A return to the Dark Side

[Mal]

Hi, some of you will know me from various other 40K forums/blog sites/etc etc, but for those of you who don't im Mal. Pleased to meet you.

Over the years I have collected every army bar Tau (who I have to admit just bore me to tears, oddly enough even more so than necrons), anyway, I recently quit the game due to a number of bad experiences with overzelious players, but my brother invited me to take part in one of his events and the 40K spark was relit... im still not sure if I should thank him or shoot him...

Anyway i've decided for a change of pace and am starting a new army, well revisiting an old army would be more appros I suppose. After the best part of 10 years im returning to the Dark Side with Dark Eldar (yes this is in part to the new codex thats comming out soon... after all if I make a right hash of the army and want a change I can be almost assured of a sale with a new codex out).

Now onto the problem... its been nearly 10 years since I played Dark Eldar... its bad enough that we have a serious lack of eldar players in the area, but we have not one dark eldar player so my tactics and list building for this feared foe is somewhat rusty (read: I can't remember a thing).

So, would I like from yous lot...
Well simply put, I would like any tips and tactics you can offer me, i've come up with a couple of varients of army builds from what little I do remember, but thats breaks down to simply, lots of fast moving things, the only rule I remember for dark eldar is a stationary one is a dead one.

So any help, tips, advice you can offer me would be great, many thanks,
Mal.

[blackarmchair]

Whew.

Well, first and foremost, welcome back to the hobby sir. As far as DE go I am by no means a DE player but I have played against them so I think I can give you a little advice as to what seems to work for them in 5e (which won't be relevant for long seing as they're getting a new book).

The 3rd ed DE book really has 2 kinds of units: pure crap and pure win. Winning really starts with including the right units, a short list of things to simply skip (working from memory): Grotesques, Mandrakes, Warp Beasts, Hellions. And a quick list of things that seem to work: Any HQs, Wyches, Warrior spam, Ravagers.

The best lists I've seen have been really shooty armies that spam lances and disintegrators.

That means five or six troop choices in raiders with blaster and dark lance in the squad and either dark lance or disintegrator on the raider.

Also bring at least 2 Ravagers with 3x Lances or Disintegrators (whichever you didn't get enough of on the warriors).

For HQ's you have some leeway; I've seen people use Archons with retinue as an assaulty squad (which is decent). My preference is to take Haemonuculus kitted out with that mean DE wargear and attach them to squads.

As per fun toys, Wyches and Jetbikes are the real way to go. Ignore most of the other elites and fast choices...they're seven kinds of terrible. Especially Hellions...seriously...never take hellions.

I'm no real expert so if someone who actually plays DE comes in and contradicts me go with what they say. But I hope that all that was somewhat helpful.

Good luck!

[Mal]

Well thats a place to start at least, thanks muchly for your imput.

In general the army lists I was looking at basically consisted of zero foot sloggers. all infantry mounted on raiders and bike spam... (31 bikes to be precise).

That was my first list, and the big problem should be immediately evident... 31 bikes!! YIKES!! my wallet isn;t going to like that very much.

The second list was a little different but following the same general idea (albeit a different general stragety), it essentially consists of a dracon + ret on a raider, a unit of wyches on a raider, lots of small warrior units on raiders and a bike squad or 2 and if I can squeeze it in an archon on bike to ruin peoples day.

Of course these are just lists that I threw together on army builder (don't have the dex yet), so wargear/special rules are still something of a grey area for me.

Ohh and I have absolutly no idea of how the synergy of this army will work, but the one thing I wanted to avoid was glass units that can't move fast when needed, and lets face it, aside from grotesques, what isn't a glass unit in the DE list.

[DrLove42]

The obvious big point to consider is are you looking to build it in the next 2 months, or willing to wait for a new codex?

You could spend a fortune on models, time on painting them and then find they get nerfed hard, or become uncompetitive, or have better options available.

My advice would be to get a few models you like from the existing range (i'm trying hard to think of any that aren't about to be improved on....Harlequins? :P) and do them in the time being, but wait for the new codex to work out a plan. No one can give long term advice on the DE, as in 2 months they get rules changed to something none of us know!

Under current codex, raiders, DL spam tends to work. I agree with a lot of what darkarmchairs said. Warriors, raiders, ravagers, incubi, lots of DL are the way to go...but as always its personal preference!

[Mal]

I suspect that warriors and raiders will still be the core of the new dex, if that was to change then we would have heard something by now.

Also if im perfectly honest, I really don't like the new jet bike minis... so im buying up old ones from evilBay.

Im also buying up the old wychs, the new ones are nice, but im just not sure if I like them. The biggest problem im finding it getting my hands on enough dark lance warriors and blasters for pretty much anything.

Ohh and there is one thing on the GW website I don't get... a DE jet bike retails for £7... but a squadron of 3 retail for £25... now correct me if im wrong but isnt 7x£3 only £21? sure you may get some extra bits to make the squad leader with... but you'll get plenty of those in other boxed sets anyway... its just weird.

Anyhew, im buying the army for my birthday (which is in about 2 weeks), im not worried about having a small excess of minis I don't need after the new dex comes out, i'll just drop them on ebay since they'll likely be oop by then anyway.

I will likely replace the incubi/archon and warriors when the new ones come out, but I can replace them gradually over as long a period as I like once they are released, but in the mean time i'll have another playable army.

[w7west]

I'll go ahead and say it, DL raider spam is a very weak form of a dark eldar army. First of all you do not build a shooty army on av 10 open top. The weaknesses of doing this become very clear when you face another army that can shoot (tau, ig, hell even lootas) Raiders serve a much better roll in taking insane close combat squads (WYCHES!!!) and getting them into assault faster and more efficiently than land raiders. The lances are simply there to make sure the wyches have something to attack!

Incubi are great but really end up just hindering your archon. It is better to use incubi with dracons that are base or poison blades, since the incubi are killy enough on their own.

An archon with 2+ invuln on skyboard with agonizer and drugs is the way to go. Deep strike him with (or without) a small hellion squad, and he can leave then proceed to win combats by himself.

Haemoculi on jetbikes with destructor and scissorhands are amazing. Take up to 3 as one hq and you now have a mini t5 seer counsil. Each one can act independently which means you can really overwhelm weak units like guardsmen. Join to reaver squad and you have yet another nasty anti armor / anti infantry squad.

Hellions actually don't suck. Take a 5 man squad with agonizer, xenospasm, and blaster. This is now a deep striking retinue for your archon / haemonculi on skyboards. Deep striking xenospasms is a great thing to do!

Have to run to class but ill edit later with more stuff!

edit:

After the faq came out, models with reaver jetbikes were no longer restricted to 1hand only weapons. What this means for us is that we can slap punisher/ pistol hats on our reaver succubi! Take a look at one of my favorite squads the dark eldar have:

5x reaver jetbike ( succubus, punisher, t helm, 2 x blaster ) - 186 points!

The succubus has (on the charge) 4 str 5 power weapon attacks... ouch! and almost any of the combat drug results will amplify the killiness quite a bit (str 6 power weapons are great!)


Something to keep in mind: With the new codex coming out, the army is changing quite a bit. The new codex pushes for large squad sizes by using various x weapons / y models types of deals. This is the complete opposite of how the army currently functions. Almost all of the killing that you do in cc is done by the squad leaders. The difference between assaulting with 3 wyches + succubus and assaulting with 10 wyches + succubus is actually quite minimal vs most targets wyches go for. Because of this, always think in terms of more squads rather than more models per squad (just make sure you take the correct upgrades!)