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 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Yes it takes more, you should be using other weapons too tho, like missiles, HWB's, Blasters, etc... if you are taking only Dis Cannons as your only AT then yeah, its not going to be amazing at it, the point is they are almost as good as DL at killing tanks, so you dont need to take Lances, use cheaper other things are are just as good for the points if not better. Or take 1 DL Ravager for back up damage if you feel you rather have that.

No one is saying Dis are perfect, just in the current meta with low Tanks on the table they are a good pick, but if you are going against 6+ tanks, then yeah i would add something else.

I'm not using Disintegrators as my only Anti-tank. All I'm saying is that so far Disintegrators have consistently been abysmal against vehicles.

Hence, I really wouldn't want to take many of them in place of Lances.

The current disintegrator craze in competitive play generally comes from the fact that the meta is more focused on custode bikers, drukhari vehicles, and GEQ swarms than heavy tanks, and disintegrators fare much better against the range of matchups you typically see even if their effectiveness drops against the basic T7 3+ tank.

If you're casually building your army, I will always counsel variety in all things. Spam is the enemy of having a functional army come next edition.

the_scotsman wrote:

The current disintegrator craze in competitive play generally comes from the fact that the meta is more focused on custode bikers, drukhari vehicles, and GEQ swarms than heavy tanks, and disintegrators fare much better against the range of matchups you typically see even if their effectiveness drops against the basic T7 3+ tank.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

The current disintegrator craze in competitive play generally comes from the fact that the meta is more focused on custode bikers, drukhari vehicles, and GEQ swarms than heavy tanks, and disintegrators fare much better against the range of matchups you typically see even if their effectiveness drops against the basic T7 3+ tank.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense.

I take them on my Razorwings, but I take DLs on my ravagers, because my Razorwings are much more likely to pull the ol' "Fly up right next to a character of some description and pump shots directly into their face" trick.

On Dissies, context and math matter.
On most targets, the Dissie is equal to or better tthan the Lance, straight up. The exception is T6/7 vehicles, 3 Dark Lances is 1.3 wounds better than 3 Dissies (using 3 because we're talking Ravagers here).
Variance also hurts Lances more. You might destroy that Rhino in one round of shooting, or you might whiff completely. With Dissies, you're more reliable at putting wounds on whatever you're shooting.

In addition, Blasters got the D6 damage upgrade and Haywire is good, which makes Lances way less valuable in a relative sense than they were before. They used to be THE answer to tanks, especially with Dissies being more expensive.

With all that, plus the meta context Scotsman described, I'll take Dissies over Lances every time.

Between Strife, Cursed Blade, and Red Grief what are people running for their Wych Cult detachments?

I know Strife and Cursed Blade increase their damage flat out but is there any viability of running Red Grief wyches due to their mobility?

RedGriefer wrote:
Between Strife, Cursed Blade, and Red Grief what are people running for their Wych Cult detachments?

I know Strife and Cursed Blade increase their damage flat out but is there any viability of running Red Grief wyches due to their mobility?

I use Red Grief b.c its very important to get an early charge with my Wyches, i take 2 Succubus, 3x5 with 1 Shardnet all in 2 Raiders from my Air Wing Detachment of Flayed Skull to give them a bonus 3" move, 20" on average turn 1 with 2 raiders is pretty good, that way it keeps my 10 Grots and Talos from being hit to hard, i want my Raiders to be shot at, and normally a Wych unit will die but thats why i take 3 and they are super cheap.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

Wyldcarde wrote:

It's not very fair to judge the disintegrator cannon as being ineffective against vehicles when you are firing a grand total of one of them.

Apparently 3 Disintegrators = 1 Disintegrator. Who know?

Wyldcarde wrote:
Shooting 9 disintegrator cannon shots at a vehicle might not do the job, but shooting 48 disintegerator cannon shots at a vehicle will kill it.

So the Disintegrator Cannon is horribly inefficient, but apparently this is a point in its favour.

Sorry I misspoke. 3 disintegrator cannons. Not one. But my point still stands. Judging them on so little rate of fire isnt entirely fair on them.

And as for my second point, the vehicle dies well before the last dis cannon shot. Was just making the point that weight of fire is what works for them.

But others have made the point since. It's good, reliable damage against any target. It works as well against a shadowsword as a chimera.
And allying in craftworlds for doom access amps them up considerably.

RedGriefer wrote:
Between Strife, Cursed Blade, and Red Grief what are people running for their Wych Cult detachments?

I know Strife and Cursed Blade increase their damage flat out but is there any viability of running Red Grief wyches due to their mobility?

Oh most definitely. RG has the best single succubus build (blast pistol+Blood Glaive+3++ trait), massive utility on their reavers, and excellent threat range on their wyches. They're generally the go-to for me if I'm looking at an Outrider of wyches with a heavy focus on tying things up rather than killing, which allows for much better board control and longevity than the other wych cults. My red grief last far longer than any wyches I run out of other cults, because they're rarely not in combat.

I've tried 2 wych cult battallions joined by a black heart spearhead (which was there only for the ravagers). One strife battallion with 3x10 wyches in raiders and a 9 man squad of bikes with 3 blasters plus a red grief battallion with 3x5 wyches in venoms (better in other raiders but I don't own more of them) and a couple of min squads of reavers. Very interesting combinations, the min squads of red grief wyches, succubus and the bikes can tarpit things wery well while the strife units can do a lot of damage.

About red grief detachments I prefer a cheap outrider with just a succubus and 3x3 bikes though.

On the subject of Harli allies, I’m considering a vanguard with 2
Jesters, a solitaire, and a troup master. Only around 275 points, and shores up our anti infantry issue. Thoughts? Also what masque would work best with this configuration?

Red Grief vs Cursed Blade for Wyches is definitely going to depend on what kind of meta you're facing. If, like me, you face a lot of close combat heavy armies like Tyranids, Blood Angels, Orks etc, then Cursed Blade is definitely the way to go as the extra combat punch is very needed and they're going to come to you anyway. If you're against lots of shooty armies like Tau or Guard, you definitely need the mobility of Red Grief.

If we're talking a tournament setting, Red Grief is probably the best in this meta, but then again I'm not convinced Wyches are a top tier unit anyway.

Salt donkey wrote:
On the subject of Harli allies, I’m considering a vanguard with 2
Jesters, a solitaire, and a troup master. Only around 275 points, and shores up our anti infantry issue. Thoughts? Also what masque would work best with this configuration?

Haven't had a chance to look at the Harli book myself yet, but I can already see myself at least recommending a shadowseer for your detachment. Having some measure of psychic control is going to help a lot, and if the index entry is any indication, the Shadowseer is no slouch even beyond her smoke and mirrors.

 Fafnir wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
On the subject of Harli allies, I’m considering a vanguard with 2
Jesters, a solitaire, and a troup master. Only around 275 points, and shores up our anti infantry issue. Thoughts? Also what masque would work best with this configuration?

Haven't had a chance to look at the Harli book myself yet, but I can already see myself at least recommending a shadowseer for your detachment. Having some measure of psychic control is going to help a lot, and if the index entry is any indication, the Shadowseer is no slouch even beyond her smoke and mirrors.

Yeah the deer would likely be better overall, it’s just a fair bit more pricy than the troup master. Might be worth it for the reasons you mention, but it means dropping a succubus from list.

Just went up against custodes today as my first game against custodes and his first with custodes. Custodes did trample me and maybe this is odd to say but if i had to say venoms with shredders seemed to do the most damage.

You see guys he had two -1 to hit abilities (one with a custode on foot and the other on a biker) which basically turned my shooting against the main mass of his army into absolute garbage (like ork shooting level garbage).

Melee against custodes is tough due to counter-charge command point abilities. However if you keep yourself at a fairly large charge range for other custodes units from the main one you charge then i think it can be negated somewhat if not completely.

Also considering the invulnerable saves are at worst a 4+ on each guy i find shredders do oddly well against custodes and my trueborn with shredders in venoms did a fair amount of damage vs his flanking forces. Surprisingly after a good 3 turns they were one of the few things i still had. The other thing i imagine does well is mortal wounds like with mandrakes and somewhat with the void ravens. It still doesn't do a whole lot because the units are so few in number but void mines helped.

After 3 turns i lost most of my army and i had to leave so i just called it as him winning. It was more objective based but either way i was losing pretty hardcore. He lost probably 8 custode troops (maybe 6 were elites) and then about 2 custode bikes. 2 of the bikes were hanging on their last wound (could swear one of those had died but whatever).

Honestly as strong as custodes are i'm not sure anything would survive in melee against them and the negative modifiers to at least shooting bubbles are rough for dark eldar considering our auto hit weapons are so balls vs custodes bikers in the first place (str 3 vs t 6 does not equal fun times).

------

Btw how do snipers work for us. I think i'll use some hex rifles in the near future in a spam fashion. Let me know if they're ok.

Alrighty. For the current league at my LGS I decided to dust off my Dark Space Elves...mostly because I was led to believe it would be a "narrative" league. The previous narrative league I ran my Corsairs counts-as Ynnari and was able to have a fun and flavorful time as all the missions were custom written for the league. But I've been wanting to try out the new DE book for a while so I went all-in on DE this time around. I assumed I'd be able to play a bunch of different units I own and have fun, etc. Turns out the narrative in this league was one sentence of "story" and then an instruction to play ITC Champions Scenario 1: Seize Ground. Sooooo. Yeah. Not narrative at all apparently. I hadn't read this when I designed my force, but when I showed up to the table I knew something was weird about my opponents army...and I quickly learned it was designed to deny me as many scoring opportunities as possible. Very narrative, very fluffy

The entire league is 1500 points each week, with the ability to adjust lists as you see fit. My opponent was playing Dark Angels, and though I probably can't remember his exact list it was something like:

My list was:

Seeing what I was up against I took Kingslayer (Azrael needed to die anyhow), Behind, and Old Skool. I lost the roll, but luckily I had put a couple venoms (inc Archon boat) in reserve. He shot the stuffing out of my Ravager turn 1. I was able to drop off Kabalites in cover on a couple of objectives and zoom my venoms up the board. Thanks to mostly the -1 to hit, invuln and bad rolling on his part my venoms survived far longer than they should have and were able to score me more obj points on subsequent turns. Turn 2 I deep struck with the reserves, including the Mandrakes, and flew up the board with the Wych boat converging around where he had the Hellblasters, Devs, a unit of tac bubble wrap, Azrael and the lieutenant all castled up. I spent several turns slowly chewing through that blob of awful, helped on by pretty abysmal rolling on his part. Mandrakes did A LOT of heavy lifting for their points cost, pretty much single-handedly shooting then charging the entire Dev squad to death. But what surprised me most (even though I have heard they are good) was how great the wyches were. Not only did they do admirably in combat, but when I was able to tie up the Hellblasters, etc, their no escape + nets literally won me the game by not allowing the marines (and Azrael at one point) to disengage and use their fall back/shoot shenanigans. So effing good. My succubi murdered Azrael in two rounds of pretty one-sided combat. The lieutenant (who did manage to get away once) was one-shot by the sole remaining blaster kabalite from a venom squad that he had nearly decimated. Sweet revenge.

Turns 2/3 were balanced on a knife's edge. Had he shot any better or killed more of my zippy Venoms I wouldn't have been able to dominate on Objectives (plus shoot dozens of poison shots per turn) and that would have really hurt me. However I turned the corner and the last couple of turns really went in my favor. I went from being absolutely disillusioned by the non-"narrative" nature of the match to being psyched that my ragtag list (of basically what I had sitting around) was able to put out a lot of hurt.

I think for next round I will swap out one venom and the ravager for another raider and bulk up that second wych squad to have two boats full. I also will max out (or close to max out) the Mandrakes. They were just too good. The ravager was a good distraction carnifex but that's kinda also what the Voidraven is for...and he didn't even shoot at that (I guess because he was smart or something haha).

Anyway, I hope some of this was inspiring or helpful. If anyone has any feedback for me let me know. Basically I am still not going to try to be uber competitive this league, but it is nice to know that my Delfs can hold their own in an ITC scenario.

Salt donkey wrote:
On the subject of Harli allies, I’m considering a vanguard with 2
Jesters, a solitaire, and a troup master. Only around 275 points, and shores up our anti infantry issue. Thoughts? Also what masque would work best with this configuration?

I would definitely skip the TM in favor of a Shadowseer. TM's going to be only buffing the Solitaire, and with the Shadowseer you get several powers that are good in a mostly allied contingent.

-1 to hit vs everything debuff spell (great for fighting superheavies, kastelan bots, other big single unit threats)

-Two character-targeting Mortal Wound spells, good in an army that has limited sniping options

-Warptime for your Solitaire/for herself

You also then gain access to the Heroes Path strat, which is awesome when you go second, which you will most frequently do with MSU spammy dark eldar.

For Masque, I would recommend a few possibilities:

-Frozen Stars with Cegorach's Rose relic on the Solitaire, if you want the Solitaire to shine as a killing unit. Wonderful damage output, especially if you take a wound on overwatch so you can use the strat that gives you +2A and +2S.
-Midnight Sorrow with Starmist Raiment relic on the Solitaire, if you want the Solitaire to be a tie-up unit. Pairs really nicely with Red Grief if you take the Twilight Pathways power on the Shadowseer to bounce him in turn 1. He denies overwatch and ushers in your Red Grief Reavers/Hellions/etc.
-Dreaming Shadow with Curtainfall relic/Possibly Luck of the Laughing God warlord trait on the Death Jester. Luck trait is a BIT aggressive, but does make him a darn sight more reliable, though 99% of the time if you're taking Dark Eldar, ESPECIALLY Black Heart, you want the Player of Twilight warlord trait on the Shadowseer. Player of Twilight is absolutely busted in combination with Agents of Vect, because not only do you have the chance for an absolutely free AOV, you get to roll to try and get your opponent's CPs back from their spent stratagem, before they get their CPs refunded. But just Curtainfall in general does make the DJ a mean mother hubbard.

With Imperial Knights codex coming up they have missiles that do alot of damage, and a new stratagem makes them target characters! So keep some CP for verdict or dust of a Sslyth

Ok I’m convinced that the 40 or so points for the shadowseer over the the TM is worth it,. It does enough better and different to be worth it. I should have clarified that relics and warlord traits aren’t relavant for what what masque I decide on, as labyrinth cunning is superior to player of twighlight (remember it only works on your opponents stratagems, not your own) and I don’t feel dark elder relics are worse than harlequin relics. So really just the traits themselves and the stratagems matter. To that end, considlating in extra 6 inches seems really good as it means I can get the solitaire into the best position as possible. Although the minus leadership one also looks interesting...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whoops just found out I misread player of tiwlight, now I have to decide if it’s worth making the Quins detachment my warlord detachment, or my dark eldar

Salt donkey wrote:
Ok I’m convinced that the 40 or so points for the shadowseer over the the TM is worth it,. It does enough better and different to be worth it. I should have clarified that relics and warlord traits aren’t relavant for what what masque I decide on, as labyrinth cunning is superior to player of twighlight (remember it only works on your opponents stratagems, not your own) and I don’t feel dark elder relics are worse than harlequin relics. So really just the traits themselves and the stratagems matter. To that end, considlating in extra 6 inches seems really good as it means I can get the solitaire into the best position as possible. Although the minus leadership one also looks interesting...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whoops just found out I misread player of tiwlight, now I have to decide if it’s worth making the Quins detachment my warlord detachment, or my dark eldar

I love Shadowseers they are for sure worth their points, i mean they can do 3 smite type of attacks lol, its not hard doing 3D3 MW's, then you have -1 to wound aura and you can even have loads of -1 to hit powers, double movement, ect...

But IMO Warlock/Farseer still helps DE more if you are not looking at taking harlequins units, BUT, Skyweavers are just amazing! Take large unit and a Shadowseer and watch them work! Works great in DE especially since we have slow melee meatsticks (Grots and Talos) and long range support (Ravagers/RWJF's).

I have a HUGE Harlequin force, but after reading the book for 2 weeks now, i would say my Ally force with harlequin for my DE would be a Patrol of 6 Skyweavers, Shadowseer and Troupe's with only 5 FP's in a Skyweaver (this is 640pts) so it still leaves 1360 for DE, well enough for 2 Battalions BH Kabal and 1 PoF Coven (with lots of Grots).

So i'm curious guys. I think i want to swap out my wych cult secondary army with covens units. With all the trouble i end up facing between low wound psykers, various guard commanders and -1 to hit characters i may go for hex rifle wracks and haemonculus dudes. Then i'll use the minimum size wrack units as an anti infantry wall and beat stick for units that close to melee with haemies boosting wrack toughness to 5.

I just played a game with a ton of red grief reavers, they were able to get a first turn charge, much to my opponents surprise but to be honest they hit like wet pool noodles. If I hit something a bit tougher I feel like I'd bounce off.

RedGriefer wrote:
I just played a game with a ton of red grief reavers, they were able to get a first turn charge, much to my opponents surprise but to be honest they hit like wet pool noodles. If I hit something a bit tougher I feel like I'd bounce off.

They're not units you use to do big damage. You take advantage of that mobility for those early charges in order to tie up enemy units and keep them from being effective against the rest of your army.

You know i just had another idea. It's kinda dumb but it could work. I'm going for almost 500 pts of warriors and then adding a dark lance per ten guys and make half of them with blasters and the other half with shredders. I'd prefer to take blasters on all of them though as 16 blasters are not something you want to deep strike or get your custode jetbikes too near esp. with another 8 dark lance hitting home with it. The idea is that each warriors costs practically nothing (1/2 the price of a scourge) and against long ranged firepower the anti-infantry guns aren't too hot for killing a spammed cheap unit (far as i know). I think i'll either take them as ten man or 20 man squads but i'm thinking 80 will do it. Maybe 60 if prices aren't going where i want them too.

I will still take scourge with blasters for cheap firepower but with the limit of 3 units per non-troops choice this seems very needed. Perhaps i could also take two 20 man units of warriors with blasters and deep strike them in through webway but we'll have to see.

Also i'm going to use reavers as a screen for any melee units trying to get at my shredder trueborn in venoms. I think that should work pretty well as the bikes can keep up and form a solid screen esp. if you boost em to toughness 5 with combat drugs.

So there is team tournament coming up and I'm only allowed one detachment. Which, for Dark Eldar is kind of rough, but the points per person are 750, so it's very manageable.

I was thinking of doing pure coven for this.
Patrol detachment
Haemonculus w/ ichor injector
5 wracks w/ 1 ossefactor in a raider w/ dark lance
4 grotesques all w/ flesh gauntlets in raider w/ dark lance
Talos w/ twin heat lance and 2x macro-scalpels
Cronos w/ Spirit Vortex
5 scourges w/ 4 shredders

This comes out to be right around 750 exactly. I plan on taking Prophets of Flesh for the 4+ Invul. but then I am looking at which artefacts and warlord traits are best.

Should I take the Prophets of Flesh warlord trait to generate more CP? because CP will be at a minimum here.

Any other thoughts on the best coven for 750 points?

 Icculus wrote:
So there is team tournament coming up and I'm only allowed one detachment. Which, for Dark Eldar is kind of rough, but the points per person are 750, so it's very manageable.

I was thinking of doing pure coven for this.
Patrol detachment
Haemonculus w/ ichor injector
5 wracks w/ 1 ossefactor in a raider w/ dark lance
4 grotesques all w/ flesh gauntlets in raider w/ dark lance
Talos w/ twin heat lance and 2x macro-scalpels
Cronos w/ Spirit Vortex
5 scourges w/ 4 shredders

This comes out to be right around 750 exactly. I plan on taking Prophets of Flesh for the 4+ Invul. but then I am looking at which artefacts and warlord traits are best.

Should I take the Prophets of Flesh warlord trait to generate more CP? because CP will be at a minimum here.

Any other thoughts on the best coven for 750 points?

It seems really weird to take Shredder Scourges in a list with so little anti-vehicle weaponry. Would Haywire Scourges not make more sense?

Also, I'm not convinced the Cronos is worth it in such a small list.

I actually won a 750 team tournament with a similar list. I cut out both the raiders and added two more grotesques a haemonculus and a talos for a spearhead detachment. I went cheaper on everything took haywire on the two talos and scourges. Two of the three matches was no vehicles so take that into consideration in smaller games.

 Hades wrote:
I actually won a 750 team tournament with a similar list. I cut out both the raiders and added two more grotesques a haemonculus and a talos for a spearhead detachment. I went cheaper on everything took haywire on the two talos and scourges. Two of the three matches was no vehicles so take that into consideration in smaller games.

So you went total foot-list. I like it. What warlord trait or artefacts did you use? Did you make use of any particular stratagems?

Just the extra relic, I really liked the parasite's kiss on the haemy as it was essentially two extra swings with the electrocorrosive whip but this was before the whole can you cant you debate now that the haemy default is a stinger pistol. Using the stratagem to make the grotesques to hit on 2s on turn 2 and reroll failed wounds is really good. Backed up by Vexator mask there isn't much that can take them in cc. Mostly just saved CPs for critical invuln rerolls and WL trait was +1 to wound. It's too good with EC Whip.

Does anyone use Parasite's Kiss on an Archon or Succubus?

Parasite's kiss seems ok but I usually give my archon the Djin blade. If you really wanted to give him a pistol the Soul-seeker might be better, but I still would rather the blade. Blade with eternal hatred for a warlord trait makes him pretty brutal in combat even against things with high toughness (like custodes jetbikes).

Also, since I have lurked in this thread for a while I figured I would offer my list that I have been working on/running since the codex dropped. I am preparing for NOVA and so far I have had some pretty good results except against all dawneagle jetbike lists, which I think is one of the worst matchups for the army:

Battalion Detachment: Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Archon, Djin Blade, phantasm grenade launcher, splinter pistol
Archon, huskblade, splinter pistol

10xWarrios w/2 blasters, splinter cannon and phantasm grenade launcher
10xWarrios w/2 blasters, splinter cannon and phantasm grenade launcher
10xWarrios w/2 blasters, splinter cannon and phantasm grenade launcher
10xWarrios w/2 blasters, splinter cannon and phantasm grenade launcher

Ravager w/ 3 dark lances
2xRavger w/ 3 disintegrators

3xRaiders w/disintegrators and splinter racks
Raider w/ Dark lance and splinter racks
Venom w/ 2 splinter cannons

Patrol Detachment: Cult of the Cursed Blade

Succubus w/ archite glaive and splinter pistol
20 Wyches w/ 1 shardnet impaler, 2x Hydra gauntlets, leader with a power sword

Outrider Detachment: Cult of the Red Grief

Succubus w/ archite glaive and splinter pistol

6xReavers w/ 2 blasters, 2 grav-talons
3xReavers w/ blaster and grav talon
3xReavers w/ blaster and grav talon