Archons WW@?! Dark Eldar 8th Edition Tactics!

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**flamingkillamajig**

Personally i suggest you don't run void ravens with missiles but that's just me (does too little for the points). As far as money goes the model costs a lot but with the 2 guns and the void mine it's actually not that expensive points-wise. It's about 170 pts for all that and i don't think that's too bad considering the -1 to hit and all.

@chippen: I'm rather confused you say wyches are bad. What about vs horde armies? What are we supposed to do should somebody throw down orks, nids or guard? I mean are we supposed to concede on the spot? What is your counter to that?

It sounds like you know more about current dark eldar in 8th edition than me and probably have played more games but some of the logic is odd to me.

**Blackie**

Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.

I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.

**Chippen**

Trancefate wrote:

Great points thank you! So essentially although they are similar the bomber is going to pull ahead against VERY heavy armor, and when you really want the mortal wounds.

Well if you're looking for strict anti-armor, Ravagers and Scourge are more efficient sources of Lances. The exception is I guess if you're taking on some guard pure tank list fuckery.

flamingkillamajig wrote:
Personally i suggest you don't run void ravens with missiles but that's just me (does too little for the points). As far as money goes the model costs a lot but with the 2 guns and the void mine it's actually not that expensive points-wise. It's about 170 pts for all that and i don't think that's too bad considering the -1 to hit and all.

@chippen: I'm rather confused you say wyches are bad. What about vs horde armies? What are we supposed to do should somebody throw down orks, nids or guard? I mean are we supposed to concede on the spot? What is your counter to that?

It sounds like you know more about current dark eldar in 8th edition than me and probably have played more games but some of the logic is odd to me.

Agreed, I don't think missiles are worth the cost. You're paying 25 points for about 1 wound per turn on average against most targets.

It's not really logic, it's math. A full squad of Wyches kills 13.67 GEQs including pistols with the +1A drug and Hydra Gauntlets per turn. They're 102 pts plus the cost of the Raider (115) to get them into combat.

I do know that if they make the drop charge, Mandrakes are the most efficient GEQ killers we have. Khymerae are second place IIRC. They each have their own problems, but combine them with, say, Dissie Razorwings and mass poison from venoms+Kabs and you should be... okay ish. At least enough to reduce the threat from each squad.

**flamingkillamajig**

I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.

**Amishprn86**

flamingkillamajig wrote:
I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.

Vs T8 Lances, Vs T7 and under Scythes

Scythes do 3.56 wounds to T7 3+ saves (no invul) (4.22 with CP re-roll)
Lances do 3.11 wounds to T7 3+ saves (no invul) (3.98 with CP re-roll)

Scythes do 2.66 wounds to T8 3+ saves (no invul)
Lances do 3.11 wounds to T8 3+ saves (no invul)

Edit: Added Math

**Chippen**

flamingkillamajig wrote:
I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.

If that's the case, refer to my math above - 3 Dark Lances will do more damage with the same range, but more efficiently.

**Trancefate**

A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.

1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?

The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)

2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.

**Blackie**

Trancefate wrote:
A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.

1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?

Disintegrator cannons are actually quite effective weapons. But they're not dedicated anti tank, they're anti heavy infantries mainly. And since they cost 5 point more than lances people usually favor lances over cannons, but having a mix of both weapons is certainly better than bringing all lances and blasters.

Trancefate wrote:

The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)

An acceptable raider converted into a ravager could be a standard vehicle with two of the crew equipped with dark lances, and of course another lance in the front. Not sure about the older kit but the current one is quite easy to convert this way since it has several dudes on board and giving lances to a couple of them is not complicated.

Trancefate wrote:

2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.

Archon is a mono-pose model with splinter pistol and huskblade, if you want another loadout you must have spared bits from other kits. I gave mine an agoniser from the wyches box and the spared blaster from the scourges box. If WYSIWYG is not stricly required you can play the archon with a blaster even if the model actually doesn't have that specific weapon, but in formal events you may not be allowed to do that.

**Trancefate**

Thank you for all the answers. I try to keep anything I do rigid to whatever the most strict competitive ruleset is. I guess I have to do a conversion if I want a blaster archon, odd... I couldn't fathom cramming bolters onto my daemon princes. Also, I wonder how that would work with units that have more guns than can fit on the model logically. There are some units that have a single model with 3-5 weapons, do these not get granted leniency to WYSIWYG in tournaments?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Could I just, add a warlock into my army, willy nilly? Since we currently get no benefit from not just using [Aeldari] keyword... I have one archon w/ blast pistol & agonizer (whip) already, was gonna run him and another as blaster archons but if I have to mod them to do it then.... I'm looking at maybe getting a warlock as the second HQ of my batallion and using him exclusively for trying to drop DOOM on a priority target.

**Chippen**

Yes, mixing and matching with the Aeldari keyword is perfectly legal. However, I'd be wary of buying new models given the Craftworld codex is on pre-order... today? Soon ish? Something like that.

If you have the bits from the Raider/Ravagers, you can snip the front of the guns and have a pin or magnet for each so you can swap out Disintegrator/Dark Lance.

Regarding the Archon, I just took a Blaster off a Kabalite sprue and put it on him. I would magnetize this and 1 out of every 5 Kabalites so you can swap them around.

**AnFéasógMór**

Blackie wrote:
Trancefate wrote:
A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.

1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?

Disintegrator cannons are actually quite effective weapons. But they're not dedicated anti tank, they're anti heavy infantries mainly. And since they cost 5 point more than lances people usually favor lances over cannons, but having a mix of both weapons is certainly better than bringing all lances and blasters.

Trancefate wrote:

The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)

An acceptable raider converted into a ravager could be a standard vehicle with two of the crew equipped with dark lances, and of course another lance in the front. Not sure about the older kit but the current one is quite easy to convert this way since it has several dudes on board and giving lances to a couple of them is not complicated.

Trancefate wrote:

2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.

Archon is a mono-pose model with splinter pistol and huskblade, if you want another loadout you must have spared bits from other kits. I gave mine an agoniser from the wyches box and the spared blaster from the scourges box. If WYSIWYG is not stricly required you can play the archon with a blaster even if the model actually doesn't have that specific weapon, but in formal events you may not be allowed to do that.

A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,

**Trancefate**

AnFéasógMór wrote:

A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,

Nice thinking, I'll probly get a sprue or two of new kabalites just for conversion bits, and also look into press molding... I'm assuming that uses green stuff? I'm new to modeling in general so I'm having a BLAST doing this. So far I can't *(#&%*#%ing stand glueing/assembling but I am seriously enjoying watching my painting skills improve on every model.

**Amishprn86**

Trancefate wrote:
AnFéasógMór wrote:

A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,

Nice thinking, I'll probly get a sprue or two of new kabalites just for conversion bits, and also look into press molding... I'm assuming that uses green stuff? I'm new to modeling in general so I'm having a BLAST doing this. So far I can't *(#&%*#%ing stand glueing/assembling but I am seriously enjoying watching my painting skills improve on every model.

That is one thing about starting the hobby, you see your skills improve really fast and you see it a lot, as someone that has been painting for a long time, i dont see that anymore

**Blackie**

Shredders mixed with blast pistols work great, my trueborn are equipped with that kind of blasters. They look slightly different than regular blasters but still quite WYSIWYG, so giving those converted blasters to trueborn or the archon is completely acceptable. Keep the regular blasters for the kabalite warriors.

**Trancefate**

Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.

List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)

2xArchon w/ blaster & Agonizer
Raider, dis, 10x kabs w/ splinter cannon
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 2 darklance, 5kabs
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 3 splintercannon & 2 blasters, 5kabs
1x ravager, 2darklance dissie
Talos w/ 2 scalpels & 2x splinter cannons
4x Reavers w/ splinter rifles
6x Hellions
6x scourge (basic bitch gear)

The army looks wonky because those were the models I owned at the time (some stuff has come in the mail since then thankfully; MOAR DARKLIGHT!!)

I played against Azrael Parkinglot (marines re-rolling everything, is hot garbage, simply too powerful and no wonder every tournament top 5 looks like marine marine imperial marine marine)

His list was something like 30 tacs, 3 centurion dudes, azrael, lieutenant, 2 dreadnaughts, stormhawk.

The mission was "retrieval" from eternal war.

My takeaways about our army from the mission: (I've tabled this same player with a similar army 5/5 times with my Tzeentch daemon list, in impressive fashion mind you)

Archons are so amazingly bad. A 5+ save on a friggin HQ? It is hilariously that a basic marine has a better save than our HQ. Let's not mention the fact that the only way to make him useful is with a blaster and agonizer, and he only comes modellable (made-up word) with a power sword and splinter pistol... So to make this trash unit slightly less trash in a WYSIWYG environment I have to kit bash?

Hellions could be good, mine died on turn 1 before they got to play. This tells me that they could be good but are going to require CAREFUL positioning, also could just not be the right answer vs MEQ.

Reavers: Wow, I heard you guys, I believed you guys, Thedarkcity.net told me they were bad too... but WOW... I guess making them t5 they did protect my Archon from dying for a turn... LOL.. yay? 30 pts for a splinter rifle.

Kabalites: Splinter rifles on Kabs are okay, cause they are a nice value well costed troop with good options in the special and heavy departments and unit flexibility. The splinter CANNONS tho.... I really just haven't had luck with it.

Trueborn: Like the guys above, a nice solid flexible option to get weapons systems around. Could just be called Kabalite Heavy Squad or something in the codex to confuse people about them having the same models less.

Raiders: These guys did a great job keeping my squads firing all game, really couldn't ask for much more for the points.

Ravager: I need more, I'm gonna glue some heavy weapon guys to the side of a raider and make a ghetto ravager... I'll find a way to make it look better later, now I need some more darklight.

Scourges: I used 6 with shardcarbines and had the exact OPPOSITE of what I expected happen. I dropped in on my first turn broadside of a bunch of tac marines, unleashed 18 shots, and killed 0 models. What happened next however, was the scourges taking multiple rounds of fire from a dreadnought, centurions, and a tac squad, and LIVING (okay, one model, but still NOT DEAD haha!). I expected them to kill tac marines more effectively and die sooner.

Weaponry:

Splinter Weaponry: It'ts just.... BAD... am I doing it wrong? I'm firing 10, 20, 30 shots into marine squads and getting 1-3 guys... and the other 75% of the stuff on the table is basically immune to it. Tell me what these things are for again?

Blasters: Great weapons, our movespeed gets you in range easily, cannot complain.

Dark Lances: Wowza, these put in work, -4ap means things like stormhawk interceptor don't even get to attempt a save? KABOOM.

Disintegrator: Meh.. I feel like I had extremely bad luck so it's hard to have a trustworthy opinion on them. The 4 I had managed to kill a single marine and do 2 wounds to a dreadnought over 3 turns of shooting... I rolled poorly but they just seemed kind of MEH. Maybe against things with 2 wound infantry, or light vehicles/monsters they would be better.

Edit: Oh yeah, Talos, he got knocked to 1 wound in turn 1 and died before I could do much. Honestly I think the unit could be good based off the statline. It's not too far off from a daemon prince on some targets w/ a lower cost and half decent shooting. I would like to try a squad of 3 w/ twin liquifiers & macro scalpels marching w/ a haemonculous, that'd be 21 t8 wounds with 6d6 auto hitting -d3ap shots and 6 s6 -1ap 2dmg melee swings. I think I just found a decent Drukhari response to horde armies?

**flamingkillamajig**

Trancefate wrote:
Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.

List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)

2xArchon w/ blaster & Agonizer
Raider, dis, 10x kabs w/ splinter cannon
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 2 darklance, 5kabs
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 3 splintercannon & 2 blasters, 5kabs
1x ravager, 2darklance dissie
Talos w/ 2 scalpels & 2x splinter cannons
4x Reavers w/ splinter rifles
6x Hellions
6x scourge (basic bitch gear)

Oh yeah reavers suck now. Way over-costed. Talos is also probably bad. Splinter cannons suck now that they're rapid fire. The more spammed basic poison weapons tend to do better. Trueborn can't have 3 splinter cannons in one 5 man squad unless that's a typo or i misread. Kabilites in raiders seem bad in raiders due to raiders being so expensive. You need more hellions if you take them and they're very vulnerable even in 8th. Also don't take more than one hq unless you need it for Force Organization to be Battle Forged.

Don't insult the basic weapons of scourge. They can be ok. Ravagers are good. Hellions might be ok in numbers.

**Spera**

Trancefate wrote:
Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.

List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)

2xArchon w/ blaster & Agonizer
Raider, dis, 10x kabs w/ splinter cannon
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 2 darklance, 5kabs
Raider, dis, 5 truebs w/ 3 splintercannon & 2 blasters, 5kabs
1x ravager, 2darklance dissie
Talos w/ 2 scalpels & 2x splinter cannons
4x Reavers w/ splinter rifles
6x Hellions
6x scourge (basic bitch gear)

The army looks wonky because those were the models I owned at the time (some stuff has come in the mail since then thankfully; MOAR DARKLIGHT!!)

I played against Azrael Parkinglot (marines re-rolling everything, is hot garbage, simply too powerful and no wonder every tournament top 5 looks like marine marine imperial marine marine)

His list was something like 30 tacs, 3 centurion dudes, azrael, lieutenant, 2 dreadnaughts, stormhawk.

The mission was "retrieval" from eternal war.

My takeaways about our army from the mission: (I've tabled this same player with a similar army 5/5 times with my Tzeentch daemon list, in impressive fashion mind you)

Archons are so amazingly bad. A 5+ save on a friggin HQ? It is hilariously that a basic marine has a better save than our HQ. Let's not mention the fact that the only way to make him useful is with a blaster and agonizer, and he only comes modellable (made-up word) with a power sword and splinter pistol... So to make this trash unit slightly less trash in a WYSIWYG environment I have to kit bash?

Hellions could be good, mine died on turn 1 before they got to play. This tells me that they could be good but are going to require CAREFUL positioning, also could just not be the right answer vs MEQ.

Reavers: Wow, I heard you guys, I believed you guys, Thedarkcity.net told me they were bad too... but WOW... I guess making them t5 they did protect my Archon from dying for a turn... LOL.. yay? 30 pts for a splinter rifle.

Kabalites: Splinter rifles on Kabs are okay, cause they are a nice value well costed troop with good options in the special and heavy departments and unit flexibility. The splinter CANNONS tho.... I really just haven't had luck with it.

Trueborn: Like the guys above, a nice solid flexible option to get weapons systems around. Could just be called Kabalite Heavy Squad or something in the codex to confuse people about them having the same models less.

Raiders: These guys did a great job keeping my squads firing all game, really couldn't ask for much more for the points.

Ravager: I need more, I'm gonna glue some heavy weapon guys to the side of a raider and make a ghetto ravager... I'll find a way to make it look better later, now I need some more darklight.

Scourges: I used 6 with shardcarbines and had the exact OPPOSITE of what I expected happen. I dropped in on my first turn broadside of a bunch of tac marines, unleashed 18 shots, and killed 0 models. What happened next however, was the scourges taking multiple rounds of fire from a dreadnought, centurions, and a tac squad, and LIVING (okay, one model, but still NOT DEAD haha!). I expected them to kill tac marines more effectively and die sooner.

Weaponry:

Splinter Weaponry: It'ts just.... BAD... am I doing it wrong? I'm firing 10, 20, 30 shots into marine squads and getting 1-3 guys... and the other 75% of the stuff on the table is basically immune to it. Tell me what these things are for again?

Blasters: Great weapons, our movespeed gets you in range easily, cannot complain.

Dark Lances: Wowza, these put in work, -4ap means things like stormhawk interceptor don't even get to attempt a save? KABOOM.

Disintegrator: Meh.. I feel like I had extremely bad luck so it's hard to have a trustworthy opinion on them. The 4 I had managed to kill a single marine and do 2 wounds to a dreadnought over 3 turns of shooting... I rolled poorly but they just seemed kind of MEH. Maybe against things with 2 wound infantry, or light vehicles/monsters they would be better.

Edit: Oh yeah, Talos, he got knocked to 1 wound in turn 1 and died before I could do much. Honestly I think the unit could be good based off the statline. It's not too far off from a daemon prince on some targets w/ a lower cost and half decent shooting. I would like to try a squad of 3 w/ twin liquifiers & macro scalpels marching w/ a haemonculous, that'd be 21 t8 wounds with 6d6 auto hitting -d3ap shots and 6 s6 -1ap 2dmg melee swings. I think I just found a decent Drukhari response to horde armies?

You did remember that archon have this funky 2+ inv that goes off as soon you roll 1, do you? Hq aren't great but can at least be cheap, and agoniser can be represented by any melee weapon.
Splinter weapons must be spamed and used at rapid-fire range. You must drown your enemy in them to make them work. They aren't that great against anything with 3+save. They main utility comes against high T models that other armies troops would wound on 6' , witch don't favors us in horde meta. But hey, they are cheap, so you can spam them a loot. Don't buy any upgrades for splinter weapons. Instead take additional warriors squad, maybe venoms. Quantity over quality.
About Scourges, go with Mandrakes. The are gorgeous models and are incredibly good right now. They can shoot mortal wounds and have -1ap so they would be your preferable choice against MEQ and TEQ. Scourges are usually used with dark lances or haywire blasters thats what they are god with. Both options, Mandrakes and WireBirds give you this sweat -1ap that we lack.

No wonder that he shoot your hellions to the ground, since they can fly the can charge OVER any shielding unit to lock his backline in cc. Other than that only thing you could do was trying to outshoot him, witch obviously you couldn't. I also suggest getting flyers, they are really good. jetfighter>ravager.
Also, DE are more assault army (when we have gunlines, assault and combat armies.) and you faced against gunline. Make sure that you have a loot of terrain that block LOS or you will be wiped every game.

**blaktoof**

Chippen wrote:
[quote=flamingkillamajig 727149 9657551 8edcf084d6f90899883d4a792c27ac07.jpg

On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?

Unfortunately the kastelans don't have the keyword you want for poison, they are vehicles so wounded on 6s.

Kastelans are a real problem for Drukhari, they put out 9 Strength 6 shots each, and can go into a different models where they can't move but double their shots.

They can spend a CP to be stuck in that mode at the end of any phase(like movement) then put out 18 shots each, likely with rerolls of some form to hit.

The best answer to them is then completely committing everything to shooting them, and I mean everything you have.

I would say assault is good but assaulting an unit that averages 3 S6 hits on overwatch per model is not good for dark Eldar. If you assault them I would try and get in with a raider filled with some assault unit, and charge the raider first hoping it survives so your squad can charge. At that point t the kastelans cannot move, so you have at least stopped their shooting but now have to beat down a bunch high toughness vehicle wounds with a save and an ++ save.

On tables with terrain you can try to avoid them.

**Spera**

blaktoof wrote:
Chippen wrote:
[quote=flamingkillamajig 727149 9657551 8edcf084d6f90899883d4a792c27ac07.jpg

On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?

Unfortunately the kastelans don't have the keyword you want for poison, they are vehicles so wounded on 6s.

Kastelans are a real problem for Drukhari, they put out 9 Strength 6 shots each, and can go into a different models where they can't move but double their shots.

They can spend a CP to be stuck in that mode at the end of any phase(like movement) then put out 18 shots each, likely with rerolls of some form to hit.

The best answer to them is then completely committing everything to shooting them, and I mean everything you have.

I would say assault is good but assaulting an unit that averages 3 S6 hits on overwatch per model is not good for dark Eldar. If you assault them I would try and get in with a raider filled with some assault unit, and charge the raider first hoping it survives so your squad can charge. At that point t the kastelans cannot move, so you have at least stopped their shooting but now have to beat down a bunch high toughness vehicle wounds with a save and an ++ save.

On tables with terrain you can try to avoid them.

You charge something close to them and then pile in to tag them into cc. They suck in CC. Beside robots maybe electropriests and dragoons may pose threat, but admech isn't that scary, but still it is matchup of codex vs index. Yet, it is worst codex that came so far. Darklances al day long into them. And haywire Scourges.

**Trancefate**

Spera wrote:

You did remember that archon have this funky 2+ inv that goes off as soon you roll 1, do you? Hq aren't great but can at least be cheap, and agoniser can be represented by any melee weapon.
Splinter weapons must be spamed and used at rapid-fire range. You must drown your enemy in them to make them work. They aren't that great against anything with 3+save. They main utility comes against high T models that other armies troops would wound on 6' , witch don't favors us in horde meta. But hey, they are cheap, so you can spam them a loot. Don't buy any upgrades for splinter weapons. Instead take additional warriors squad, maybe venoms. Quantity over quality.
About Scourges, go with Mandrakes. The are gorgeous models and are incredibly good right now. They can shoot mortal wounds and have -1ap so they would be your preferable choice against MEQ and TEQ. Scourges are usually used with dark lances or haywire blasters thats what they are god with. Both options, Mandrakes and WireBirds give you this sweat -1ap that we lack.

No wonder that he shoot your hellions to the ground, since they can fly the can charge OVER any shielding unit to lock his backline in cc. Other than that only thing you could do was trying to outshoot him, witch obviously you couldn't. I also suggest getting flyers, they are really good. jetfighter>ravager.
Also, DE are more assault army (when we have gunlines, assault and combat armies.) and you faced against gunline. Make sure that you have a loot of terrain that block LOS or you will be wiped every game.

Thanks for the advice and yes that was a typo
! I've got some things that I did not have at the time. A lance RWJF, some darklance/haywire blaster/splinter cannon scourges, 4 more darklance kabalites for another heavy trueborn squad or maybe converting a raider to ravager, some more basic kabalites and splinter cannons (meh), and a couple of venoms.

**flamingkillamajig**

Blackie wrote:
Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.

I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.

That's kinda my point with going against termagaunts being able to wipe out mandrakes or wyches and take some down in overwatch even. At that point the best we have is taking a raider or venom and charging into the enemy to take overwatch so that the melee units can go in without worrying about overwatch. That is legit a tactic we absolutely must employ vs heavy shooty units and shooty hordes. At least the one bonus to horde shooting is the strength and AP value tends to be garbage so anything with a decent toughness and armor save (like vehicles) can tank some shots.

As i said i was considering kabalite warriors myself. Extremely cheap and gives you bodies. In the case of attacks that go through armor they give you bodies. Problem being you'd probably be limited on squad size if you don't want them to all run away. 7 pts per guy is pretty freaking cheap though. To an extent i actually enjoy some more focus being placed on basic troops. It actually gives people a reason to buy them rather than focusing on death stars and super units.

**the_scotsman**

Blackie wrote:
Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.

I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.

one tactic that I've found myself using incredibly frequently against hordes is to heavily abuse the fact that our transports are very durable vs most chaff units (orks, gribblies, and conscripts all struggle to take a raider down) and the fact that our vehicles have extremely big hulls. Move up on a weedier flank of the blob, charge first with the raider, and plow that big, pointy shock prow right in the space between the enemy models.

You then have 3-7ish models cordoned off from the rest of the group that can fight the wyches, and for the whole rest of the blob the closest model is the raider, who is a pain in the butt to get around with 3" moves, or else they're closest to one of your other models and their only choice for a pile in move is to take free damage from some other unit. I find that most commonly, the opponent won't even take casualties from the few models engaged with the wyches, and instead they'll remove from the part of the blob that can't even get near combat, but even if they do play smart and pull for the Fall Back, a small number of wyches often doesn't kill enough to allow them to disengage. You can then either go for a surround (easy to do with the Raider there to assist) or just roll off for No Escape.

In my last game against guard Pre-codex, I tied up a full 50 man conscript blob for 4 full rounds of combat with 5 wyches and a Raider, and I only lost 4 wounds on the raider and 2 wyches for my trouble. and that was with him actively attempting to remove the models fighting the wyches first, I would just elect to attack with the wyches last and use their post-combat pile in to grab another couple of infantry.

**Tyel**

Wyches are bad.

Maybe I am being too extreme but I don't see what they do. Their damage output is very low, they are easy to shoot off the table if ever outside a transport (and transports will get shot down). A 4++ save is nice against certain elite assault units that have a low number of high S, high D attacks, but against things like Orks you just get dragged under.

As I see it Kabalite warriors are okay - I am almost tempted to say regardless of transports. Its ben heresy since 5th if not 3rd edition - but if FOC wasn't an issue they are cheap as chips and could easilly be spammed instead of having fairly crap vehicles. I'd probably rather take 18~ man+blaster squads than 6 in a venom. Flood the table with ObSec units that are inefficient to smite and can each put out a bit of punch. I don't want to buy the models to test this (and unfortunately FOC actually gets in the way for once) but I suspect it would better.

Both venoms and raiders seem intuitively too expensive for what you get. Sure they are harder to kill, and they can charge in and/or withdraw from combat but their damage output compared to the Codex release armies is awful.

Both flyers are good and ravagers are okay. And that is about where I would draw the line. Incubi are okay on paper but there is too much "if, if, if = great results". So many units are doing mediocre damage even if everything works out.

**Trancefate**

I've updated my army and made a list to include the models that I have. It's 2k points and posted here https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727149.page

I kind of see the point of the above poster about raiders and venoms being too expensive, however depending on opposing army disentegrator is nice, and I find they still draw fire effectively even after I dismount the troops onto objectives. If I were to have the models available maybe i'd drop a raider or two, or a raider and a venom, and add another RWJF + kab squad, or a bomber, or a ravager.

**Spera**

Tyel wrote:
Wyches are bad.

Maybe I am being too extreme but I don't see what they do. Their damage output is very low, they are easy to shoot off the table if ever outside a transport (and transports will get shot down). A 4++ save is nice against certain elite assault units that have a low number of high S, high D attacks, but against things like Orks you just get dragged under.

As I see it Kabalite warriors are okay - I am almost tempted to say regardless of transports. Its ben heresy since 5th if not 3rd edition - but if FOC wasn't an issue they are cheap as chips and could easilly be spammed instead of having fairly crap vehicles. I'd probably rather take 18~ man+blaster squads than 6 in a venom. Flood the table with ObSec units that are inefficient to smite and can each put out a bit of punch. I don't want to buy the models to test this (and unfortunately FOC actually gets in the way for once) but I suspect it would better.

Both venoms and raiders seem intuitively too expensive for what you get. Sure they are harder to kill, and they can charge in and/or withdraw from combat but their damage output compared to the Codex release armies is awful.

Both flyers are good and ravagers are okay. And that is about where I would draw the line. Incubi are okay on paper but there is too much "if, if, if = great results". So many units are doing mediocre damage even if everything works out.

Not all units need to do damage, as long as they work as force multiplayer for units that do. Transports are kinda that way. T3 and mostly 1W isn't very durable, when 5+/6+++ is just 4+ for 1D attacks. That isn't much, so protection of transport really pays of. Just ask yourself, "Can I bring more daka per point instead of transport?" So while Kabalite warriors may not be super efficient in transport, trueborns with special weapons in venom will be. With close combat units it goes without saying, transport allows to do them damage, since they will have option to attack that preferred target instead of whatever your opponent will throw at you. They need to be at range.

Wyches aren't dedicated cc unit, they are tarpit unit. With careful positioning and engaging multiple units in cc they can lock themselves in combat for whole game where they have 4+ inv. They aren't your dps, they are crowd control, one of few right now in whole 8ed. As someone mentioned before, if you have empty rider/venom nearby wyches, and you are not using it to eat overwatch and prevent opponent from piling in full to wyches you are playing combat part of this game wrong. Assault part is far more complex than shooting. it isn't just math and probability. Positioning here is key, utilizing pile in and consolidate to its fullest potential. Imagine locking Magnus in cc with wyches. Yes they will die, but they stopped 10x more point from acting. Throwing them on boyz is stupid because they aren't typical cc unit. Thats breaking 1 rule of 40k, "shot the staby, stab the shoty".
.
Yes, wyches, incubis and transports will die, but everything in this game does so. Especially in 8ed.

**Amishprn86**

Sadly tho, harlequins are just better Wyches i literally every way, other than a 50/50 chance for units to not fall back.

Wyches vs Kabal as cheap troops, Kabals win everytime as well, as they can shoot for a turn or 2 and get nto a good position to also charge, on average its 1 dead SM, but if you shoot them and charge a 1/2 dead unit on an objective with 5 guys, its going to be a 1 to 1 trade off for a couple rounds, which you should win b.c you psotion yourself to do so against only a couple SM and not a full unit.

Wyches can not tarpit dedicated foot infantry, b.c those units are to large, its only 5 wyches, thats only 5 wounds with a 4++ that will kill 1-2 guys at the most, then when they have 20+ attacks back wounding on 3/4+ it doesnt matter you have a 4++ and they might not fall back, only need to fail 5 saves.

From all my games that i used wyches in (i'm a large player on positioning and timing, as also a Harlequin player i am used to doing that) they dont do what they are made for in any shape or form.

Its just better to take Kabals and shoot for 2 turns then charge with them, you will actually kill guys and able to get the job done.

DE weakness is T3 hordes, we will stay that way till a codex comes out. I highles suggest adding in some Eldar Anti-Horde units via Walkers, Bikes, Vypers etc.. with mass fire weapons (Shuriken/Scatter) and Alaitoc.

Currently some of the best AI units are melee units for DE, Beasts, as an example, Mandrakes are also very good, if Mandrakes get cheaper by 25% (looking at eldar numbers and averages) i will for sure take 20 of these unless Coven gains a large buff.

**Blackie**

DE transports are quite good IMHO. And they're very useful to target saturations otherwise ravagers and flyers will die by turn 2. Incubi in venoms, kabalites with a blaster in a venom, trueborns with blasters in venom are all juicy targets and may let your gun platform lives.

If you use 80 kabalites they will take all the anti infantry, which many armies bring en masse since the 8th edition's fear of hordes, and die even faster.

I wouldn't take any drukhari footslogging unit, only the sneaky mandrakes or fast stuff like beasts, and some characters like succubus or haemonculus.

**Amishprn86**

Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.

Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.

DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.

Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.

**Spera**

If you want cc troop don't take wyches, simple. Harlequins will be better. Technically wracks should be our cc unit but they are simply to expensive for what they bring. Either they will need big cost reduction to 6-7 its like kabalites or some buff.

But as seen so far with codexes both things will be possible. I can even see "chapter tactic" that gives all splinter weapon -1AP.

As about mandrakes, guys they are good right now, not need of waiting. On dark city someone did the math, they are always in top5 and most of the time 1st or 2nd place vs any type of target. Im even wondering if it would work to put them inside transport and take them in mass.

**Blackie**

Amishprn86 wrote:
Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.

Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.

DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.

Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.

Let's wait for the codex to have a fair response about DE. I agree that something should be more effective and/or cheaper.

But don't compare them or their weapons to AM or stormbolters since these things are overpowered stuff, something that should toned down.