1850 proven Dark Eldar

[thecactusman17]

A lot of people are going to look at this and scream at me for the cost of the transports. I know this. I realize why this is. but I swear, this actually works because of a few key aspects of what's going on in the play style and the unit synergy.

HQ: 255 pts
Baron
Duke

Troops: 1006
20x Hellions, Helliarch, Agonizer
9 Warriors, Blaster, Raider w/ Flickerfield, Nightshields, Splinter Racks, Aethersails
10 Wyches, Hekatrix, Agonizer, Haywire Grenades, Raider w/ Flickerfield, Nightshields, Aethersails
10 Wyches, Hekatrix, Agonizer, Haywire Grenades, Raider w/ Flickerfield, Nightshields, Aethersails

Heavy Support: 585
Razorwing Jetfighter w/ Splinter cannon, Flickerfield, Nightshields, Darklances and 4 Monoscythe missiles
Voidraven Bomber w/ Flickerfield, Nightshields, 4 Monoscythe missiles
Voidraven Bomber w/ Flickerfield, Nightshields, 4 Monoscythe missiles

The key here is unit synergy, and setting out very specific purposes for my units at the start of every game. Infantry are killed by the Warriors, Razorwing, and if there are no more vehicles to shoot at by the Voidravens. Thanks to the 4 missiles each turn they do a spectacular amount of damage vs. hordes., and the 3+ poison on the warriors thins out monstrous creatures and high-toughness units rapidly.

The Wyches are generally a pair of suicide squads. It sounds strange but it's true. they go in, find the biggest, toughest thing available and hit it as hard as possible even if they can't typically win against it. Against a few things, the Hellions will assume this purpose but generally the Wyches and their 4+ invul in close combat makes a huge difference. Duke gives them options on the combat drug rolls, it's rare that I don't take them without the Pain token if it's available but S5 on those hellions is pretty sweet too. With the Pain Token, they typically go immediately on tank hunting duty where the FNP protects them from explosion results and where their haywire makes them threatening to units that might otherwise be out of danger. Hellions with S+1 are also amazing at that role, if they can get a pair of pain tokens quickly.

The real gamewinner here is the unit of 20 hellions mixed with the Baron. In missions where they are tasked with capturing an objective, I place objectives as high or deep in terrain as possible (preferably 2+ ruin levels above the ground) and use their superior mobility to place them out of harms way, where they can make the most use of the Baron's stealth. You need to pull 6 of these off in one round of shooting to successfully force a morale check, and if they are already on top of a covered objective going to ground for a 2+ cover is very useful.

[w7west]

Pretty standard baron/duke list

[thecactusman17]

Interesting, have you seen it or one like it in play?

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

I run a similiar 2000 pt list check it out

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=15882

it wrecks stuff good
5 wins 1 draw

hellions are ok. they are definatly fun but i feel sometimes they are a point sink by dropping them and the mandrakes i got another squad of incubi and trueborn ina venom.

[adamkula]

i like the idea of all flyer support might take two fighters and one bomber though ......

[thecactusman17]

i like the idea of all flyer support might take two fighters and one bomber though ......

With so few Dark lances the S9 is a huge deal, and the small blasts are extremely useful for large targets like land raiders, valkyries and wave serpents. The only thing the jets get over them is missiles stock instead of optional. However, 40 points for the ability to put all those wounds on target is a bargain anyway. When you get down to it, the stock razorwing is a close topped ravager with missiles in place if the main gun, and the voidraven is a heavier version of that.

[thecactusman17]

A few hours later, and I'm thinking up ways to raise this to 'Ard Boyz levels.

How does this sound?

The above, with an additional 650 of Trueborn blasters in Venoms (4 model squads w/ dual splinters and nightshields), upgrading the last razorwing to a Voidraven, and a 3rd squad of identical wyches? Comes to just under 2500. I think that the loss of the RWs splinter cannon would be more than compensated by the extra strength and addition of 4 more of the things elsewhere.

Good lord, Haywire is great. Killing your opponent's supposedly impervious Monolith turn 2 after a single turn of combat? So worth it.

[magickbk]

Thanks to the 4 missiles each turn they do a spectacular amount of damage vs. hordes

I'm confused. Aren't you going to need your VoidRavens to take out vehicles the first few turns? In which case you unload your 4 missiles from the Razorwing on turn one, and then don't have any more until your VoidRavens get freed up from vehicle hunting. I've been trying to decide whether to put a Razorwing in my army, but after the turn 1 salvo, it then flies around as an underpowered Ravager with less armor, and no option to shock prow. It seems like a big trade off to hope the first salvo is devastating.

On the other hand, you've used the army, and I've only stared at the Codex and unopened boxes...

[BlindGunn]

I'm confused. Aren't you going to need your VoidRavens to take out vehicles the first few turns? In which case you unload your 4 missiles from the Razorwing on turn one, and then don't have any more until your VoidRavens get freed up from vehicle hunting. I've been trying to decide whether to put a Razorwing in my army, but after the turn 1 salvo, it then flies around as an underpowered Ravager with less armor, and no option to shock prow. It seems like a big trade off to hope the first salvo is devastating.

On the other hand, you've used the army, and I've only stared at the Codex and unopened boxes...
I noticed this as well.

Missiles are One-Shot weapons - you don't get to fire them each turn unless you meant to fire one fighter's/bomber's worth of missiles per turn (for 3 turns). Unless there's a new Errata I missed somewhere...

Otherwise, I do agree with the assesment about all the vehicle options. I've had a lot of luck using both NightShields and Flicker Fields with my Raiders as well.

The Hellion unit seemed excessive to me, but reading how you intend to use them, I can see how it would work. I never thought of going to ground while inside cover and with Stealth already. My aged mind just too slow to think that one up. Great idea! Mind if I "Borrow" it? ;)

[TheRise]

But BlinGunn on another thread nobody could actualy find a rule for One-Shot.

[Toxik]

I was under the impression that "oneshot" was one shot. Hence why they give you four of them to use, like Storm Eagle Rockets. I understand that the Manticore has a special rule stating limited used, but on the same hand the Deathstrike states "one shot only". Is the word "only" on the end the only way to think that "one shot" is really just one shot? I have been viewing the whole thing as GW "streamlining" the Manticore's limited ammo rule and the Deathstrike's one shot only rule by implying that each of the four missiles are one shot each.

[magickbk]

Much like psyker Mastery Levels in Codex: Grey Knights, One Shot can be assumed to be phrasing that is intended to be a rule classification in 6th Edition. Some would say that the intent is obvious, others would argue that because there is no text specifically stating it cannot be used in the way they interpret it, that it is acceptable.

For example, the rulebook has no text stating it is against the rules to fling my all-pewter 2nd Edition Dark Angels dreadnought at my opponent's forehead during rules arguments. The rulebook does say to attempt to resolve disagreements with a dice roll if a solution cannot be found, but since it doesn't specifically prohibit dreadnought throwing...

I believe the referenced thread about this argument is best summed up with this post:

Checked BA, IG, SM and DE - none of them define One Shot (or One Shot Only in the case of the Deathstrike) as a rule. The intent is obvious, but if you wanted to ride the douchecanoe downriver by pure RAW it is meaningless as a weapon type.
However doing so in more than a theoretical manner would likely see the end of the game for being a tool.

[thecactusman17]

I'm confused. Aren't you going to need your VoidRavens to take out vehicles the first few turns? In which case you unload your 4 missiles from the Razorwing on turn one, and then don't have any more until your VoidRavens get freed up from vehicle hunting. I've been trying to decide whether to put a Razorwing in my army, but after the turn 1 salvo, it then flies around as an underpowered Ravager with less armor, and no option to shock prow. It seems like a big trade off to hope the first salvo is devastating.

On the other hand, you've used the army, and I've only stared at the Codex and unopened boxes...

There are a couple of benefits to having a large blast weapon that can fire simultaneously with your lances. One of my favorites is the Danger Cloes method, where my opponent has placed a big pile of troops next to his vehicles to get a cover save. So I fire the lances, and all the missiles, positioning them so that they are on the very edge of the target vehicle and thus will be half over the target squad on a direct hit and have an increased chance of scattering fully over the squad. At S6 AP5, they also have a decent chance of glancing or even penetrating light armor such as Rhinos, Ork Trukks, Chimeras etc.

I don't take shock prows. I have never once caused a unit to flee with a tank shock. I have never once caused more damage to my opponent than myself on a Ram. I just don't take them, for any reason, because I have seen that they are an unreliable selection. With so much Ld9/10 and stubborn on the board in 5th edition, there is a slightly better chance of killing a terminator with a bolter than tank shocking anything worthwhile off the board or even an objective.

[Toxik]

It's things like this, that make me ask myself if I really want to play in tournaments again. Oh well, I'll just keep playing them as one shot each until it gets clarified as one way or the other. I doubt any of my opponents will argue with me about it. :rolleyes:

[magickbk]

I agree, the shock prow is a little weird. I would never use it to ram. And I also wouldn't base any strategy on being able to consistently tank shock enemy units. However, against certain armies (my Tau), tank shock is horrifyingly effective.

It all comes down to how you're playing. If you are playing in a tournament, you are right, you won't find enough running around with low leadership to make it worthwhile. But if you have 5 spare points in more casual play, or local tournaments, I've seen more than one close game turned on its ear in the last turn when someone rolls that 11 and their Chaos Marine squad abandons their heavily defended objective to an empty Rhino.

[thecactusman17]

I agree, the shock prow is a little weird. I would never use it to ram. And I also wouldn't base any strategy on being able to consistently tank shock enemy units. However, against certain armies (my Tau), tank shock is horrifyingly effective.

It all comes down to how you're playing. If you are playing in a tournament, you are right, you won't find enough running around with low leadership to make it worthwhile. But if you have 5 spare points in more casual play, or local tournaments, I've seen more than one close game turned on its ear in the last turn when someone rolls that 11 and their Chaos Marine squad abandons their heavily defended objective to an empty Rhino.

5 spare points in my list typically goes to something a little more constructive toward my play style, if possible. aethersails are great 5 point sinks, so are, oddly enough, envonomed blades against some armies like Orks and Tyranids. My ability to tank shock a unit however is not something that I generally concern myself with.

My philosophy with Dark Eldar is that their most important game phase is the movement phase. You don't have to move far, you may not even have to move at all, but you must be in the right position, every turn, relative to where you want your opponent to be next turn. And a part of that is ensuring that said opponent will be in that position when the next turn comes around. So gear that moves you faster, or gear that makes vehicle assaults extremely unpleasant, or affects the range of his guns, will change the way that my opponent gets to respond to me. DE need their enemies on the back foot to be effective, so units that force them to adopt a defensive posture from the start of the game are a big deal.

[thecactusman17]

I finally sat down and did some metrics on this army. It's pretty crazy in some areas, fairly decent in others. to the best of my knowledge, I am using the math found here: http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/07/40k-metrics-frequently-asked-questions.html

5 turn games are what I will post here.

Dead Marines per game from pure shooting: 76

Dead Marines per game from close combat: 56.96 (surprising, but in fairness I didn't compare combat drugs which would SIGNIFICANTLY improve this)

Dead Rhinos per turn from shooting (scored as penetrating hits): 3.8

Dead Rhinos from close combat per turn: 2.22

Glanced rhinos from close combat per turn: 14.21

Glanced rhinos in close combat per game: 71