Killing these Darkest Dark Eldar at 1k?

[DukeMantis]

Hey guys:)

So im taking my Tyranids to a 1k tournament this weekend, one of the big fish that will be playing is a very skilled Dark Eldar general, although i have not fought him myself ive observed him bash up two of my club mates pretty comprehensively.

I have not fought Dark Eldar in a very, very long time and feel making the correct tactical assessment of his list and understanding the threat priority is going to be vital if i am to get any result against him.

I am not 100% certain i will be drawn against him over the five rounds, but i have a very strong hunch that i will, i expect us both to progress strongly in the early stages at least. I made a thread about what i plan to take in the Army List forum section too.

So here is the list he shared with our local gaming community online:

100pts - Archon, Shadow Field, Venom Blade, Haywire Grenades
88pts - 4 Incubi
riding in 55pts - Venom

60pts - 5 Wyches with Haywiregrenades x2
riding in 55pts - Venom x2

100pts - 10 Warriors, Splinter Cannon

87pts - 8 warriors, blaster
inside a 60pts - Raider

156pts - 6 Reaver Jetbikes, 2 Heatlances

115pts - Ravager with 3 lances and night shields

---

At a glance thats 5 shooty skimmers + a unit of jetbikes, ive seen the venoms in action and they put out a withering amount of firepower, especially against MC's. So far i think against my nids the Venoms will be the biggest threat? After that i would say probably the Jetbikes because they can move so damn fast... My gut feeling is i will spend most of the game hiding from his guns in terrain

What do you guys think of this army list? How would you crush it with 1k of tyranids? (this tournament does not allow duplicate units unless they are troops or transports)

Thanks alot for reading, i need a result against this guy so any and all wisdom would be worth its weight in gold.

[FTGTEvan]

Yeah, I would say the venoms are more or less your priority, though they're not as nasty as they could be; he could take a second splinter cannon on them. Use terrain to your advantage, but don't let him take you apart piecemeal; his speed will allow him to jump from flank to flank and isolate units on your edges and minimizing your potential return fire. In general, I would aim to shoot down the Archon and Wych venoms as soon as possible and make them walk. Then tarpit the archon if he gets close. Don't let him take on anything worth his while.

The ravager will be tough to take down with the night shields, and can put out some punishment. If he gives you it as a target of the venoms, you might want to take it, though more likely he'll keep it as far away as possible and bring the AP2 pain on your MCs.

Honestly, his list is optimized a bit more for mech/MEQ than he could be, which is largely a bonus for you. Those can still hurt (except the Haywire grenades) but they're not necessarily as bad as the alternative. If your Tervs do a good job spawning you can potentially get him to the point where, as many shots as he has, it still won't be enough, so protect those baby mamas.

[DukeMantis]

Thanks alot VTAeries, my tervies are going to go full hide and seek mode and poop as many gants as they can!

[nova]

ok

[gigasnail]

check the VS DE thread, infornagraphy's post at the end is really good and should help.

[DukeMantis]

Mar 28, 2013 6:01:54 GMT nova said:

ok

Huh???

Thanks for that tip Gigasnail, will look it up

[commandersasha]

As an apprentice DE player, I suggest: make sure you are fully up to date on 6th edition changes, and Dark Eldar FAQ.
For example, passengers in an exploding vehicle now take a S4 hit; this is bad for Eldar, so don't forget it! If you explode a venom (quite possible with 10/10/10, +1 damage for open-topped), over half of them should die, and they then have to take a morale test for 25% losses!

[DukeMantis]

Thanks alot sash, thats could be crucial!

I was thinking of taking a balanced tyrant with a single t-l dev then ScyTals to the tournament but now it seems double devs could be essential to making sure those skimmers go down in one volley

[gigasnail]

there is almost no reason to take ST on a tyrant in 6th. in 5th they were great for taking apart vehicles, but this is handled differently now. as far as melee goes, in 6th if you take ST instead of a 2nd set of devourers, you're missing out on 6 rerollable S6 attacks before you charge and you're hitting most things on a 3 anyway. you're missing out on 12 attacks if you take ST and BS/LW. take old adversary if you want rerolls.

[jhussey]

How did you do Mantis? Was it Skari you played?

[DukeMantis]

It was yes! We fought in round four of the tournament For me it was a predictable result... if anything slightly better than i had hoped.

I snatched first blood with my flyrant by shooting down his archons venom, and snatched the relic early on. He blew my termagants off the relic later on in the game before grabbing it with wytches and did some awesome ninja moves with jetbikes from reserves for linebreaker.

In the end the scores were:

Skari's Dark Eldar - The Relic 3pts + Linebreaker 1pt

My Nids - First Blood - 1 pt + Linebreaker 1pt

So i lost 4 points to 2

I was pretty pleased with how i played, Skari's ability to surgically strike my ranged threats (hive guard and flyrant) allowed him alot of freedom to manouvre once they were dead. After that i didnt have a leg to stand on. I castled my warlord tervigon in a ruin with catalyst all game to deny that kill. A high point for me was when i made his archons unit run away, they came so close to the table edge i thought they might end up destroyed but then they rallied. Upside of that is they had almost no further impact on the game due to being marooned in their own deployment zone. If that had not happened they would have been free to hunt down and murder my warlord.

I crapped out with both tervigons early in the game which didnt help, rolling doubles limited how much i could swamp midfield. I feel i would have a better chance against them at 1500+ where i could take more shooting, those skimmers were pretty easy to kill.

Doom did nothing.


Conclusions:

Hive Guard are really strong against Dark Eldar skimmers, take 2 units if you can.

Dakka Flyrant is a perfect first blood machine, zip forward and tag a weak skimmer, get that first blood point it could be vital!

Skimmer spammers like to use their superior range then dart in behind your lines to score, if you have successfully spawned several units of termagants, spread them through the midfield in such a way as to make it as awkward as possible for enemy skimmers to land near you or objectives.

Take ALL the ruins! Get in that terrain and hunker down until their firepower has been significantly reduced.

The Warlordigon - tervigon warlords can hide nicely and give backfield synapse. When your fighting your 'hard counter' enemy think about limiting their ability to take points at all costs. Deny them everything you can.

[jhussey]

Nice! I'd say it was still a good game then! May not have gone the way we wanted, but sounds like a great time!

[DukeMantis]

Oh absolutely, it was great fun! Skari is a very fair player and we were laughing alot throughout the game, which is always a good sign

In retrospect the center of the table was a big area of open ground, the majority of the terrain was in our deployment zones. If there had been some line of sight breakers in midfield i 'might' have been able to preserve some units for longer. My scoring units were basically sitting ducks in the open, nowhere to hide!

[jhussey]

Sounds like a great time man. Did you guys do a video batrep of it? I enjoy the Dorklords stuff.

[DukeMantis]

Skari shot a battle report for his channel of it, he did a summary of each round of the tournament, im round 4, errrr here it is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WUVrnWxlPg