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Things got much better in my club, for everyone, once I put my foot down and said there should be 3/4 LoS blocking terrains on every board, and it shouldn't be difficult to hide almost an entire army behind terrain turn 1.

Once we started doing that, and recording objective points better, everyone started having better games, even the Tau and Guard players.

But yeah can't disagree, Guard are very tough. Their firepower + their screening is really bad for us.

But I do think we have some play. Precision Blow + Test of Skill Hellions are great into Guard, as they can easily jump from terrain to terrain, and put out enough damage to mop up any screen or seriously cripple a tank.

But I won't lie it's a hard match up. Another specific tech could be to use Black Heart Kabal/Animus Vitae to turbo boost some transports right up in the opponents face, and charge some of their shooting units. It's peddle to the metal full throttle sort of list. Guard don't particularly like being on the backfoot.

@Talos, now they've regained Core, I think they probably have a place in most Real Space Raids. 2 Talos with Gauntlets, Injectors and Heat Lances taking up the middle of the board is a real brawler unit. And Grotesques hit like a truck as well.

Picture the list, a real space raid with 2*5 Incubi, 2*5 Grotesques, 2*10 Wyches, some Hellions, some transports, some killy characters, a Court of the Archon, all zooming up the field. The transports charge turn 1, tie up some stuff. Turn 2 the wave breaks. That could well sweep guard away.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let's be fair, we can put some amazingly deadly units on the table.

Master Torturers + Splinter Blade coven units SLAP.

Cursed Blade / Precision Killers + Test of Skill or Stimulant Innovators slap. Blood Brides mulch through units which rely on -1 dmg mechanics, Hellions mulch anything that doesn't.

The Master Archon, Draz and Succubus are some of the best combat characters in the game for their points.

Incubi are murder on wheels, especially around Drazhar.

The main advise is we can't afford to pretend we aren't a melee army. Our shooting options suck compared to our melee.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Played my first few games with Drazhar and Incubi in a Dark Creed Detachment with Grisley Trophies Venoms, and lord was it good.

Warlord Drazhar is incredibly killy, he was smacking 10+ wounds off Knights a turn, and killing whole units of Custodes in 2 activations. And his Incubi buddies weren't that far behind.

Pair him with a Precision Blows Succubus in an allied Wych patrol, and I had 2 bad ass characters completely dictating the game. Highly recommend running this if you get the chance, it makes me feel we can still compete.

Our shooting is pretty naff (although I was spamming PGL, which pair with thle Dark Creed for some acceptable mortal wound output) but our combat really can keep us competing.

Between Incubi with Draz, and a Precision Killers / Test of Skill Wych cult running Blood Brides and Hellion Squads, and ubiquitous Grotesque lumps, we've got a good amount of very fast, very murderous killers.

I very nearly gave up on the dark eldar tactics thread because nobody posts here in like a month or more.

For me i'm playing against imperial guard mostly (like 3 players with them now) and necrons and honestly as tough a time as i have with necrons i'd say imperial guard are just absurdly broken. I played a game against a guy that usually never plays and he did some tank commander ability that made it move 18" and shoot me from behind cover and i lost like 3 of my 4 transports with a couple exploding and killing bunches of guys. Atm i just can not fight imperial guard or at least not a full tank list. It didn't help he went first.

Against necrons i still lose but i have a better chance. Drazhar does do work, incubi a bit less so (or at least in 10 man squads which is sad because that's what is required to kill a vehicle), wyches are decent and grotesques are good usually.

I'm honestly considering what's called "Thicc City" which seems to be more Coven based dark eldar armies. I think it was max talos and max cronos but that might defeat the point of even playing dark eldar for me aesthetically.

We have aged poorly but there's still wins to be had. I'm undefeated against Tau. Guard I feel are much worse but you could try something different like a webway gate beta strike. Combine our best assault with 2-3 units of 2 dark tech cronos. Those are just nasty with a WWG since you basically eliminate the blind spot they usually have from reserve, and they do kill russes efficiently. Just some friendly ideas.

Anyone else a little worried about blasters remaining S8? I don't know about you guys, but they're currently doing about as much lifting as my dark lances. Only wounding a rhino on a 5+ seems pretty damning for a single shot weapon.

I like my ravagers and haywire blasters just fine, but I don't love the idea of feeling compelled to load up on them every game.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Anyone else a little worried about blasters remaining S8? I don't know about you guys, but they're currently doing about as much lifting as my dark lances. Only wounding a rhino on a 5+ seems pretty damning for a single shot weapon.

I like my ravagers and haywire blasters just fine, but I don't love the idea of feeling compelled to load up on them every game.

No, I'm very much in the same boat. Especially as I'd like warrior-heavy lists to actually be worth a damn, rather than paying a premium for models that are only equipped for laser-tag.


I'm also concerned about other vehicles getting drastic increases in durability, whilst the Venom has seen its save halved. Oh and it's now just 2" faster than a Rhino. And it's drastically worse as an assault vehicle than a Taurox. And its guns are still hilariously bad.

Yeah. The saving grace someone pointed out on the venoms is that you can hide them behind a corner, have the passengers disembark and shoot, and then have the passengers hop back into the hidden venom afterwards.

So sort of a wonky, vehicle-based version of battle focus. Of course, that's a lot more useful for lances than blasters, but at least it's something.

But yeah. Very curious to see what they do with dark eldar this edition. Because in an edition where anti-tank guns got more strength, our most common anti-tank gun didn't, and in an edition where things are becoming more durable, our venoms got squishier.

I have very low expectations at this point. But maybe our 4 augments are insanely cool, raiders have assault vehicle and the other 5 strats don't suck like the first one does. probably not reality but who knows.

The trick with venoms is super janky and unfun rule design, not unlike indirect fire actually. If it proves to be worth focusing on my bet is it will be nerfed similar to the old -6" to enemy range.
That said I don't feel it's gonna be anything amazing because the guns the venom and warriors have just aren't worth focusing on. At least not unless they're stupidly under costed. Hope I'm wrong.

And its up..
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-us/warhammer-40000/

GL trying to have any fun with that mess.

I guess its hypocritical on me saying other factions need to think about their problems before posting - but I think DE look... mixed.

It feels like 9th edition was all about trying to make spiky-Eldar a melee threat after having been "codex venom spam" for the longest time. That's clearly been chucked now, and most melee units are looking kind of poor as a result. Baring in mind we lost turn 2 army wide advance and charge and 6s to wound giving extra AP on top of reductions. So we are both slower and less punchy. Pain Token rerolls are therefore somewhat mandatory - but rerolling 3s to hit isn't that much of a boost - when low S, low AP and 1 damage are the typical limiting factors.

So before Vipoid and co get in - lets do my stream of consciouness/Goonhammer bit from the top on every datasheet.

Archon, has a Husk Blade. Can still take a Blast Pistol, probably losing that in the codex. Can't join Incubi. Can join Court (but we'll get to that) or Kabalites. Gives rerolls to wound to hit unit which is nice, but not exactly crazy on these targets. When empowered he'll kill about 3 Space Marines which is okay I guess.

Beastmasters are in the index which surprises me. You have to take a fixed load out of one fiend, 2 dogs and 3 birds. Which is a bunch of attacks, but the stats are all over the place so not really sure what the unit wants to do. At M12 it is fast though and can reroll charges.

Court. Oh dear. Fixed loadout with 1 of each. With the Archon this potentially makes an interesting unit with all the stacking rules (fight first, lethal hits, rerolls to wound) but without opening a calculator I'd worry the critical mass isn't there into anything significant.

Cronos. Use a pain token in 9"? On a 4+ get one back. Isn't going to kill anything.

Drazhar is choppy, but a lot less choppy than in 9th. Can join Incubi (and... we'll get to them soon).

Grotesques - some S5 AP-1 2 damage attacks. Might be okay points permitting but not loving it.

Haemi - Wargear options: none.
Can join wracks, gives them a 4+++ (up from their 5+++). -1 aura for Battleshock tests. Weirdly might be a capable character assassin if your opponent were ever to fail some saves.

Hellions. Kind of like now if they went sober. Might be okay points depending.

Incubi. Nerfed dramatically. 3 WS3+ S4 AP-2 2 damage attacks. Gone from a unit which would trade into just about anything to where 5 are touch and go to clear 5 Marines if you use a pain token. They should kill one terminator and vaguely scratch the paintwork of a Rhino. Gained a 5++ but still going to die from a bunch of S4 AP- attacks. Make the opponent take a battleshock test which might be nice (as it gets you a pain token).

Kabalites get the "its in the box, stupid" treatment. Unitsize of 10, you can take a shredder, a blaster, a dark lance and a splinter cannon if you want. If its free why not, otherwise not sure why you'd bother even if running this confused little gun squad around in a venom (archon optional) might be fun for a laugh.

Think we saw Lelith in the preview. Kind of hamstrung by 1 damage. She can kill 2 Space Marines. Helps wyches out quite a lot.

Mandrakes can move around the battlefield at the end of your opponents turn which should be good for scoring.

Raider. Always advances 6. No assault on the guns though. Dissie is 3 BS3+ S5 AP-2 2 damage. Dark Lance as shown.

Ravager gets to reroll 1s to hit if targeting a full strength unit. Its T9 4+/6++.

Razorwing Jetfighters still inexplicably get to choose which missiles to use and gets +1 to hit vs non-flying units.

Reavers. Can fly over stuff and do some mortal wounds. In combat has 3 S4 AP- attacks. So if 6 hit a unit of Marines they'd kill 1 guy. And with a pain token maybe wound another. Hmmm...

As an aside - concerned about Blasters? Meet the Heat Lance. S14 AP-4 D6 damage but Melta 3. To my mind an explicitly better gun which will only be balanced by being much more expensive.

Scourge can take 4 of them and can move 6" after shooting. Only BS4+ - but with assault. Not sure any of the other options are worth thinking about (but I'm only giving it 20 seconds).

Succubus. Not loving it. She can take a blast pistol. Her weapons are anti-infantry 3+ AP-2 and... 1 damage. If Empowered her unit gets to fight first and she gives her unit sustained hits all the time. So 6 attacks, 6-7 hits, 4 wounds, 2.66 wounds go through. She kills a Space Marine. And can only join Wyches, (obviously). Can be boosted by enhancement with 2 more attacks an 2 more AP which might be okay I guess - with some luck she'll kill 3 whole space marines or a terminator.

Talos are max unit 2 now, so you know they are good...
In practice I feel one of the losers from their guns going to twin-linked - as a result it feels like they don't have much firepower even if it is reliable. Not sure the melee sis anything special. T7 3+/6+/5+++. If it kills an enemy unit its permanently empowered for the rest of the game which I guess could be useful if it means you reroll everything.

Rakarth can come back from the dead and bring Wracks back.

Venom is as seen. Can split up a unit of kabalites or wyches.

Voidraven does Voidraven stuff.

Wracks go mega on "its in the kit so you can take it". Can bring a hex rifle, liquifier, ossefactor and stinger pistol for every 5 guys. Unit of 5-10. Gain a pain token if it kills a unit and when this unit dies. Unfortunately melee is 2 3+ anti-infantry 4+ AP- 1 damage attacks. So in a world where 10 of them could attack its 20*2/3*1/2*1/3=2.222=1 dead space marine. A bunch of hex rifles (Heavy, Precision, BS3+ S6 AP-2 3 damage) might actually represent a serious threat to characters.

Wyches... yeah awful. Special Weapons are gone. Drugs are gone. Mandatory unit of 10. Baseline its 3 S3 AP-1 1 damage attacks. With an attached Succubus (or Lelith) I guess these might be okay. Looking fragile and insignificant without.

Basically as said at the top. The assault "needs" a pain token, but even then I'm not sure its worth it. You'll bounce too often, and then just die. Points depending etc - I think you can probably make quite a good shooting list.

But I may be being overly negative. Its early days and hard to have a feel for what's "good enough" to compete.

Could add lamentations on loss of options and flavour - but I figure that's a given with DE.

Feth this army.

I said I wouldn't but I messed with the rules because I'm upset. And I wanted to prove.. something Idk what. that I'm justified I guess. And to me it did. Anyway this is the shell I believe every single drukhari list will start with, and then a very very select few choices afterwards. Dark light spam plus whatever fits.

HQ
warlord drazhar 105
UNITS
6 grotesques 6 liquifiers 210
5 incubi demiklaives 85
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
2 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 100
1 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 50
1 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 50
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
DT
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90

TOTAL 1995

Will it win games? Yes I believe it will be quite nasty. Is there any real choices in list building? Absolutely not. No real decisions, no points flexibility AT ALL, no.. ownership of the army anymore. Nuthin. And warriors are still bad. Only now they can't be msu unless you erase the benefit by taking a venom tax. thus the wracks spam, because their weaponry durability and cost is all superior. So there it is. What I would expect most drukhari lists wishing to compete will look like. Flex spots being the HQ, incubi, grots. I suppose theres room to squeeze more raiders and warriors. Now I'm truly done.

Massed Wracks is an option but I'm not sure its the only one.

Sort of influenced by Canadian 5th's idea in one of the threads.

Archon + The Art of Pain (Warlord) 85+25
Kabalites 120 (Dark Lance, Splinter Cannon, Blaster, Shredder etc)
Kabalites 120 Etc
Kabalites 120 Etc
Kabalites 120 Etc
Venom 80 (Dual cannons obviously)
Venom 80 Etc
Venom 80 Etc
Venom 80 Etc
Raider 90 Dark Lance
Raider 90 Dark Lance
Ravager 95 Dark Lances
Ravager 95 Dark Lances
Ravager 95 Dark Lances
Scourge 120 Dark Lances
Scourge 120 Dark Lances
Scourge 120 Dark Lances
Mandrakes 70
Wracks 65 All weapons
Wracks 65 Etc
Wracks 65 Etc
Total: 2000.

55 bodies. 9 vehicles. 1 character.

This might be a bit silly at 27 Dark Lances and you might want some more explicit horde clearance (but I think blast is going to make this edition extremely horde unfriendly), but go with it. Splinter Cannons aren't exactly good, but 12 of them should contribute something over a game. Could swap out on the Ravagers, but without a way to give rerolls to wound I don't think Dissies will do enough. Thought about a Voidraven with Dark Scythes - but at more than 2 Ravagers its hard to believe that's points efficient.

Anyway, the plan is for the Venoms to split off the Kabalites so you've now got 2 Raiders each effectively equipped with with 3 Dark Lances, 2 Splinter Cannons, 2 Blasters, 2 Shredders and a couple of splinter rifles. Obvious power from pain target helping out that mediocre BS4+ on the Kabalite heavy weapons. Good Target too for Strike and Fade if you can get out of LOS/Range.

This is supported by the long range ravagers and scourge - all of which are fast and have fly so should be able to get angles on something (and Scourge can then dip back out of LOS). I was very pro-Heat Lances in the post above, and they might be worth experimenting with, but I suspect keeping your distance may be better, unless you need more stuff up the board. Had a thought about mass Shredders, but don't think that works into MEQ, and doubt mass GEQ will be meta relevant.

The Venoms with non-special weapon kabalites shoot up the board, with the Wracks jogging behind them to take/pressure mid-board objectives/act as chaff as required. The Mandrakes are there to appear in the opponent's deployment zone if they push out/grab an undefended objective late game when most stuff is dead.

Not sure the Art of Pain is worth it (as you need the Archon on the table) - but its sort of compensation for the fact we aren't taking a Succubus, Haemi or Cronos etc. Having the Archon just floating in the wind is potentially bad - but its hard to believe he's going to do anything worthwhile. He should be easy enough to hide out of LOS, still has a shadowfield if a few lascannons etc can somehow draw a bead, and this way is giving me something - and letting me use Devious Mastermind (Vect) if my opponent has any good stratagems they'll want to spam. In some matchups he might just join up with a Kabalite squad and you'll just miss out on some pain tokens.

Anyway - the pain tokens will be 3+1+1 a turn +unit kills/any battleshock failures (and presumably 3 dead Wrack units). Expectation is only to use them on shooting, or if you need a charge to get something on an objective. So this is probably good enough for at least 3-4 a turn over the game depending on how MSU your opponent is. With potentially a skew into early game alpha strike and a second burst when the wracks inevitably die (probably turn 2/3).

Venoms and kabs could be decent if there's infantry to shoot. And perhaps a small amount is worth it for sticky objs. But 40 kabs and 4 venoms is just asking to run into knights or Raven Wing or similar skew list that doesn't care about anti infantry since there is no more troops tax. Then 800 pts is impotent. But I guess it depends on your local meta.

The bigger question to me is what this faction has left when they nerf dark lances and increase costs for ravagers and scourges.

dominuschao wrote:
I said I wouldn't but I messed with the rules because I'm upset. And I wanted to prove.. something Idk what. that I'm justified I guess. And to me it did. Anyway this is the shell I believe every single drukhari list will start with, and then a very very select few choices afterwards. Dark light spam plus whatever fits.

HQ
warlord drazhar 105
UNITS
6 grotesques 6 liquifiers 210
5 incubi demiklaives 85
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 wracks hexrifle, liquifier, ossefactor 65
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
5 scourges 4 dark lances, blast pistol 120
2 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 100
1 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 50
1 cronos spirit syphon, vortex 50
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
1 ravager 3 dark lances 95
DT
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90
1 raider dark lance 90

TOTAL 1995

Will it win games? Yes I believe it will be quite nasty. Is there any real choices in list building? Absolutely not. No real decisions, no points flexibility AT ALL, no.. ownership of the army anymore. Nuthin. And warriors are still bad. Only now they can't be msu unless you erase the benefit by taking a venom tax. thus the wracks spam, because their weaponry durability and cost is all superior. So there it is. What I would expect most drukhari lists wishing to compete will look like. Flex spots being the HQ, incubi, grots. I suppose theres room to squeeze more raiders and warriors. Now I'm truly done.

Yeah, I mean, I dont know why youre spamming cronos personally, but you've got the gist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In general Drukhari has performed a 'return to form' from having our best codex in terms of flexibility and build variety and general 'everything is usable' in 9e...and we're back to being a collection of Junk and Jank.

You can spam the thing that's good and win, even win heavily in some matchups (that's dark lances and gun wracks. It's not hard to figure out that that's dark lances and gun wracks.)

2x5 kabs in venoms might be worth throwing in to sticky some objectives and fly around and score gak. If you take them in a venom you can actually split up their specials and heavies to make a reasonably specialized squad.

All 3 basic HQs are colossal dogshit. drazar is ok. I'm looking at running lelith to get the +1 pain token but...man, I dunno.

in terms of units that looked a bit better after I took my second look through and did some analysis -

Voidraven Bomber, basically 2 ravagers strapped together with the MW bomb ability, but it has to deep strike. Could be OK.

Reaver Jetbikes with heat lances, decent for the cost, fast, good at dealing unexpected damage.

Beastmaster, actually kind of a good bargain basement cheap squad, 21 T4 wounds for 120 points and then not having a huge squad size to get slaughtered by indirect fire blast gak is OK.

Hellions are also another OK bargain basement squad. They have basically the perfect amount of firepower and melee to clear out 10 GEQ or 5 MEQ and move fast. Theyre kinda what wyches are trying and failing to be because wyches are just so damn expensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
but in general yeah, huge massive disappointment of an index. Clearly put together with very little effort, by someone who didnt know the army at all, didnt know what gak was supposed to do, didnt have any clue how drukhari was supposed to function at its core and just twiddled from the baseline of the 9th ed book without really having a good idea of how 10th works.

Where are people landing on HQs? Is it worth biting the bullet and taking 3 generics for the extra pain tokens? Can you be cheeky and just hide a haemi in the backfield for screening and pain token generation without giving him a squad to hang out with? Or does that just invite indirect fire?

I was initially leaning towards taking Drazhar and no other characters, but I'd appreciate not putting Draz and a squad of incubi at the heart of every single army.

My wracks are old and gunless, so I'm hesitant to spam them given that I'm presumably missing out on a couple dozen points worth of guns in each squad.

Had my first game of 10th edition yesterday. I got caught out by some rules a couple of times and ended up getting stomped. Hopefully I'll do better next time.

I ran:
1 Haemonculus w/ the 1 PT per command phase enhancement
1 Wracks X 5 (no guns because my models are ye olde grotesques)
1 Warriors
1Raider w/ lance
1 Venom w/ 2xSC
1 Ravager w/ lances
3 scourge squads, 1 with heat lances, 1 with dark lances, 1 with haywires
1 Reavers (3 bikes) with caltrops and a heat lance

My opponent ran:
1 foot 'tarch
2 Spirit seers
1 Wraithseer
1 wraithblades with axes
1 wraithguard with cannons
1 guardians with lance
1 wave serpent
1 swooping hawks X 5

Mission was Eternal War.

I felt like I had enough lances and poison to give my opponent a run for his money, the plan being to kite his slow wraiths in the first half and then try to push onto an objective en-masse while my own objectives remained under my control thanks to the warriors' special rule.

My first mistake was forgetting that you can disembark after a transport moves. This allowed him to move up his wraith guard in the serpent and take out my heat lance scourges on the top of 1, dramatically reducing my firepower.

After that, I took out his wave serpent pretty easily (just using my ravager and reaver heat lance with no pain tokens). And then I did approxomitely zero damage for the rest of the game.

Each turn, I tried to focus fire as many guns as I could on his units, but he'd use the Phantasm eldar strat to move them out of line of sight. As a result, a lot of my big guns ended up without anything to shoot at for the first few turns (or else ended up shooting at 4+ invuln. This also allowed him to functionally double the speed of his wraith blades in the second half of the game when he no longer needed to hide.

Between good saves and being hidden behind terrain, I wasn't able to kill the wraith guard. My splinters did almost nothing due to lack of AP. My darklight whiffed against his 5+ saves (he was in cover). I kept chipping away at them, but apparently spirit seers let you rez a wraithguard in each player's command phase.

So basically, I couldn't concentrate enough firepower to kill much. The guns I did shoot weren't powerful enough to wipe out my targets. The models I did kill were mostly rezzed by spirit seers. Eventually, he whittled down my firepower enough to move up his wraith blades to win the objective game. His swooping hawks didn't have to do anything. My reavers tried to bum rush his guardians at one point, but bounced off harmlessly and got killed by the autarch.

Overall, it was a fun game against a friendly opponent, but I guess I need to get good at the new edition.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Where are people landing on HQs?

The Haemonculus seems the least arse of the three, but it's still akin to choosing my favourite venereal disease.


Honestly, though, I won't be trying any of them because the index has effectively shredded any interest I had in playing what was once my favourite army. I can't even muster the enthusiasm to write a list.

 vipoid wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Where are people landing on HQs?

The Haemonculus seems the least arse of the three, but it's still akin to choosing my favourite venereal disease.


Honestly, though, I won't be trying any of them because the index has effectively shredded any interest I had in playing what was once my favourite army. I can't even muster the enthusiasm to write a list.

That's fair. There are a few things that make me want to give them a fair shake (scourges finally being able to move-shoot-move, and a couple other maneuvering tricks), but their mechanics are probably less fluffy now than they've ever been. Even 7th at least let you customize your characters a little and choose which units they attached to. And the covens book that edition had some genuinely cool/fluffy stuff.

Only played 3 games in 10th (using Necrons each time), I was too disappointed at our index rules to give Drukhari a go. But, I will mention because I haven't seen it yet - the haywire blaster is actually a fantastic weapon. As of now, anti-X turns all successful wounds into devastating (if the weapon has devastating as well). So the haywire is pumping out a ton of mortals against vehicles. Of course, it is always a risk taking a weapon that will be useless if you end up facing off against a list without vehicles.

 Grumblewartz wrote:
Only played 3 games in 10th (using Necrons each time), I was too disappointed at our index rules to give Drukhari a go. But, I will mention because I haven't seen it yet - the haywire blaster is actually a fantastic weapon. As of now, anti-X turns all successful wounds into devastating (if the weapon has devastating as well). So the haywire is pumping out a ton of mortals against vehicles. Of course, it is always a risk taking a weapon that will be useless if you end up facing off against a list without vehicles.

Had the same experience trying mono harlequins, haywire is soooolid if your opponent's playing vehicles

I've never played as OR against Drukhari in any edition, but I think I want to try giving them a go.

I've been looking over the index, and I agree that Drazhar and Incubi will be my go-to Warlord unit. Also gonna try the Archon leading some Kabalites, purely because the Archon gives reroll wounds. In my games of 10th so far with other armies, I know how useful that is.

My rough list includes a lot of the same units listed as "good" in this thread, so I think I'm on the right track.

I'll probably start with a Combat Patrol if I can find one. They're out of stock on the Australian GW site. I actually want every unit in the CP box. I was also looking at Tau as my next army, but only actually wanted 2 of the 5 CP units for their box... Might mean Drukhari happens first.

Question: I don't really use transports in either of my existing armies. What's the smartest way of using a Raider? My infantry will include probably Kabalites and Incubi, not sure about anything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Before anyone asks why I'm starting an army that you all are saying is rubbish, it's because the models look awesome.

Hecate wrote:

Question: I don't really use transports in either of my existing armies. What's the smartest way of using a Raider? My infantry will include probably Kabalites and Incubi, not sure about anything else.

Well, the "big" trick with raiders right now is to field two squads of kabalites, two venoms, and a raider. The venoms let you split the kabalite squads in half, so you can put all your special weapons (or at least all the lances and blasters) in the raider and put your other kabalites in the venoms. This means that you can spend a single pain token to buff 3 dark lances, 2 blasters, and whatever other guns you put in the raider while the smaller (easier to hide) venoms with their more expendable kabalites zip around making objectives sticky.

Other than that:
* Go lance; not disintegrator. 10th edition makes us need lots of lances.
* Don't be afraid to use your raider to movement block or even charge enemy units. You won't win the fight, but you might keep your opponent at a distance and vulnerable to your army's shooting for an extra turn. This tactic is less good with the above super raider though.
* Because of how ruins work in 10th edition, you can fly up onto tall ruins to give your attacks plunging fire. Your dark lances don't care about this much as their AP is already good, but your splinter weapons do. Just don't do this with a raider containing a melee unit that you need to charge with next turn because they'll have to climb all the way down to the ground again.

Ahhh, I see. I was planning on taking a couple Venoms anyway, so I'll try that trick. Thanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, would the Kabalites simply stay in the Raider until it gets destroyed? Kabs are shooty, not melee, so that kinda makes sense...

I just wanted to post again after 4 more game with DE. I'm beyond bored of our index, there's NOTHING in it. There's a bit of cheekiness that can be done with 6xReavers, it's possible they can kill 5man marine units on and then take those objectives, for a CP. We have nothing durable. The bulk of our units are for skirmishing with T3 Sv5+ battleline units. I don't see those on the table in any game. So we're left with Dark Lance spam with 50% of our 9th ed movement and durablility. Sadly we play like a speedy guard army that forgot their armour and hundreds of expendable bodies.
What should we be throwing onto middle objectives that can handle being shot at? Seems like the DE strategy is to sticky an objective and hope the enemy has no reserves or deepstrike or fast stuff, otherwise GG. Talos are the closest thing, IF I could put a Haemonculus with them a 4+FNP would 'help' but even they fall apart really quickly. It's just so boring.
A court of the archon with Kabalites + Archon is 270pts, why is this an option? What does it do that justifies super heavy/epic character points? T3 with -1 to wound, haha, I'd love to see the games GW played where this was relevant.

You guys are aware we have at least at the last balance update been considered the absolute Worst Faction bar none and auspex tactics put us on 2nd worst army with only Blood Angels doing worse right?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/19/warhammer-40000-metawatch-sisters-of-battle-triumph-in-tampa/

Also the meta-watch was a list of 60,000 games of 40k and their winners and losers. We're at 44% win rate which is the lowest. I imagine however this depends on the factions we face
however.




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I faced an Admech player which is probably the first time i've faced admech in years and i will say their cavalry heavy list (sulphurhounds) is totally invulnerable to poison these days since it isn't infantry. First time in my current set of games of 10th where poison was almost completely worthless. Also the forcing mortal wounds in my deployment zone for a MSU army was quite absurd against how i ran dark eldar since we've always done MSU. The person i fought also got first turn. I dunno this current list is bad and i should've brought void ravens. So much for thinking it'd be a friendly game. That said we're doing terribly.

44% seems too high. It feels like a 34% chance of winning. There's a host of evidence DE are gak tier. This is a 9th ed thread we have to use; because there's nothing in 10th to make a thread about... Skari has to play at his best against a non tourney list to win after he gave up on them for a bit. Don't worry though they'll make wyches cheaper still. I still fail to see how you build a successful list relying on poison weapons and S3 melee.

While i dislike things about our army and i think Reavers are a lot trashier than people say i will say Dark Scythe Void Ravens are REALLY good esp. when you boost them with a pain token so they get re-rolls to hit. I haven't tested them out on MEQ units yet or even terminators but they're strength 8, ap 4, 2 damage attacks but like 12 per void raven and void raven missiles and will clear a squad of marines with just one volley per plane and i only used them for one turn since we only played 2 full turns (he went first as a guard player and i went 2nd but i was hidden with almost everything but ravagers)

This game my scourge squads also did really well. Often you need units to prevent deep strike and reserves from coming up behind them and wiping them out. Jump-shoot-jump is fantastic however. I only wish some of our other units got it like our bikes.

Venoms are alright but their small footprint is good.

Ravagers are good but their footprint is way too big like with raiders. So any shooting army that goes first will focus ravagers down first as they always do.

Reavers are over-rated. If they miss with heat lances they're garbage in both melee and in shooting. The only good thing with reavers is to ruin enemy DS/reserves and taking objectives from the enemy.

5 man wracks with liquifier in venoms are....ok.

I've used minimum size (5-man) hellion squads and while they sound nice on paper the toughness 4, 5+ armor and even 2 wounds is....really bad. Even the shooting and melee can't make them good enough. I just have a hard time looking at them and void ravens compared to each other and thinking i'd rather have 10 hellions instead even with the turn 2 reserves problem. In fact that makes the void ravens even better in some ways except for the inability to hold objectives.

Warriors and poison in general (except maybe splinter cannons) is good vs light infantry and not much else. The 3+ to wound vs infantry is nice when it's in effect. Usually i don't face bikes and cavalry but when i do in large numbers i just cry like against my one admech opponent. I haven't faced admech since like 7th edition before the last opponent i played against though.

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Basically our army is wracks, poisoned shooting (maybe), void ravens and then lots of dark lances and then nothing else of value. I have yet to try cronos yet but you can get a couple in a 2,000 pts game for really cheap and if you put them near your scourge and ravagers they should theoretically be reasonably good (100 pts total for 2 cronos is not a bad price tag).

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
You guys are aware we have at least at the last balance update been considered the absolute Worst Faction bar none and auspex tactics put us on 2nd worst army with only Blood Angels doing worse right?

Doesn't surprise me in the least.
- Our detachment rule might as well not exist.
- Our HQs are pigswill, though the Succubus gets extra points for having a weapon that's markedly worse than those of her peers. Good to see we've gone right back to our melee HQ being the worst in melee.
- Poison weapons have been abysmal for the last 5 editions because monsters and heavy infantry have gotten tougher and tougher in terms of wounds, saves etc., whilst the poison weapons that are supposed to be effective against them have stayed exactly the same. GW's solution to this was to make poison weapons slightly better at wounding infantry.. in exchange for being useless against monsters, cavalry, bikes, beasts, swarms etc.
- The Blaster, once the equal of the Dark Lance, now has all the impact of a wet napkin.
- Wyches are apparently all suffering from withdrawal. They were good for all of 1 edition and now they must pay the price for it.
- Someone on the design team - you know who you are - decided that one of our army's 4 items should be the Crucible of Malediction. Because a 1/battle ability to gently tickly an enemy psyker's unit, if it fails a Ld roll, is definitely something that adds tremendous flavour to a character with no other wargear options.
- Raiders and Venoms still aren't Assault vehicles, despite this being a core aspect since their inception.
etc.

What's worse, though, is that DE are such a dreary army now. Neither 8th nor 9th could be acused of bristling with love or creativity for the army, but at least there was a few small sparks here and there. 10th has come along and drowned those sparks in raw sewage.

@vipoid:

I know how you feel man. The only really good things in our army are dark lance spam and void ravens (likely dark scythes) and little else. Poisoned shooting is ok but only against infantry. The wracks and Cronos basically just exist for Pain Token spamming and that's basically just it. If an opponent spams pure infantry, heavy infantry or vehicle lists it might be a hard game for us. I oddly don't know how i'd handle a spam of 2 or 3 wound space marine units. Guardsmen spam could also be pretty nasty however against my last list.

The math on Reavers is: a 6 man unit moves and advances over 5 marines. Use their ability and upgrade to reroll one 4+, about 4 mortals. Then shoot, probably kill another with a heat lance and throw a wound from the poison. Then spend a CP and charge, the other upgrade is for the Sgts weapon to have Lance, so wounds infantry on 2+. Those attacks plus the smattering of others will statistically finish the job.
I've tried 2 units of 5 mandrakes in a raider, kind of fun shooting boat. Then after it's destroyed, they fade away. 1 Cronos is good enough, usually nets me lots of tokens. Talos with haywire and fists can be functional with -1 to wound against some targets.

 Gibblets wrote:
The math on Reavers is: a 6 man unit moves and advances over 5 marines. Use their ability and upgrade to reroll one 4+, about 4 mortals. Then shoot, probably kill another with a heat lance and throw a wound from the poison. Then spend a CP and charge, the other upgrade is for the Sgts weapon to have Lance, so wounds infantry on 2+. Those attacks plus the smattering of others will statistically finish the job.
I've tried 2 units of 5 mandrakes in a raider, kind of fun shooting boat. Then after it's destroyed, they fade away. 1 Cronos is good enough, usually nets me lots of tokens. Talos with haywire and fists can be functional with -1 to wound against some targets.

That sounds really terrible on the reavers vs marines. Use dark scythe void ravens with Pain token boost and you'll feel silly you ever attempted something so complex to kill 5 simple marines.

I am curious about mandrakes in raiders but raiders have a stupidly large foot print for a faction that needs to hide turn 1 to not absolutely get murdered. Sadly all finecast models for dark eldar are unavailable to buy because screw us right. This is a more damning thing on ravagers however because any opposing shooting army with the range will know just how important these are and it might be better to have them early.

I haven't got talos or cronos sadly. I know it's criminal to have no talos in a dark eldar army but i don't like them for some reason. I never really have. I might grab a couple cronos though esp. now.