How many troops?

I'm included to agree with the one blaster is a waste group. For 15 pts I want two shots like a plasmagun or one shot for less pts like a meltagun. What it does do is waste your other 4 to 8 poison shots. I would much rather have either all base no upgrades, a 5 point shredder if I need more anti infantry (the flamer equivalent option with a fair price tag) or if I really want the blaster I'll pay the other 15 pts to get a sybarite with a haywire grenade to throw. All of a sudden that's two shots for a 5 man unit. That said there are far more points effecient ways of dealing with tanks. Our infantry excels best at poison in venoms or splinter rack raiders.

RikuXIII wrote:

Specifically speaking i'm building an 1850pt list for competitive play. Feel free to say 5 man units in venoms, or 10 man in raiders but lets not get into a debate on which is the right or wrong way.

And to be fair, when it comes to with or without blasters, there is no right or wrong way. I prefer the blasters. You guys act like it's wasted on infantry and that's a fair point if all you fight is GEQ. Once 2-4+ armor saves or multiwound T4 and below come into play, you appreciate the 15 points. Also it will pretty much wound any monstrous creature on a 4+ or lower so it's just as good or better than the poison at that point, what being ap2. I generally try not to put my kabalites or venoms in charging distance for the rapid fire though.

6 blasters cost 90 points though so they do add up to the price of an extra unit. On the other hand when you have AT options split into separate units it becomes harder for your opponent to snuff out all your heavy weapons. If you've ever had most of your AT knocked out turn one or two against a mech list and all you're left with is splinter weapons you'll know what I mean.

That being said I'd probably use 5 at 1850. 5 Kabalites in venoms with or without blasters depending on the rest of the list.

Last weekend I played a maelstrom game, 2000pts, I only took min troops, 2 x 5 warriors in venoms.

I played against crons with 4 night scythes, 3 anni barges, wraiths + destroyer lord, lots of warriors + immortals with crypteks with those nasty voltaic staves.

The 2 mini warriors squads hid all game next to OBJs, one in a building, while the venoms went hunting. Not once did they move or shoot or get shot at. The rest of my army ran rings around him, ripping him up. I took a mostly MSU realspace raid det.

I won convincingly and did not feel I needed any more troops, am loving our FA!

Only game I've played with the new book, I ran 2x 10 warriors in raiders, with splinter cannon, splinter racks and dark lance on the raider as upgrades. In all honesty I see this being the core of any army I'll build for the immediate future as it's an excellent unit. However, I think that the strength of the Dark Eldar lies elsewhere in the codex, and we have so many options.

For a Realspace Raiders detachment I'd only take the two squads, possibly a third small unit if I find myself with the points, as our fast attack choices are too good. I'd take the above, an HQ with escort, all the fast attack I wanted, some anti-armour, and then come back and revisit troops last. In a combined arms detachment, the only benefit to taking it over Realspace Raiders is objective secured on troops so I'd definitely want a third troops choice minimum, and wouldn't be truly happy without a 4th. Most likely to be the above warrior/raider combo, 10 wyches in a raider, and 5 warriors in a venom.