http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/14.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net CSM force to 4 or 5k for Apocalypse gaming. Thing is, I've never played with Dark Eldar before, and only played against them twice (in tournament environments) so I'm not really sure how they work in practice as opposed to how they work on paper.

I'm come up with the list below based on two factors: the amount of cash I'm willing to spend on an army that I have no intention of expanding at a later date, and picking an army that should do reasonably well (or as well as can be expected) against all others.

The feedback you guys give me will decide how I spent my cash. This army, or the CSM's.

Here's the 1500pt list I would be working towards with this project:

+++ Dark Eldar 1500pts (1494pts) +++

+ HQ + (280pts)
* Archon (150pts)
Blaster (15pts), Ghostplate Armour (10pts), Huskblade (35pts), Plasma Grenades, Shadow field (30pts)
* 2x Haemonculus (130pts)
* Haemonculus (65pts)
Close Combat Weapon, Hexrifle (15pts), Splinter Pistol
* Haemonculus (65pts)
Casket of Flensing* (10pts), Splinter Pistol, Venom Blade (5pts)

+ Elites + (346pts)
* Incubi (163pts)
Incubus Warsuit
* 4x Incubi (88pts)
4x Klaive
* Venom (75pts)
Flickerfield, Nightshield (10pts), Splinter Cannon (10pts)
* Kabalite Trueborn (183pts)
(Fleet, Night Vision, Power from Pain)
* 4x Trueborn (108pts)
4x Blaster (60pts)
* Venom (75pts)
Flickerfield, Nightshield (10pts), Splinter Cannon (10pts)


+ Troops + (588pts)
* Kabalite Warriors (200pts)
(Fleet, Night Vision, Power from Pain)
* 8x Kabalite Warrior (72pts)
8x Splinter Rifle
* Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon (19pts)
Splinter Cannon (10pts)
* Raider (70pts)
Dark Lance, Nightshield (10pts)
* Sybarite (39pts)
Phantasm Grenade Launcher (20pts), Splinter Rifle
* Kabalite Warriors (200pts)
(Fleet, Night Vision, Power from Pain)
* 8x Kabalite Warrior (72pts)
8x Splinter Rifle
* Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon (19pts)
Splinter Cannon (10pts)
* Raider (70pts)
Dark Lance, Nightshield (10pts)
* Sybarite (39pts)
Phantasm Grenade Launcher (20pts), Splinter Rifle
* Wyches (188pts)
(Dodge, Fleet, Night Vision, Power from Pain)
* Hekatrix (22pts)
Close Combat Weapon, Haywire grenades (2pts), Plasma Grenades, Splinter Pistol
* Raider (70pts)
Dark Lance, Nightshield (10pts)
* 8x Wyches (96pts)
8x Haywire grenades (16pts), 8x Plasma Grenades, 8x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon

+ Heavy Support + (280pts)
* Ravager (115pts)
(Aerial Assault, Night Vision)
Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Nightshield (10pts)
* Razorwing Fighter (165pts)
(Aerial Assault, Deep Strike, Night Vision, Supersonic)
Dark Lances (x2), Monoscythe Missile, Monoscythe Missile, Monoscythe Missile, Monoscythe Missile, Nightshield (10pts), Splinter Cannon (10pts)

The HQ choices would be split between the Wyches, the Incubi and the Trueborn depending on the opponents codex. The Ravager, Raiders and Trueborn are for trashing vehicles. The Incubi and Warriors are for trashing troops. The Wyches are there to do a bit of both as needed as the Razorwing is all about taking down other flyers.

That's about the limit of my strategy at the moment. Any advice you guys can offer would be welcome.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5843835.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5843835.page GMT
I'd drop the ghostplate for a soul trap, the shadowfield, in theory*, should last until your archon has done his job, the ghostplate will likely not see any light, while a soul trap has a chance to improve archon's strength, DE's low strength is a big obstacle, because the wound table actually works. With your current setup, you can also use blaster to attempt precision shot some characters to use soul trap before charging in. Additionally, you should also consider giving him a PGL, bit expensive, but if he goes with incubi, he needs the PGL to allow the unit to become all-terrain. And for that reason, I'd suggest against the plan to have archon deployed with a different unit depending on opponent, because with blasterborns, the huskblade and melee upgrades are wasted, with wyches, the PGL(if you take it) will be kinda wasted(wyches can get it cheaper), so if you do take my advices and use that setup, I'd always have the archon with the incubi... Obviously, if your group allows for count-as, just write a few lists.

Haemies are decently setup, personally, I'd say casket of flensing isn't worth the points, the short range and randomness makes it unreliable, whereas a liquifier is only a little shorter in range, but regardless of the AP roll, you know your liquifier will do roughly the same amount of wounds on the same blob of things everytime. Also note that haemy does not have fleet, so whichever unit they're charging with will lose their fleet reroll.

Kabbies don't need sybarite nor PGL, the only time they'll begin to worry about a ld test is when the raider blows up, and by then, they've already become useless(smaller in number(so easy to explode an open top!), barely a save, low toughness, etc), may as well limit your losses. Also, SC upgrade doesn't bring as much hurt as the splinter racks upgrade, though the latter is very short range, so you'd have to expect your gunboats to go in and kill... or die.

Wyches are a bit oversized if they're only meant for HWG duty, but I understand you want them to be multitask... However, note that when/if they charge a non-walker vehicle, while they're certainly destroy it, they'll also be left in the open, and with their low toughness and nonexistent save, they likely won't be there for the multitasking. Also, hekatrix needs a weapon upgrade, there is no reason to buy a hekatrix without her weapon upgrade, that's the only way to improve your wyches' killy power. Also a PGL would be nice here if you have the spare points, not for the same reason as archon's PGL for incubi(because they all have nades already), but the defensive nades will allow your wyches an extra cover save on overwatch, because unlike CSM, any shot that got through the overwatch net will kill a wych, or worse, hekatrix if you didn't position them correctly.

Razorwing jet, I'd drop the SC, and if the points have nowhere to go, I'd get it a FF, if not, drop NS and get FF: SC is a bit wasteful, as in most games, you'd only get 0-1 turn worth of shooting out of it, due to flyer's limited movement; NS on the other hand isn't that great, as the primary anti-flyer weapon for most armies outranges your jet, but a FF allows you to get the 5+ without going into dodge mode, allowing you to fire at full BS the next turn, should you get the chance... But, if points can be spared, NS + FF will be wonderful.

Overall, I'd say AT is a bit weak, you have 1 ravager, 1 blasterborn unit and 1 HWG unit, jet as backup AT when needed(I think it's more suited for AI), so you gotta play carefully and make sure your AT units do their job before they get shot down, as the other units that you have will really struggle to open any tank.

Lastly, welcome to the dark side, hope you're here to stay.

P.S. No need to list every point value, GW doesn't like that, and we don't need that, anyone who'd care to comment on your list will have their own codex anyway.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5844102.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5844102.page GMT de without knowing much about them this is actually pretty good.

baronyu covered pretty much everything so no need to rehash. I would like to add though that your troops are deffinately lacking a bit at this point level. De are are super squishy, so if you were to field a list like this you would have a very slim chance of any of your troops surviving the final turn, so I would try to fit in at least one more troops choice preferably two, as baronyu mentioned the wyches are mostly used in small squads for suicide bombing, so after they've done their job you would be left with two really squishy kabal squads in paper airplanes. Anyways, hope this helped and best of luck to you ol chum! ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5845490.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5845490.page GMT
I'll sit down over the next few days and try to twiddle the list a bit, I'm thinking of trading out the Wych squad for a bunch of wracks in a raider and trying to find the points for a suicide Wych squad in a venom (but I might have to trade in a Homun for that). but I'm hoping that the upgrade tweaks Baronyu suggested will free up enough points to save the second Homunculis.

I'll also try to find points for equipping the Incubi with Grenades. I'll be keeping him with the Incubi (thanks for that Baronyu) and putting the keeper Homunculi in with the Trueborn so they have at least a small chance of surviving the destruction of their transport (or putting him in with the wracks for Furious Charge).

I totally feel the lack of anti-armour in this list and I know it will hurt me badly in tournaments. But most of my games will be against the local gaming group, and there is surprisingly little armour in the local meta. There's an IG army that rarely fields more than three tanks and an Elysian IG army that fields a lot of flyers, but other than that I rarely see more than one or two tanks or transpots on the table.

I think in tournaments though, that swapping out the Wyches in a venom for some Scourges with Haywire or Blasters might be a better alternative?

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Meanwhile, scourges seems to provide a mobile platform of AT, but once you factored in the cost and their profiles, they really aren't that great. Let's assume you use the standard setup of 5 scourges, 2 weapon upgrades, you'd be looking at a T3 4+/6++ W5 unit that can break if they lose even 1 model, they bring 9 30" poisoned shots and 2 30"-36" AT shots(depending on upgrade), movement included, and then you have to factor in that you have to roll on BS and AP for those AT shots, so you're looking at 1-2 glances or pen if you're lucky. So it lost to venom in both durability(yes, AV10 HP2 vehicles is considered durable when compared with scourges ) and damage output(both AI and AT). I'd take scourges as additional AT support, but not as main AT unit, because they're easy to shoot away and aren't dealing a lot of glances/pens at a good range either. Reavers, however, are worth considering if you're looking for main AT units, their T4, improved jink saves, drugs and JSJ make them quite a bit more durable than scourges, they cover about the same range but have the added advantages of being able to move out of that 18" killzone after shooting, as well as the option to assault very weak units if you have to(no, scourges can't even handle assault, and yes, only very weak units as reavers are also not that great in assault)... Also turbo boost for objective claiming in that one objective game.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5847213.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5847213.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5847839.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/539775/5847839.page GMT