Issues with anti horde?

I have noticed that when I am playing a few games with DE, it is apparent that for some reason the Dark Eldar anti horde capabilities are inherently lacking.

So far I am fortunate that I am fighting against a lot of medium sized armies and mechanized/MC heavy armies, but if the situation appears where I am seeing a horde before me I know it would be hell to play against (IG conscripts comes to mind for obvious reasons).

What are the most effective anti horde units for dark eldar these day? The best I can see are birds and Hellions, but both are somewhat lacking in terms of survivability or anti horde capabilities.

Our true weakness is that we are weaker against low toughness opponents. Thus we have little tool to handle a Conscript spam.
Wyches can work, but they are far from ideal (dying too fast from shooting, and guards can fall back and shoot in the same turn). Mandrakes are neat, as they are one of our few sources of S4 shots, and can do well in Cc.
Our only true answer to spammed infantry is taking harlequins, IMO.

I do use Wyches and poison and Dissies and planes and maneuvering. Assault hordes like Orcs and gunline hordes like AM require completely different approaches to the battle. We can remove 50 orcs per turn in a well rounded list.

Hordes are annoying, but I have been able to deal with them alright.

Razorwings jetfighters w/ disintegrators work well so I always take 2.
That combind with a few venoms and kabalites seems to get the job done fairly well.

OH!!! And a Farseer casting DOOM helps a ton! But then you are taking Craftworld Eldar. But DOOM!!!

I am trying out 20 Scourges right now. The scourges  shooting a Doomed unit average 30 wounds. Which is a good start

aurynn wrote:

We can remove 50 orcs per turn in a well rounded list.

Against a normal footslogging ork list, this takes 270 poison shots. With the current price of venoms, you will never get that many shots at long range. And if you're at close range, that's your last turn anyway ^^

I can't understand how a disintegrator cannon would help against hordes. They are great vs necrons, SM, CSM, but those are not hordes. Hordes : 250+ conscripts in a 1500pts game. That are immune to moral.

A Farseer with doom can at least help Splinter Weaponry a little...kinda...(You're killing a Guardsmen per three shots that way). I could see Khymera fulfilling that role, as T4, and 3 Strength 4 attacks is nothing to sniff at. But, well, depending on how your opponent deploys, it'll probably be T3 by the time you can reliably make a charge against a gunline. Wyches might work, but even then they hardly have the volume of attacks needed to take out a 50 Conscript Swarm before you fail that No Escape rule and get shredded.

Venoms could help with their Flickerfield to mitigate shooting, but even then, even with dual Splinter cannons you're not even killing three models a turn.

Really, there's little that we can use to deal with those kind of lists.

Against hordes, during my first few attempts at 8th I've played against hormagaunts and termagaunt spam, Reavers were actually very useful, able to kite the large blobs, and with the +1 toughness they were able to survive surprisingly long in cc.

20 Wyches - roughly 10 dead
Dissies are much more reliable in removing key units so Wyches dont get overwhelmed - easily 10 dead in my avg army - 30 dissie shots
Poison - roughly 90 shots on avg - 20 dead
The last 10 is easy. Leaves plenty points for other nastiness.

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20 Wyches - roughly 10 dead
Dissies are much more reliable in removing key units so Wyches dont get overwhelmed - easily 10 dead in my avg army - 30 dissie shots
Poison - roughly 90 shots on avg - 20 dead
The last 10 is easy. Leaves plenty points for other nastiness.

I don't mean to to sound abrasive, but that's spending a minimum of 860 points to kill 123 points of Conscripts (40 dead from the shots, 1 dead from morale.)

You have to use witches to prevent them from falling back and shooting. Otherwise I´d try grots or clawed fiends because of a high number of attacks (or even Khymera)

TheBaconPope wrote:

Quote :

20 Wyches - roughly 10 dead
Dissies are much more reliable in removing key units so Wyches dont get overwhelmed - easily 10 dead in my avg army - 30 dissie shots
Poison - roughly 90 shots on avg - 20 dead
The last 10 is easy. Leaves plenty points for other nastiness.

I don't mean to to sound abrasive, but that's spending a minimum of 860 points to kill 123 points of Conscripts (40 dead from the shots, 1 dead from morale.)

Hehe. Dont worry.
Yea. Its exactly that. But the distribution is what matters with conscripts ofc. You dont shoot what you charge, so in reality you disable much much more than 123 points. Especially with the No Escape rule. Transports included you should be able to get in 6 different chargers minimum after casualties, that means 6 units that have to fall back and can only shoot under orders and cannot shoot in CC. But they cannot fall back if they are too tightly packed in gunline too as Fall Back has to happen first before any other movement.

With Orcs you shoot what can countercharge or soften up. Sacrificing damaged or slow units to limit movement and their assault front, while going after objectives. Much tougher in non-maelstrom missions and terrain is critical.

Combat is nice. And you don't have to kill 100+ models a turn. Screening units of our own can always help as well.

Hordes are not supposed to be easy to deal with. But they can be dealt with.

Try 100 scourges for 1400points. Haha! That could be a good start

All in all - try thinking of all the rules available to you. Not just about CC and shooting. Take the Land Raider. Even Achilles from FW... Big nasty shooty beast carrying nasty units. If you manage to nudge it with one of your boats, it can only Fall Back and won't shoot. If you manage to surround it with anything, it cannot even unload the troops inside and can just try and hit you with 6A on 6+...

colinsherlow wrote:

Try 100 scourges for 1400points. Haha! That could be a good start

How are you running that battleforged, though ?

No matter how many poisoned guns you take with you, you're always stuck with the inevitable fact that splinter weaponry is S3 against guards.

For info, your 1400pts scourges are killing 64 guards at 18 range. That's 192pts.

1400points of conscript (466 conscripts), at 24" are killing 32 scourges (every save counted. That's 453 points). Double that if they are at close range. Double that if they receive an order to shoot twice. And your scourges are NOT immune to moral, so it's likely to skyrocket even further. You'd probably lose your entire army in one turn, tbh.  

Which leaves us with the following statement : Conscripts, at long range, without receiving any orders, kill 235% more points of Scourges than Scourges will kill Conscripts.

So poisoned weapons are NOT an option. I think the best option is indeed cc, with beasts (khymeras and clawed) packing the most punch, and wyches for the 50% chance of preventing Fall Backs.

One other thing I'd like to mention. Only models within 1" of model base, or 1" of a model that is within 1" of an enemy can fight in CC. So a unit of 50 conscripts won't all be able to fight at once, unless they or you, get a really good surround off.

Would Taloi be useful backed up with wyches?

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Would Taloi be useful backed up with wyches?

6 Attacks -> 4 Hits -> 3.33 Wounds -> 2.78 Dead Guardsmen. So nine points worth of Conscripts per Talos. Unfortunately I don't think they're viable for this purpose.

The taloi will kill 3 conscripts per turns, so 9 points per round for a 100pts model. Not ideal.
I think trying a list based around Khymeras and supported by Chronoi (and possibly something like swooping hawks, for the sunrifle to divide the shootings from conscript per 2).
Each khymera would kill 1.5 conscript per turn (3+ rerollable for both hit and wound), thus making their points back in 3 rounds of melee.

3 attacks
2.66 hits
2.37 wounds
1.58 dead conscripts

Honestly? Harlequins probably will get the job done best.
Let's look at a Troupe of five and a Troupe Master, as I'm curious. All will be armed with embraces.


Troupe Master:
5 Attacks -> 4.17 Hits -> 3.47 Wounds -> 3.47 Dead Guardsmen.

Troupe:
20 Attacks -> 13.33 Hits -> 8.89 Wounds -> 8.89 Dead Guardsmen.

So 12.36 dead models per turn. Interesting.

Let's try an equivalent amount of points in Khymera with a Beastmaster (I'll give him an Agonizer to make it exact, and, hell, +1 Attack just for fun)

Beastmaster:
4 Attacks -> 3.33 Hits -> 1.67 Wounds - 1.67 Dead Guardsmen.

Khymera:
33 Attacks -> 27.49 Hits -> 18.33 Wounds -> 12.22 Dead Guardsmen.

So 13.89 Dead for the same points.

Interesting indeed, but I didn't factor in shooting to that, and whether or not the greater maneuverability and better save of the Harlies makes up for their slightly reduced damage is debatable.

I'll probably calculate the rest of our beasts and melee units later.

Khymeras are mvt 10 (which makes up for the lack of movement shenanigans), and T4 (which compensates for the 5+ inv instead of 4).
But yeah, harlies can shoot. I suggested them earlier in the thread but why not see if there is an answer for conscript inside the DE army

I think the thing that makes Conscript so hard to kill was the AP modification. All weapons that had AP5 before now have no AP, which is a HUGE buff to 5+ armors. Before, they were almost never used. Now, they get it most of the time. Combine that with the loss of Blasts and Templates...

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I'll probably calculate the rest of our beasts and melee units later.

I feel like Clawed Fiends are sup optimal for this match up : you're paying for S5, T5 and D2, and all of those are wasted. And i'd be surprized to see birds (at 14pts) doing more than khymeras.

don't forget to factor in pistols. also, are you assuming that the entire unit is falling back in the following turn, and that you haven't tied down the rest of the army?

Hm, alright, let's look at some other options.
Let's look at the strangest one first..an option I don't think I've seen in a single list in 8th..or 7th for that matter.

The Ur-Ghul. Let's make a theoretical list, a barebones Archon and an assortment of four Ur-Ghouls just to keep it consistent with our previous measurements.

Archon:
5 Attacks -> 3.33 Hits -> 1.67 Wounds -> 1.67 Dead Guardsmen.

Ur-Ghuls: (Assuming they've just charged)
24 Attacks -> 19.99 Hits -> 13.33 Wounds -> 8.89 Dead Guardsmen.

Hm, hardly as promising as I hoped. Let's try the other members of the court, shall we? Let's try four of our former HQ star.

Lhamean:
8 Attacks -> 6.66 Hits-> 5.55 Wounds -> 1.11 Mortal Wounds -> 4.81 Dead Guardsmen.

Yeesh, not a good option.
The Medusae on the other hand..well they look promising at range. Again, we'll test four of them.

Medusae:
16 Attacks -> 13.33 Hits -> 8.89 Wounds -> 8.89 Dead Guardsmen.

Huh, the exact number of deaths as the Ur-Ghoul. Fascinating, but hardly comparable to Khymera.

Finally, we'll look at the Ssylth. Their prohibitive cost means we can only take three, however.

Ssylth:
9 Attacks -> 7.95 Hits -> 5.28 Wounds -> 4.42 Dead Guardsmen.

Oh man..looks like our reptile friend is coming dead last in this one.

Overall, the court seems to be unviable for combating hordes, but if you do want to try, the Medusae is the way to go.

Beasts are up next.

You forgot to factor Sslyth shootings
9 shots, 8 hits, 4 wounds, 2.6 extra bodies.

Back in the day my answer to this would have been "Take a couple of razorwings and lay down an insane number of ST 6 AP 5 large blasts".

Since that is no longer an option, until the recent FAQ my answer would have been "Take Razorwings and fire Necrotoxin missiles. Reliable 6 shots wounding on 2's, plus the other guns to help out"

Since both of those options are gone now (D6 shots does not a reliable horde killer make) and Shredders are not reliable enough to take (they wound nicely, but D3 shots is not something you can count on), we run into the standard problem of the Dark Eldar: Overreliance on either Splinter Weapons or Darklight, combined with lackluster melee.

Quickly going through the list:
Warriors lack any real versatility beyond poison, with few heavy/special weapons, no grenades, no melee, and no pistols. Trueborn are a little better because you can outfit them with a metric crap of special/heavy weapons, but since none of their options are GOOD at anti horde that isn't a great help. Ditto Scourges.

Wyches lack the punch in melee to really counter hordes, ditto Bloodbrides, and one bad roll and the enemy will fall back and shoot them to pieces. Hellions lack the number of attacks needed to break a horde on the charge and lack a way to stop them falling back, as do Reavers.

Covens stuff isn't my forte, but since they mainly focus on being tough as nails they'll be screwed over by sheer number of shots.

Our lack of vehicle heavy weapon options comes back to bite us big time here, with the only vehicles really getting a look in are those with options that are not just poison, disintegrators or dark lances. Pretty much the Razorwing, but that's no good because the missiles are not spammable or reliable enough to do the job.

Our specialists are specialized in non-horde-killing things. Be it Incubi, who are great against heavy infantry but get their asses handed to them by a horde that can fall back and shoot, or mandrakes who just do not get enough shots for horde killing and will not survive the counterattack.

TLDR: Lack of a dedicated horde killer, combined with lack of weapon options outside of poison and darklight, combined with mediocre melee, means we lack the killing power to effectively take hordes off the table and lack the durability to survive the retaliation.

FuelDrop wrote:

TLDR: Lack of a dedicated horde killer, combined with lack of weapon options outside of poison and darklight, combined with mediocre melee, means we lack the killing power to effectively take hordes off the table and lack the durability to survive the retaliation.

From what i've seen so far this isn't a Dark Eldar problem. The game isn't designed to let you kill a Conscript Spam with anything else than a Conscript Spam (or equivalent).

Flocks of birds still work but you have to support the ever loving hell out of them for it to be worth the points.