, if poison becomes less effective, we have no alternative. Even many of our special weapons can only offer more poison. It would be like if you replaced marine special weapons with hurricane bolters, storm bolters and heavy bolters. Are bolters not effective? Well tough, because all you're allowed is more bolters.

Perhaps the worst part is that Soulfright weapons might have solved quite a few issues... if they hadn't been rendered worthless against virtually every codex.

You're probably right. Dark eldar are one of the few armies I don't own (got my fix of dark elves with the druchii) and our local guy doesn't pull them out anymore, so I'm not an expert on how they operate currently.

It's very sad to see them go from the tactician's army of choice to a really weak army that is basically the BA of the Eldar world.

I think there's several different levels to why DE are bad.

1. The units themselves.
I consider the following units are just plain bad: Drazhar, Lilith, Wyches, Wracks, Hellions, Talos, Cronos, Voidraven.
I consider the following units are below par: Archon, Succubus, Haemonculus, Urien, Incubi, Scourges, Ravager.
That's well over half the book, everything else is somewhere in the middle but there isn't a single unit I would consider good except maybe Venoms.

2. Army wide deficiencies.
Kinda stems from the units but there's very little in the way of anti-armour or Ignores Cover, few of the assault units have Assault grenades, etc.

3. Being outdated. Seems silly when the book isn't much older than a year but DE missed the boat somewhat (along with BA, GK, Orks, etc.) when it came to the power codexes and formation 40k.

4. The meta. Depends where you are of course, but playing at the UK GT recently every other table had either WKs or IKs which renders our aforementioned best unit (Venoms) pretty useless. Tau also appear to be back with a vengeance at all of that Ignores Cover is bad news.

Talos are in fact not bad. Voidraven is flat out filthy, especially if the enemy's plan for flyers is to "ignore them".