1000 point returning player

Hey everybody, I played DE back in 5th ed, and then tried in 6th but work and family commitments have meant that I've not had a great deal of time for the hobby. However it's now at a stage where I can play twice a month at least so I've decided to go back and build my beloved Dark Eldar yet again. Here's my 1000 (and 1) point list for a local competitive scene


++ Eldar Craftworlds: Codex (2015) (Formation Detachment) ++

Aspect Host [+1 Ballistic Skill]

········3x Dark Reapers
········Dark Reaper Exarch [Tempest launcher]

········4x Fire Dragon
········Fire Dragon Exarch

········4x Warp Spider
········Warp Spider Exarch

++ Dark Eldar: Codex (2014) (DE Realspace Raiders Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Court of the Archon
····Lhamean
····Venom [Dual Splinter Cannon]

+ Troops +

····5x Kabalite Warriors
····Venom [Dual Splinter Cannon]

····5x Kabalite Warriors
····Venom [Dual Splinter Cannon]

+ Fast Attack +

Raider [Disintegrator cannon, Enhanced Aethersails]

+ Heavy Support +

Ravager [Triple Dark Lance]

++ Eldar Craftworlds: Codex (2015) (Allied Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Autarch [Banshee mask, Firesabre (Remnant of Glory), Haywire grenades, Plasma grenades, Shuriken pistol, Swooping Hawk wings]

+ Troops +

Windriders [3x Windrider with twin-linked Shuriken catapult]


Basic idea is the Dragons go in the FA raider, whilst the reapers provide good AT alongside the ravager.

Thoughts please?

So you're basically playing Craftworld Eldar?

The list itself looks competitive though.

Don't mind Metal. He's bitter every time someone includes Eldar in their list. Welcome back to the hobby!

As far as the list goes, here are the things I'd think about:

1. I think tempest launchers are a points sink. It's the same profile as your starting weapon, only with -1S, Barrage, and Blast for 20 points. Better off, in my opinion, to just stick with a reaper launcher on the exarch, and upgrade the whole squad to have starshot missiles. Without starshot missiles, they aren't a threat to vehicles at all.

2. Autarch would be WAY better off with a shard of Anaris than the firesabre. It's orders of magnitude better.

3. If you need extra points to make said changes, feel free to drop 1 reaper and the enhanced aethersails on the raider. It only gives the raider 6 inches of extra movement, and even then, only when you move flat out, which you may do once. Since the dragons can't disembark after you move flat out, the extra 6 inches won't matter. Either the raider lives, and next turn you can move 6" and disembark, or it doesn't, and the dragons move 6" on their emergency disembark, to be followed by their 6" movement in their own turn. It equals the same amount of movement, and doesn't actually net you anything except for when their vehicle explodes, denying you their emergency disembark movement.

Tempest L:aunchers with fast shot are awesome.

@BetrayTheWorld yes I'm bitter. This is the dark city yet everywhere are Craftworld Eldar. More of them than dark Eldar.

I do get that they are better from a competitive point of view. More point and click...

I don't know man. I'm just a sad panda.

Opinion shared CptMetal.

You can't really call a an army that's mostly composed of Craftworld a Dark Eldar army. Not that I'm criticising the list itself it looks plenty strong enough. It's a Craftworld army with Dark Eldar support though.

By the way who are you using as your warlord? The Dark Eldar CAD has to be the primary and there's no character model there. Honestly I'd drop a Venom squad and get another Windrider squad, make the Autarch your Warlord and accept that you're playing Craftworld. Or design a Dark Eldar army. Up to you though.

CptMetal wrote:

@BetrayTheWorld yes I'm bitter. This is the dark city yet everywhere are Craftworld Eldar. More of them than dark Eldar.

I understand. It sucks that we got shafted on our codex release. I honestly would rather be using the old codex for DE. But the allies being everywhere thing isn't because our codex sucked. It's the new state of the game. On every board everywhere, allies are en vogue, because allies are the new thing, even for powerful codexes.

I played recently at the Las Vegas Open, and about 85% of the armies had allies. Necron Decurions with Riptide Wings, Eldar Warhosts with wraithknights and ultramarine skyhammer drop pods, and of course dark eldar & eldar superfriends were actually 3 of the lists I personally played against. I played 6 games, only 2 of which weren't using allies(1 GK player, and 1 Ork player using a big stompa deathstar).

The fact is, it's just the state of the game. Adding allies to the game made mixing and matching armies a possibility. And with so much mixing and matching available, you're going to see a lot of it spread across ALL factions, but most certainly with the factions that are battle brothers. This is compounded for DE by the fact that they were made to mostly suck in their last codex with only a few redeaming qualities. Because their only battle brothers(Eldar) got the opposite treatment, it is only natural that the most likely way to see DE fielded is as the lesser ally in an allied situation.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Rhameil wrote:

The Dark Eldar CAD has to be the primary

Why would this have to be the case? He could make any one of his detachments/formations primary, and choose any character to be his warlord. The Autarch, or any of the Exarchs from the Aspect Host could be his warlord.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

It sucks that we got shafted on our codex release

Our latest codex took away a lot of flavour and options, that's for sure. That's why we all hate it from a fluff standpoint. I'll always mourn the loss of Dark Gate's throwing strength 10 tentacle portals at peoples faces.

That being said, it's not exactly weaker as a codex than the previous version. Costs went down almost across the board, and units like Scourges and Courts actually became viable options.

It's just nothing compared to the power gaming codexes that followed it, and that's why we all hate it from a competitive standpoint.

As for the list itself, yeah seems fairly decent. It should probably belong in a Craftworld Eldar Forum though , as there's not enough spikey space elf pirates

hydranixx wrote:

That being said, it's not exactly weaker as a codex than the previous version.

Tell that to the 60 wyches sitting on my "do not use" shelf.

People have justified this with: "Well...wyches seem more fluffy without haywire anyhow." For the record, I don't agree. It seems precisely like a gladiators weapon. Use a weapon on vehicles that definitely won't blow them up so that whatever is inside will come out, so you can slice them up all personal-like. But let's say I DID agree that haywires were unfluffy on wyches. Fine, where did we put them in our army then? Are you telling me that the most technologically advanced faction in all of 40k(outside maybe necrons) can't provide a single type of troop with haywire grenades? When the eldar faction split, CWE were said to focus, as a culture, internally, mastering their emotions. Dark Eldar, on the other hand, succumbed to their emotions, and focused on advancing their technology instead of their mind. Taking away techno-stuff from the DE is silly. Fire warriors get haywire grenades. So do swooping hawks. There is no reason we shouldn't have AT LEAST one unit that has them stock, or as an inexpensive option. Personally, I think it'd be an awesome feature if DE were the only army that had them stock on almost ALL of our units. Seems like the type of gear slavers/gladiators would use to get live things out of vehicles doesn't it?

That said, we further lost our only hit and run HQ, vect, the duke, and the lady with no options to replace most of their functions. Archons no longer have access to any AP2 weapons, so their other options generally don't matter, since no one serious bothers taking them. Haemonculi doubled in price, while their availability tanked outside of covens formations(can only take 1 instead of 3 per slot). Beast packs lowered the numbers you could take in a unit, ruining our core of the "beast star". Gargantuan creatures were introduced as far more common outside of Apoc games, and given the ability to only take wounds from poison on 6+. I did the math the other day, and 80 twin-linked poison shots to a wraithknight statistically does like 1.8 unsaved wounds.

And those are just the things off the top of my head without cracking open the book.

There WERE a couple things that lowered in price, and scourges were made useable, but it was FAR from a "lowering of points across the board, and overall staying the same otherwise", even BEFORE subsequent codices. There has never been a time when our current codex was good, let alone being anywhere near as competitive as our last one.

An allied detachment can't be from the same Codex as your primary or be your primary detachment itself. I may be wrong I don't have my rulebook on me, but I believe that's the case.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

hydranixx wrote:

That being said, it's not exactly weaker as a codex than the previous version.

Tell that to the 60 wyches sitting on my "do not use" shelf.

Once again, some units and playstyles were significantly improved.

Examples:
Kabalite based Venom spam. Grotesques were buffed to the stratosphere. Scourges became mobile + deepstriking 24" auto glancing hits. Courts went from "what?" to "How many courts are you playing?"

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

There has never been a time when our current codex was good, let alone being anywhere near as competitive as our last one

This is more due to the power creep in other codexes than our current one being worse than it's predecessor. I believe our peak was for about half a year from 5th's codex release, and then other codex and edition changes steadily made us weaker once more.

I hate what they did, and I miss so many of the awesome things we could take, and the combos we had. But calling the new codex a complete nerf and terrible in every way is just not a valid argument.

I feel our..., squabble, is derailing the original thread..

I do whole heartedly believe the army list to be powerful, provided it's legal, as Rhameil suggests it might not be. Have a few games and see how you find things. If you feel you want to improve the list or start making changes, start cutting the Dark Eldar units and adding more Eldar ones... and you'll sadly have a better list 9 times out of 10.

hydranixx wrote:

Examples:
Kabalite based Venom spam.

Kabalite based venom spam worse than before because it can't hurt the big bads you NEED it to hurt(Wraithknights, Stormsurges, all current and future gargantuan creatures, etc.). Poison's ability to hurt big things was it's primary appeal. The change to gargantuans in 7th edition heavily damaged that.

I already addressed this in my last post. To further drive the point home, it would take 441 splinter shots to kill a wraithknight. In the absolute best of cases, with the absolute best positioning, against the absolute worst of opponents, that means you'd need over 2100 points worth of venoms+kabalites in rapid fire range to kill a wraithknight in 1 round. Good luck.

hydranixx wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

There has never been a time when our current codex was good, let alone being anywhere near as competitive as our last one

This is more due to the power creep in other codexes than our current one being worse than it's predecessor.

Not true at all. I feel like you and I may play different games. I am a high level competitive player at national and regional tournaments in the United States. I don't know if you're a tournament player, or more of a fluffy player or in a different local meta or w/e, but our current codex was orders of magnitude worse than our last one the moment it hit store shelves.

I have never been more disappointed with a GW release than I was with that particular DE release. I would confidently take our previous codex against someone using our current codex in the current meta or any meta that existed back to the release of the book, or even prior. If our current codex released 2 years earlier, it STILL would have sucked.

Bear in mind that covens was a seperate release. It's not the same book. It does improve on some things independently, but that's no excuse to give us a garbage-worthy codex to begin with. We could have got the covens supplement without getting a new codex. We'd have been far better off.

hydranixx wrote:

But calling the new codex a complete nerf and terrible in every way is just not a valid argument.

I never said that it did nothing positive. I acknowledged that, but also showed that all of the negative things it did FAR outweighed the positive. That doesn't make my argument invalid at all, and I'd appreciate you not trying to: 1. Tell me what is valid or not, or 2. Trying to decide when we should, or shouldn't continue a conversation in a thread(ie, "but we're derailing the thread" after you make your counterarguments.)

If you want to stop derailing a thread, do so before you continue the debate, rather than after. Doing so after makes it look like you're trying to mask the fact that you're using forum ettiquette to leverage your opinion behind a veil of nobility.

Please read everything I've said in the nicest, most polite tone imaginable. I'm not trying to be inflamatory, just trying to get a point across, and I know it's easy to take things in the wrong tone in text.

I would just like to point out that this is a 1000 point army, not my full 1750 list (which has only DE units added). But righto, I'll leave the forum alone as I appear to have annoyed someone

To paraphrase an image on the internet that I sadly couldn't find on short notice?
You made something, and now others are mad about it.
Others are mad that those people are mad, and now they're fighting over it.
You may think that what you made has turned into a battlefield.
But that's not true. To them it's just ammunition.

To answer your actual list: It should do a fine and solid job at 1000 points, it's got a variety of offensive profiles and has enough defensive homogeneity to avoid the worst brunt of letting enemies use their own varied shooting. Stay the hell away from the new Space Wolves, they can enter melee at unreasonable speeds, and you're very weak there.

Kai'el wrote:

I would just like to point out that this is a 1000 point army, not my full 1750 list (which has only DE units added). But righto, I'll leave the forum alone as I appear to have annoyed someone

It's not you that annoyed him. It's the situation. I appologize on his behalf for not effectively communicating that.

Well, no one is annoyed in the slightest, though I hope we haven't put you off posting here. We're merely both making points that the other is failing to recognise, so it's a fairly pointless argument and/or discussion.

For example, Wraithknights used as an example as to why Venom spam is weaker now, when the change that killed us in this specific example isn't our codex at all, it's the creation of 7th Ed Eldar Codex, AKA Codex: Wraithknights & Windriders.

[As an aside, I think the old Agonisers would have been quite a lot better against the new Wraithknights, as they were not classed as poison weapon. Can anyone else think of older weapons we had in 5th that would be good against today's Wraithknights?]

Either way BetrayTheWorld, both our points are falling on deaf ears, so perhaps it's best we stop trying to further explain ourselves.

I'd like to apologise to the original poster, @Kai'el , on behalf of both myself and BetrayTheWorld, for our childish argument clogging up your thread. You are most welcome to post any lists you like, and as long as there is some element of Eldar flavour - Harlequin, Corsair, Craftworld or Dark - you can bet there'll be members of the forum with lots of information and experience for you to draw upon.

Also, I see we have another new poster 'mynamelegend' - welcome to the Dark City. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Port of Lost Souls

hydranixx wrote:

Either way BetrayTheWorld, both our points are falling on deaf ears, so perhaps it's best we stop trying to further explain ourselves.

Do you not see how you posted all of your counterpoints before saying we should stop? It's like you're saying, "Hey, these are my opinions, this is why they're right, now let's just drop it, ok?"

The world doesn't work that way, my friend. I really hope you're not trolling right now, because I'm about to put in some work. You've GOT to be kidding me if you truly believe our current codex wasn't a hard nerf. Here's some education...

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Yes, agonizers were better for our army in general in the previous codex. They got a direct nerf, and so did these weapons, unquestionably:

¤ huskblades(AP3 instead of AP2),
¤ orbs of despair(only useable by a haemonculus selected from the covens book and S1 instead of S10) <-----a S1 ONE USE weapon for 25 points. Think about that.,
¤ the crucible of malediction(Max 1 wound/unit instead of model),
¤ soul traps(instead of doubling their S for killing characters or MCs, get +1S for wounding but now only works on characters),
¤ demiklaives(-1S,),
¤ liquifier guns(-1S),
¤ stunclaws(lost the ability to snatch, gained instant death instead on an AP6 weapon who will never be fighting ICs or MCs. SUPER USEFUL RIGHT?),
¤ hellglaives(-1A)
¤ flesh gauntlet(was poison 4+ with instant death, now 4+ and only instant death on a 6+ to wound),
¤ ichor injector(was poison 3+ with instant death, now fleshbane, but only instant death on a 6+ to wound),
¤ mindphase gauntlet(used to be take both a str and ld test on any HIT, regardless of wound, then if you fail either, no attacks that phase. Got concussive instead.)
¤ baleblast(got soulblaze instead of pinning),
¤ casket of flensing(Only useable by Urien now)
¤ phantasm grenade launcher(No longer provides assault grenades to the whole unit)
¤ clone field(4++ instead of D3 hits automatically nullified per round)
¤ venom blade(Can only be taken by 1 non-CC unit in the entire codex now, instead of being available to almost all characters)
¤ vexator mask(used to be a normal 10 point item that stopped your opponent from being able to attack that round on a failed leadership test, now is a unique artifact that gives -5 initiative.)
¤ scissorhand(was poisoned(3+) and gave +2 attacks w/another CC weapon, now is poisoned(4+) with rending)
¤ shatter shards(completely gone)
¤ dark gates(completely gone)
¤ bloodstones(completely gone),
¤ wych weapons(can only be taken 1 per 5 now, even on bloodbrides)
¤ hydra gauntlets(Used to give 1d6 extra attacks, now gives shred)
¤ Shardnet & impaler(Used to give -1A to every enemy in base contact, now rerolls 1s to hit & wound)
¤ razorflails(used to reroll both hits and wounds, now rerolls hits)
¤ haywire grenades(only useable by characters now)

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Those are JUST some of the item nerfs. There were plenty more to vehicles, and price increases, for example, all of the vehicle equipment. That price increase more than offsets the 1ppm savings we got on warriors. Further, we lost FIVE special characters and their abilities, without being given any method to get said abilities on our custom archons or anything. No way to replace their special army-wide modifiers, or unit-specific buffs. Then there were the unit-specific nerfs, like the klaivex losing both his unique abilities and getting rampage instead. When was the last time you saw someone field incubi? Incubi lost the following: (On Klaivex: -1S, -Preferred Enemy-Any Character, +1A per 6 to wound, ability to get shattershard), while the unit lost any ability to benefit from assault grenades, which they used to get from an attached IC with a phantasm grenade launcher. Now they're a melee dedicated unit with S3/T3, with I6 but no assault grenades, and no ranged weapon at 20 points a man.

Seriously man, how long have you been playing DE? You talk like you're a seasoned veteran, but the list above proves that the question isn't "Did they nerf the book?" but rather, "What DIDN'T they nerf in the book?"

I seriously feel like you've got to be some dude who's sitting in his living room laughing his behind off as he reads all this, knowing all of this was the case, but trolling a random guy on the internet to see how far he'd go to show it to you. It was such an obvious, profuse set of nerfs and "screw you's" from GW that my brain doesn't want to believe you exist in any other form. And I know EXACTLY why they did it. They lost a lawsuit just prior to that set of codex releases that basically set the precedent that any other company could produce models to be used for their characters in their games if they themselves didn't create a model for them. So instead of dealing with that, or creating models for the armies that had lots of characters, they did a rapid fire release of those armies with very little forethought, and eliminated all the characters they didn't have models for. The primary victims of that lawsuit were Grey Knights, Orcs, and Dark Eldar, before someone with a little more sense took over the company. At this point, having provided you all the comparison data from the items, it would take either a troll or someone truly obtuse to deny that it was a nerf. But to be honest, this post isn't even FOR you. It's so that if some unsuspecting noob stumbles onto this thread, they don't walk away from it with the glaring misconception that you were right, continuing to spread said misconceptions. This post is a freaking public service.

Great. I'm afraid you drove the new one away ultimately.

Why the hate? Why the fun in talking bad about our codex? I get it: it's not good. It sucks. And so on and so on.

But now think about what these comments do to a new player if they even annoy a seasoned one. Don't get me wrong: I don't think that you're wrong, but as I said in other threads before:
Self pity isn't helping. At least also try to offer solutions or put something positive inside.

Yeah...take the bitch fest somewhere else please. I know the downfalls of our codex, I know what we all miss, no need to keep reminding everyone.

I can assure you, for games with friends, Dark Eldar are totally fine. Even if the bring strong lists. It's the 3 riptide or wraith knight or Tau and drop pod super friends faction, that you'll have trouble fighting against with pure dark Eldar.

Welcome to the dark city! A place of Pain and suffering!

CptMetal wrote:

But now think about what these comments do to a new player if they even annoy a seasoned one. Don't get me wrong: I don't think that you're wrong, but as I said in other threads before:
Self pity isn't helping. At least also try to offer solutions or put something positive inside.

I came to this thread to help and welcome the new guy with positive advice, and I did that. Just look at my first post. But I'm not going to stand idly by while someone makes completely false statements, and you shouldn't either. People might believe that garbage, and start spreading it around. I despise nothing more than hearing people spread misinformation. This is how it works:

Someone says some utter nonsense. Most intelligent people who know about the subject they're discussing will blow off their opinion and continue about their day. However, people who DON'T know about the subject, or generally non-intelligent people might take the lack of response to mean the nonsense is right, and believe what was said. Then they tell other ignorant people about it, and the falsehood is perpetuated. Next thing you know, all logic and reason regarding said topic is impossible to discuss because it's drowned out by a sea of shouting stupidity.

That's something I cannot abide on a forum I frequent as much as I do TDC.


EDIT: For the record, not calling -anyone- stupid here. But stupid people do exist, and they read forums.

Let's just keep it civil and bury that topic. We agree to disagree.