How did Dark Eldar do in the index?

Genuine question. I only began picking DE up when my AdMech codex dropped with much disappointment. I wanted a more varied force with melee, shooting, transports, fliers. Ad Mech were too static and too mono-list.
So I'm seeing "dark eldar are broken" and "dark eldar need fixing" becoming more and more prevalent as more codex armies appear and their power boosts sink in. So were Dark Eldar bad when everyone worked from an index and all armies were on a level footing? Or have the started to fall behind because of codex releases. If it's the latter then I don't see much reason for all the knicker twisting. The Dark Eldar codex will come. It might be a Tyranid work of art. Or it might be an AdMech dogs dinner. But until then we just don't know and comparing sideways to Codex forces is largely unhelpful and largely irrelevant in that it applies to ALL index forces. It's not only Dark Eldar suffering the power creep and singled out for poor treatment.

When everything was index DE were doing pretty well. The units that are bad now were still bad then (wyches, reavers, hellions, grots, talos, most HQ's) but the difference between them and the good units in other armies was less extreme than it is now and our good units were good enough to compete with most other armies good stuff. Now? Not so much!

This is going to be long, sorry. A quick note: I personally feel DE are just to points heavy, Reavers, Blasters (all of them) Heat lances, Coven, Wych units,a nd HQ's are over costed. DE has ALL THE TOOLS just no value in some of them.


Ad-Mech is also still a very new army, they have only had minor updates and 1st come out in 6/7th ed (very short editions also). SO dont be too sad about them being very mono-play style/lacking units. They dont have many units like others do.

Hopefully they will get more in the next few years.



DE is still a good army, but with very limited options in a competitive environment, Ravagers, Flyers, Mandrakes, Incubi and now Court, IMO Beast can be very competitive but are very rock/paper/scissor against different armies.

All codex's are going to be a step above Index's for sure, there is no way to get around that (other than 1-2 armies, like SoB and Harlequins) CA did help many step up a bit for sure. I know my Ork friends are all very happy and me as a SOB and Quins player am very happy as well.

Sadly DE has been given a much more poor treatment than many other armies, tho they are not as bad as Necrons or SW's for sure, they are still viable.

If you wanted to play DE a bit more Competitive, it can still work, you wont be winning any GT but you could easily go above average as pure DE!


If you want a better list with units you are talking about (Flyers, shooting and melee) then DE is good for you, also you dont have to do pure DE, you can have some Quin, some Eldar etc... Nothing is wrong with some soup.



DE Then and Now:
DE was top dog when there was only index's, they are High Mid tier currently, Can win against IG and SM now after the nerfs, but still an uphill battle. There will be some match ups that will be very hard, but thats normal, all armies should have a soft counter.



Personal Experience:
I like the Bomber, Ravagers, beasts and Mandrakes, so i mostly play those. I have won more than lost with DE, even against Codex's. But i do have years of experience with many armies and know most armies very well. This will help more than having a good army/list.

My lists for a pure DE army are normally a based of this.

Succubus
Haemonculus
Trueborn x5
Trueborn x5
Trueborn x5
Mandrakes x5
Mandrakes x5
Claw Fiends x3
RWF x3
RWF x3
Ravager x3DL
Ravager x3DL
Ravager x3DL
Bomber Scythes
Bomber Scythes
Raider DL
Raider DL
Raider DL

As you see i have some melee (tho not to much) lots of vehicles/shooting some flyers and some DSing units.

I play Beast/Trueborns hyper aggressive, DS the Mandrakes turn 1 or 2 (depending on many things, but very aggressive). The Bombers/Ravagers for AT (I play against a lot of tanks).

I only have about 20 games with DE currently in 8th, i have more as Harlequins.

I am not the best or most experienced player here.

My take, as an index army we were top tier, and we still are not bad. The issue comes that our strength pretty much comes from a handfull of units, if you take them and spam them you can win. Although it is slightly depending on the local meta. We used to be the absolute bane of tank lists in the index, now with tanks getting quite a few usefull buffs in codexes (being able to move without penalty/ shoot twice) means that while we are still doing ok against them I find it depends on who I play against if I win or not. On the other hand against infantry it is always slightly harder for us.

Some other units, are bad or even horrible. They were bad in comparison to the index, and are even worse in comparison to codexes.

And I think this is also what shines true in a lot of the shouting about dark eldar need fixing. We have a few units similar to (in stats or at least in the fluff roughly equal in strength to) other eldar, and they are just plain worse. So for some units (Ravagers being a prime example), I think they are ok, and will not be a problem once the  codex drops. Other units (reavers being the worse offender in my mind) are just plain bad and need more then the regular army buff and stratagems to become playable in more competitive scenario's. Lastly there are a lot of weapons that are just really bad for their point costs. Some are good (dark lances, dissies) while many others are bad, which again limits the playstyle a lot.
So are we terrible, no not really, we are ok for an index army, the problem is that we have a couple of terrible choices. So we can make good armies, it just means ignoring most of our units. A lot of which can relatively easily be compared to similar choices in other armies which are just better. And that is making us annoyed. Since it feels like it is obvious they are overpriced.

Those replies have made for some interesting reading for me. Thanks chaps, appreciate it.
Great to see some positivity towards some units and aspects of the army. @Amishprn86 some good stuff in your post especially. I'm getting beaten week in week out by my brothers Nids. He's played them for a while compared to my half dozen games with DE, and he has a strong codex to boot. Coupled with some of the current threads, I was starting to feel a little depressed

yellabelly wrote:

Those replies have made for some interesting reading for me. Thanks chaps, appreciate it.
Great to see some positivity towards some units and aspects of the army. @Amishprn86 some good stuff in your post especially. I'm getting beaten week in week out by my brothers Nids. He's played them for a while compared to my half dozen games with DE, and he has a strong codex to boot. Coupled with some of the current threads, I was starting to feel a little depressed

The tyranid got a very good codex. Its no wonder you were no match for it. We just need to wait. Wait for the new codex.... And after, wait for the correction, because the codex will have major flaws. And wait for new models.

We were wrong. Dark eldar doesn't epitomise the pain. Dark eldar epitomise the waiting.

@yellabelly, I agree with all of this, too. I've been playing only a couple of years and I have to very much say that 8th edition DE are far and above better than 7th.
7th edition 40k was a comical dumpster fire that I simply stopped playing. I didn't try to bring the game down but locally I'm a strong gaming presence and when I shift to other systems people start asking why - ended up with a small contingency playing other games for nearly a year. The tables were nearly empty and the 40k scene was shaky. Now, last night, we had to improvise 3 new table to accommodate all the players.
7th Dark Eldar were *SOMEHOW* even more unplayable than the core rules of the game. Ridiculous to the point of insulting.

Some of the negativity you see in threads here is partially unwarranted. If there was no space between third edition and now - particularly with 7th edition seeing a very, very low tier codex for Dark Eldar and, remarkably, on top of that the actual removal of some of the strongest characters and then rules nerfs that caught us confused (jinking reworks among others) and it's left us quick to find flaws in design.

If that period of time were completely removed from our memory then I'd be standing on the complaint hill as an emissary of optimism. Our Index, compared only against other Indexes, was in the top third of all playable armies.

Now I cannot play DE because most of my local opponents have codexes. So I'm playing my Craftworld and having fun.

But the current pessimism has that historic foundation and we see the pattern *potentially* unfolding again and we are justifiably worried. We've suffered from the weakest codex (at least vying for that title) for so long that when we see a Chapter Approved drop that is absolutely, petrifyingly offensive, we react. We're ready to react with negativity. We have literally years of staying (mostly) loyal to the Dark Eldar despite being so uncompetitive.
Case in point: Here's a Succubus. Here's a shiny new Warlord Trait. PSYCH! In order to use it you have to do some mental gymnastics and GIVE UP SOMETHING ON HER PROFILE TO USE IT. Even though she's stat for stat weaker than any Marine HQ. Baffling madness. And we have to get PhD in mathematics to prove that one weapon might actually do 1.22 more wounds with an Agonizer over a Splinter Pistol over the course of three turns and stuff. I'm barely exaggerating.

What do we really want? Almost everyone here would say that we don't really desire to be the strongest faction. I know I very much don't. I'd like to be firmly in the top of the middle. Good and appealing. Mostly I want some interesting options. Strong choices with balanced points. If Lilith costs 150 I want to say "Yeah, and that's about right." And see my opponent nod in agreement. "Yeah, that's a lot of points. But she kills whole units. But I'll focus fire on her and kill her in one turn." Everyone says "that was about right."

And many, many of us were drawn to the aesthetic of Wyches. They look sweet. And we were drawn to the notion that they are crazy tasmanian devils with flashing knives in combat. They aren't. They haven't been. Not only do they die like they entered combat in bikinis (they did), but they fight like 12 year olds at the beach. Then, when the new edition is about to drop, we get "authority voices" say "Ooooooh, wait until you see how AMAZEBALLZ Wyches are!" And they aren't. And those fools don't run them in their lists. And we roll our eyes and say, "How many times can you try to sell us the same 4 day old bread?"

They had one of the best anti tank in the game (for its price, and how easy it is to field, the DL is nuts), coupled with one of the worst anti infantry in the game.



But now a lot of codices have better AT than us, and we still don't have a codex, so no solution for our AI.

The issue I see with Dark Eldar now is they do nothing that other Eldar factions don't currently do better, cheaper, or both. Harlequins are more mobile, better in close combat, more evasive, and usually tankier with their invul saves. Eldar have more specialized roles, better aircraft, better tanks, better infantry options, and HQs that are so good they can be exploited. Ynnari, in spite of their massive nerfs, are *still* almost an auto-take for a patrol detachment of Dark Reapers, Shining Spears, or Wraithguard/blades. This is a stark contrast to 7th edition IMO because in 7th we were a spoiler and niche army that, if played right, could absolutely wreck even a few top meta lists. Then again I did magic with Dark Eldar in 7th edition compared to most players. In 8th we're not the worst at anything in particular, but there are so many units from other factions that could just as easily fill any given slot. This is made more apparent by the fact we don't have a codex and thus do not have any detachment bonuses to miss out on by incorporating better units from other armies. Bringing a pure Dark Eldar force at this point is essentially a willful act of stubbornness rather than a strategic compromise for some other tangible benefit.

That's not to say Dark Eldar don't have some good stuff. The Tantalus is still good IMO. Our flyers are decent. I like Trueborn. Scourges can be okay. Our troops are cheap. Ravagers are good. Umm... I guess courts now?

To put it in a different context, in 7th edition Dark Eldar were like a 1988 4wd Toyota Tercel Wagon. Everyone wrote it off as a junker and it was a pretty crappy ride until you got that one day of the year when there's a foot of snow on the ground and you can still make it out to Wawa while everyone else is stuck inside, waiting for the roads to be plowed. In 8th edition Dark Eldar are like a 2003 Kia Spectra. Absolutely nothing special, and sure, there's complaints to be had, but it's dependable enough to do anything you really need it to.

Pretty well put by TeenageAngst. Dark Eldar are still decent, I think the cries of "unplayable" are a step too far. I'm still able to go toe-to-toe with most codex armies. That being said, we really need something to bring us up to speed, which I'm sure we'll get with our codex.

The thing that bothers me more than anything, though, is that we're so bloody slow. Tyranids, Orks, bloody everyone can move faster than Dark Eldar. If we're sacrificing psykers and heavy armor, we should be getting something more from it.

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Pretty well put by TeenageAngst. Dark Eldar are still decent, I think the cries of "unplayable" are a step too far. I'm still able to go toe-to-toe with most codex armies. That being said, we really need something to bring us up to speed, which I'm sure we'll get with our codex.

The thing that bothers me more than anything, though, is that we're so bloody slow. Tyranids, Orks, bloody everyone can move faster than Dark Eldar. If we're sacrificing psykers and heavy armor, we should be getting something more from it.

Couldn't agree more with this.

My experience in a nutshell: put us up against another Indexed army and you have every opportunity to win. Put us up against Codexed armies and you're in for a tough time. Personally I have yet to win a game against Tyranids since the codex dropped. That could absolutely be me, but given that I was having my way with them when we were both indexed, it stands to reason that major change has been around the Codex.

We have great mechanics that will hopefully get a bump with our codex (power from pain, maybe combat drugs).

We lack character aura abilities which to this day I don't understand since every other army got them.

I teeter back and forth between the future of our army, but honestly - the vast majority of stand alone armies (i.e. not sub-factions with codexes) are looking pretty formidable as they receive their codexes. I'm hoping we get similar treatment.

That's interesting - I really haven't had much trouble with any of the codexes, but I have a friendlier Meta where people play lists that they think are Good, but will still be fun. I played tyrannies just yesterday and won in a close 7 turn game against a really great player. But, like I said, could very well be the meta.

I think for the most part were still able to hold up in casual play, but we do need some love. Honestly, I'm thinking we'll get our due. I bet you that the warlord traits we got in chapter approved were ripped straight from the codex, and if that's the case I think the Archon could actually be something to be feared (since I'm assuming well get a good S+2 Ap-4 D3 sword -- Djinn blade?)
The court of the archon got massive points reductions, which I think will be pretty indicative of the changes to come.

I just hope we get our speed back....

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

That's interesting - I really haven't had much trouble with any of the codexes, but I have a friendlier Meta where people play lists that they think are Good, but will still be fun. I played tyrannies just yesterday and won in a close 7 turn game against a really great player. But, like I said, could very well be the meta.

Yeah local meta is very important.

Meta is very important. Locally, I have some Space Marine players that I just stomp...and a very good IG player that just stomps me every time I play him.

IMO.... we're pretty good at taking out t4 3+ save infantry... unfortunately with the new cover rules, they get a 2+, and that cuts our effectiveness in half. We just dont have the firepower to contest against infantry spammy armies like IG.

the IG player I play against doesnt understand my pain. He thinks that it would be a good idea to take Warriors in blob squads, and wyches in raiders. The space marine players think that Dark Eldar are super powerful.

My local meta is strange

You local meta is a twisted nightmare hellscape...

My regular opponents agree that DE are weak even though I win more often than not, because they know I've been playing longer than most of them combined and that experience pays dividends. Doesn't hurt that they tend to play high value high armour multi-wound models, which DE are strong against.