Starting a Dark Eldar Army

[abraxxas]

I am looking at starting a second army and have chosen Dark Eldar, apparently I have a dark soul and picking armies that bring destruction and chaos ring my bell.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what units to get first, what's absolutely terrible and what really shines.

HQ's seem to have some fun options. I was looking to start with a succubus and a unit of wyches cause I like the look and feel of them but from a practical stand point I'm thinking Kabalite warriors would serve better.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Sensei]

To start get the codex and read over all the units and decide which "genre" you like. I tend to favour coven units with some kabalite support. IMO, the coven supplement is one of the best supplements GW has put out, and there are a lot of really unique and interesting things in there that if you like covens (haemonculi, wracks, grotesques, and talos/chronos) it is definitely worth picking up.

For a basic army, a Succubus, Archon or Haemonculus will be your best choice for HQs. Most of the unique HQs are pretty meh. The Succubus offers our only AP2 melee weapon available to an HQ. The Archon (I believe) is a little cheaper at base, but can be kitted out with a lot of gear, and the haemonculus are decently priced and offer some interesting abilities with Power from Pain. None of them will be a CC powerhouse and although they can all put out some pain in a fight, don't expect them to survive a prolonged melee, or at all against any heavy hitting CC HQ. They will likely not match up well against pretty much any named HQ from any other codex. All of them have the ability to take a webway portal which is one of their strengths.

As far as wyches go, stay away from them. They are utter trash in this codex. They are overcosted, and lost any benefits they had in the last codex and their special weapons got dumbed down and have almost no effect anymore. You're better off taking wracks if you want CC output - they are effectively the same, but can upgrade to some decent ranged/template weapons and they have a better toughness so will stick around a little longer. And they are cheaper. You'd do alright pairing your succubus with a unit of incubi, wracks or even grotesques. With incubi you have a full unit of AP2 attacks, wracks offer a decent number of attacks for a low cost, and with grots you have a majority T5 unit that hits extremely hard, but is costly. Grots are absolutely terrifying with - seriously they are godly on the battlefield. If you can get your hands on some or convert your own, they are well worth their points. Best paired with an HQ though because they only have very low leadership - they will demolish almost anything in CC due to instant death and weight of S5 attacks, but the one time they lose combat they will be run down instantly. Keep them with a leader that can use a power weapon but is protected by the grots wounds and toughness.

You can't go wrong with kabalite warriors. Lots of firepower, and good cost. Trueborn are effective for heavy weapons. Even more effective are scourge. They are probably one of the best heavy weapon platforms in the game, packing lots of punch against vehicles. Reavers are pretty good as all rounders, able to use their firepower against infantry, vehicles, and decent in melee, and they have the added bonus of having an absolutely movement range which makes them really effective late game for objective grabbing.

Lastly, Dark Eldar are all about mobility. A few raiders and venoms will be extremely useful. I've played and used my raiders to block line of sight, and get my army where it needs to be. Their mobility allows you to focus your army into your enemy. Don't spread your fire - hit hard and hit the same spot until it's dead, then move to the next area. Being able to completely reposition your entire army to a new location can be very effective in limiting your opponents targets and their ability in hitting you back.

In the end, Dark Eldar are a really fun army to play. Take a look through the codex and see what units you like the look of or the way they play on the table and decide how to build your army from there.

Hope that was helpful

[blackrainbow]

Thanks Sensei, that was a helpful read as I'm just putting the finishing touches on my Dark Eldar army. Just waiting on voidraven bomber to come in before I hit the table with them.

I have one question for you, about Venoms. They come stock with TL splinter rifle and a splinter cannon, with the option to replace the TL splinter rifle with another splinter cannon for the low cost of only two hormagaunts. Taking this gives the platform two salvo 4/6 guns. That's 12 4+ poison shots on a fast skimmer... is this insane not to take? Or am I missing something.

Edit: Asking here vice starting a new thread to save space and hopefully help out abraxxas too with this info.

[Kark]

Double splinter cannons are an auto take for dark eldars. It is like wings for hive tyrants

[blackrainbow]

Oh my. Cheers!

And all for only 100 points cheaper than a naked hive tyrant. Balanced.

[Sensei]

Absolutely. There's literally no reason not to upgrade. Just consider those points part of the venom's base cost because without it, it's effectiveness on the table is literally halved.

Venoms are really, really fragile though and can often be taken out in one round of shooting, despite their save. Hug cover, and use their mobility and range to avoid retaliation.

Scourges in combination with venoms can be deadly. Although scourge have a decent save and an invulnerable, they are very fragile as well. Drop them behind cover, or move them up the board and use their mobility to knock out armour. Usually, a kitted out 5 man unit with heat lances, haywire blasters, or even darklight blasters will eliminate armoured targets very easily. Then use the venoms to take out the soft targets inside.

Venoms are also great at protecting your units. I've used them with 5 man wrack units to quickly get my wracks up to where I want them. After disembarking, use the venom to screen fire and deter or take out any enemy infantry you don't want near your wracks. This allows your wracks to pick their targets a little easier. The venom also acts as a pretty effective getaway vehicle if something you don't want to get into a fight with shows up.

As awesome as venoms are, don't expect them to survive many battles. They offer a lot of firepower but will draw a lot back. Use them to quickly position your units and provide supporting fire. As they are likely going to die during the fight, take advantage of their mobility and use them to block movement and line of sight. They have a great range, so even by moving them to blocking positions, you should still be able to hit something. The "Scalpel Squadron" formation from the Covens supplement is interesting and offers a fairly good distraction that can deepstrike turn one. It forces the enemy to react to it, and will likely not survive, but can take advantage of isolated or poorly deployed enemy units and pull fire from the rest of your army.

[phayze]

I ran a null deployment/one and done archon bomb list at a tourney once the codex came out, and had a blast.

2 scalpel squads (ossifactor & liquifier in each unit)

2 squads of 10 kabalite warriors in raiders with splinter cannons, splinter racks, and phantasm grenade launchers, nightshields, Sargeants have grenade launchers

1 squad of 8 kabalites, same load out but no cannon

2-4 squads of blaster true born in venoms

2 Archons with Phantasm grenade launchers, Armor of misery, crucible of maladiction

Razor wing with nightshields

Elect to go second if you can, deepstrike everything. T1 scalpel squads come in and earn d3 victory points from focus fire. T2 everything should drop in (with luck/labrynthine cunning) and explode any clumped-up non marine army with multiple Ld-debuffs and a lot of Ld checks.

[Sensei]

There's some really, really good tactics for leadership debuffing with dark eldar. It can be a gamble though as like you said, it's pretty useless against marines, and funny enough, tyranids. I can't remember exactly what the combination is off the top of my head, and I believe it is with Eldar or harlequin allies, but it is possible for Dark Eldar to give a -12 Ld debuff to a unit. Definitely overkill, but really funny.

A guy over on The Dark City (Dark Eldar equivalent of Tyranid Hive) wrote up a really good tactica on debuffing leadership, coining the "Freakshow" lists. It's a good read and worth a look even if to see some synergies that exist rather than basing your entire army on it.

www.thedarkcity.net/t12080-freakshow-tactica-part-1


EDIT: Also, I should have directed the OP to The Dark City in the first place. They have some really useful discussions on tactics same as here and most people are very helpful. It's a well run forum like the Hive.

[abraxxas]

Thanks for all the info, I went and had a look at the Dark City, lots of good info there.

They seem to be a completely different play style from my Nids and I am really looking forward to trying something new.

Seems to be all about the mobility with these guys. Need to be in a transport or deep striking or both! I will be looking to pick up some warriors and venoms this weekend. I think that would be a good start for some small point games to get a feel for how I want to play them.

I wanted to do some wyches but the more I read about them...*sigh* I just dont' see a good way for them to get anything done before they die. Which is a shame cause I like the models.

[Sensei]

No problem. I got into dark eldar to try something different from nids as well and I was drawn by their mobility. It's definitely their strong point. Don't be afraid to camp a unit of warriors on an objective or in cover. They can still put out a lot of firepower and it's poisoned shots. Just watch out for armour or anything looking to charge them.

I agree wyches have some awesome models and I want to take them so badly, but I just can't justify it when you look at their abilities, their statline and cost and compare them to wracks. If I want cc I go for wracks, shooting warriors and speed reavers or put stuff in transports. Wyches just aren't worth taking.