The Good, The Bad

Again, dog turd sandwich metaphore.
Its no use looking at what we had, but what we have. Its not as good but its better than nothing! I like the HW scourge. I think its pretty effective. If they can keep a low profile and things like reavers take all the attention then they can survive. 5 Hw wyches would say turn 2 maybe 3 get into a tank, wreck it then all die from being shot, especially as blowing up a landraider gained no pain token. Hw scourge, sit 36" away, first turn move 12", shoot 24" potentially wreck a tank turn 1, if positioning has worked you get the opportunity to do it turn 2, maybe 3?

Yes its more expensive and more fragile but it can be preserved better, it can be the sneaky back fielder who steadily causes damage without drawing too much attention to itself! Or, it gets shot and dies. Well that's the game!

That's exactly my point, you can't compare the two because they're completely different units with completely different methods of achieving the same thing (for example wyches can't kill tanks if your opponent bubble wraps them to 8", which isn't too difficult. Scourges can kill them from 24" away, which is practically impossible to defend against). Yes, the venom is immune to lasgun fire, yes wyches are better in hand to hand combat. Can they kill a tank the turn they arrive on the board without giving your opponent the opportunity to hurt them? No.

I'm also not saying that haywire wyches weren't a better anti tank option than scourges, but then wyches should never have been our go-to anti tank option anyway in background terms (and as far as I'm concerned, the background is important when i write my army lists).

All of our choices have to be taken in the context of the army as a whole. I personally don't agree that DE were hit with the nerf stick (some units yes, but the army as a whole no) because i think we have more options for viable builds now than we used to.

I would really like to agree on the background statement, but seeing that the Ravager which shuns armor in favor of speed to kill tanks and vanish before they can respond is basically a stationary vehicle does not seem like GW gives a crap about "background".

Well, it's said to see how people keep picking on the nerfing of "good" units.
About HwG Wyches, back in 3rd you had to pay 5 points per HwG and nobody was picking it because we had no chance at FnP.
For me cutting the price by more than halve for the HwG's and given the change of glancing hits and HP's suddenly made the HwG Wyches OP. Yes, I said it: Over-Powered. As SkulnBonz pointed out: the unit only costed 125 points for CC Anti-Tank AND an anti-infantry shooting transport. Too good to be true.

As with HwB scourges: you can't just point & click with this unit. Whole our army needs to work together on the tactical level to be efficient, just the way it should be.
If you want to make that unit able to handle infantry: just add more Carbine Scourges in the mix.
IMO their added value is that they have such a small footprint and still have effective AT, so they can hide from retaliation while hitting a tank.

Maybe it's just me but I don't like to have an OP unit in the codex as it reduces variance. I rather have too many viable choices than two obvious must-take units. Like the Chaos flying chicken or de Eldar Wave Serpent or whatever cheese there is out there.

I think the point I am trying (and failing) to make is this:
Dark Eldar lost 1 thing that made them not only a competent tournament army, but a viable one as well.

VERSATILITY.

I play tournaments almost exclusively. I win a lot of them, and almost always with Dark Eldar.
I am struggling mightily so far to find a tournament level DE build that is not, in reality, more Eldar than DE.

Versatility and Speed were the benefits of our armies.. now, not so much... I would even argue they SLOWED us down as an army!

Now before you all get riled up and ask if i am smoking crack (which I am not), I offer proof of my statements.

Compared to Last edition, we will just go with the Wych/Haywire/ Venom combo.
This cheap unit was VERSATILE! It was Anti-Troop! It was Anti-Tank! It was Speed! It was 2, count them TWO objective secured units in one!
The anti troop was without question! a thrown small blast ap 4 str 4 grenade and up to 16 poison shots. Nothing on the table could hide from this 12" moving unit of death!
As anti-Tank, it was unparallelled! Throw a grenade, then charge in for 6 haywire attacks! Landraiders and razorbacks did not stand a chance! 1 round... tank was gone!

What do we have now for anti-tank?
Scourges- A middling (I don't care what anyone says!) anti tank unit that shoots and most of the time bounces off of cover saves, shields and the like. Same roll to hit as wyches, but guess what- you did not get a shield or cover save against HTH wych grenades!
Are scourges versatile? Well, they cannot hold up units like wyches in HTH, suck very badly at anti troop, and for the points are nowhere NEAR worth taking as anti tank!
We take them because we have no choice! We have nothing else!

What, a Talos? 6" across the board and good luck EVER catching a waveserpent! How are Taloi against knights? I will tell you how good, 1 "6" on a stomp and pick them all up!

Ok, how about a Ravager.
The same tank that is more expensive and less useable from last edition? that one?

And please, don't even think of saying "razorwing or voidraven", as they are overpriced and underpowered (not to mention underarmored for so exspensive a model!) and lack the needed versatility.

130 points for a dark lance razorwing MAYBE... anti troop w/ missles, anti tank w/ lances, but still not worth the points!

Our anti-Tank sucks out loud! However, combined with Eldar, we rise to greatness! Deep striking raiders filled with firedragons, units of wraithguard, etc... they have promise.
Only 1 drawback... RANDOM turns they enter the game.

Do you really want 3 knights running rampant through your army until turn 4 when the firedragons decide to show up?  How about a maxed out grot unit that cant even charge or do a thing until turn 3 at the earliest, turn 5 based on the whims of luck! Randomness is not the friend of a tournament player.

Want to know the best anti-tank unit DE has? The most versatile, multi-use unit that can work against vehicles and troops with something even CLOSE to what we had before?

Reaver jetbikes with cluster caltrops.
This unit costs 262 points, but has:
A champion so you are not running every time a serpent shield looks your way
Decent cover save all the time
Drugs
4 D 6 str 6 rending impact hits
8 str 4 rending impact hits
A large footprint to surround a transport, pop it, and kill everyone inside
Hit and run

This unit, and this one only is a reliable tank killer.  It can also zoom across the board to avoid fire or capture objectives, is decent (not great, just decent) in HTH, and has some decent poison shots.

It is expensive, and you need to play them smart (I/E keep them in reserve against wyverns) but it can get the job done, and do it well.
To be absolutely sure, bring in an autarch w/ shard to make them fearless.

Other than that, please tell me what we have? Am I missing something?

Mandrakes?

lol Of course! I forgot those guys! Problems solved!

You see all I'm hearing now is that the unit in our codex that people saw as an auto include because it could do everything against all targets is no longer viable.

I see this as a good thing, one reason i put my Dark Eldar on the back burner and stopped reading this forum all that much was because the majority of DE lists got really, really boring - I could guarantee that most of the time, they'd have 4+ units of wyches with haywire grenades in venoms, 2-3 ravagers and probably a razorwing and some blasterborn.

Now, we have a codex where some people will get their anti tank from scourges, ravagers, fliers, reavers, grotesques, blasterborn and talos (not just combat, don't forget their tail weapons) and i like that. if you don't, fine, i'm quite happy to agree to disagree.

No, I agree 100%, for fun games, the new list is.... well, fun!
But, like I said, tournaments are what I do mainly, and now, my tournament army has been neutered. I will never go over to the "light" side and play Eldar, but when I am facing 2-3 games against 3-5 waveserpents in a tournament, it would be nice to have SOMETHING that could put up a fight.
I would just like a fighting chance.

I am still searching the Dex, and have not delved into covens too much (but I fear they will just be too slow to be viable), but hope remains....

I used to love my haywire wyches too, but to be fair I dedicated 250 points to each target I actually wanted to kill. When I rushed raiders in to kill a landraider or something, I always knew I needed to send 2 because one was consistently shot down and the inhabitants wrecked immediately after or a template would be able to hit the vehicle and burn everyone alive inside because I had to get so close to be able to assault the vehicles. I was basically dedicating 250 points to kill 250 points and not really gaining any ground in the trade. To me, the switch to scourges is less expensive because I can more reliably count on each squad to kill its assigned target by taking advantage of the better range to keep threats at a distance.

The other big shift in my opinion is just going back to running kabalite warriors with a single blaster in a raider for my antiarmor. I love have two different lance shots from the same unit that I can split fire if the first shot gets the desired damage result I want. If you want versatility, I think this is the unit you should be depending on now. They're stellar in my opinion and I'm much happier filling troop choices with my Dark Eldar army than I am with my other armies. I also like to balance between raiders and venoms because both units have their uses imo.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Seems a bit unfair that Imperium can bring allies, including Knights, but anything else is frowned upon.

I'd much rather face a Space Marine army with an allied Knight than go up against an army composed of nothing but Knights... when I think about Imperial Knights being essentially the 'Lord of War' option for Space Marines it seems a lot more reasonable.

I have to agree with the majority here. You can't compare the two because they are two completely different units. But one thing is still the same... MSU. You can't expect just one unit of 5 scourges to be your AT option, just as you couldn't expect just one unit of wyches in a venom to be an option either. In both scenarious, guess what.... they are going to be targeted early because of their threat level to the enemy.

We all know this, but DE is not about what 1 single unit can do, it's about what you can put around that unit. It takes a full army that works together to accomplish the task. DE were always and still are one of the toughest armies to play, and that is one of the reasons I love them. Just as The_Burning_Eye said, take a little bit of everything. This forces your opponent to make tough decisions. And if he makes the wrong one.... usually a DE victory.

merse24 wrote:

but DE is not about what 1 single unit can do, it's about what you can put around that unit.  It takes a full army that works together to accomplish the task.

Yes. Well put.
Army dynamic is so key to DE, you have to play unfair, you have to cause a bit of chaos, target saturation while everything works in harmony. (Dark Eldar irony there!).

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

You see all I'm hearing now is that the unit in our codex that people saw as an auto include because it could do everything against all targets is no longer viable.

I see this as a good thing, one reason i put my Dark Eldar on the back burner and stopped reading this forum all that much was because the majority of DE lists got really, really boring - I could guarantee that most of the time, they'd have 4+ units of wyches with haywire grenades in venoms, 2-3 ravagers and probably a razorwing and some blasterborn.

Now, we have a codex where some people will get their anti tank from scourges, ravagers, fliers, reavers, grotesques, blasterborn and talos (not just combat, don't forget their tail weapons) and i like that. if you don't, fine, i'm quite happy to agree to disagree.

This is not gonna change. Now you have other auto-includes, thats all about it (and they are not even estetically appealing).

The majority of lists will also here get really really boring - I could bet most of the time they will include a Dark Artisan and maybe a Grotesquerie, 2-3 units of scourges and probably a razorwing and some blasterborn.

Anti Tank wll come from the cheapest and most reliable source. This will be again the "good" choice, whill every other choice gets a place on the shelf again.

So basically you look forward to 2 - 3 months of experimenting followed by another 4 years of "meh everytime the same lists".
I for my part like the experimenting part. But I absolutely hate coven units. I dont like the optics in my DE army and I never will. Sadly this makes my army garbage now. So no, Im not really excited about the changes.

I don't know. I think it will come down to similar lists bo doubt. But there are many options now. Some people will go scourge, some will go grotesque, blasterborn, reavers,ravager, talos, razorwing (maybe even a Void chicken bomber). I think we will see various builds that will have AT to match the style and gameplay of the army.

Thee is always going to be some list similarities, that's the way games go. But I think there is more potential for added spice then before!

I must be one of the few who is really happy with the way the Scourges and Voidraven are working. The HWB scourges finally give me the ability to deal with artillery turn 1, while the Voidraven gives me a lot of answers against heavy vehicles and terminators later in the game.

Grub wrote:

I don't know. I think it will come down to similar lists bo doubt. But there are many options now. Some people will go scourge, some will go grotesque, blasterborn, reavers,ravager, talos, razorwing (maybe even a Void chicken bomber). I think we will see various builds that will have AT to match the style and gameplay of the army.

Thee is always going to be some list similarities, that's the way games go. But I think there is more potential for added spice then before!

Well, I mean, when it comes to competitive play, especially with GW, lists get boring. Competitive play is about winning, not fun. Excluding Eldar and the supplement, running a pure DE codex list, I don't think you'll ever see: wyches, mandrakes, taloi, cronoi, wracks, bloodbrides, ur-ghuls, voidravens, hellions, or beasts. The only juicy bits are in our fast attack, and after enough playtesting the community will kind of figure out the best unit(s) in that slot too. I don't really see a change in variety. We lost wracks and wyches, gained possibly scourges and courts. Every list is going to be: HQ of choice(probably Archon) potentially with Incubi(arguable with the lack of grenades), Grots, or Court, Kabalites to fill out troops, Blasterborn in elite, Ravager in heavy. After that you have reavers, scourges, and razorwings competing for your six FA slots. Doesn't really seem spicier to me. Not saying it's necessarily bad, but at least last codex there was more competition in the elite and troops sections, and reavers/beasts competed with eachother too.

Absolutely right. But tournament lists are dull anyway. I prefer to play the units that I like, if you can win with a tournament list congrats. Now improve your play by trying out those other units, have fun and create a challenge! Why not? I think we have a lot of fun units, maybe not super effective, but fun.

Just to stroke ourselves, I agree, but that's why the majority of lists will always be dull. And you get to be a total hipster.

I used scourges before they were cool.

Hahaha unfortunately my first love were Incubi, wyches and reavers so no claim to being a hipster for me!

I had my second game with the new dex today. Won 13-8 playing Maelstrom.

HWB scourges whiffed, just bad rolls.

Voidraven did some serious work.

RWJF is back in full force thanks to being able to fire all it's missiles again. One liquified a THSS termisquad.

The Dark Artisan formation is worth every point. They managed to disassemble a rhino, crusader squad and Chapter Master.

Blasterborn in a venom did as they do. Flew around picking off crusader squads.

Courtbomb in a Raider was great. 3 Medusae, 5 Sslyth, Archon and Succubus is no joke. The Medusae killed a full assault marine squad alone and off an objective. Majority T5 saved them from a HF ironclad. Only losing the Medusae(which tanked most the wounds with FnP) and a wound off a Sslyth and then jumping around to get objectives.

I only had two venoms with Warriors start on the board, which was a bit risky but paid off. I want to have the Scalpel Squadron and always go second so my opponent has an entire turn of shooting that does nothing and all my stuff comes in after theirs but it's hard to trim this list.