DE vs BA 1.5k Noob needing help building an army

Dear Dark City,

You guys seem to know your stuff. I just recently got into 40k and decided to play Dark Eldar, love the look and play style of the army. However I have 3 problems:

1 - The only person I can play at the moment is a very experienced BA player
2 - Still a noob and making stupid mistakes
3 - The dice god hate me

More on point 3, out of 5 games I have yet to start first. In the space of 2 turns I had 14 Agoniser attacks and only 1 caused a wound which was saved due to FNP. First time I tried a Shadow Field I rolled a 1 on my first invulnerable save. The list goes on.

The last few games we've been increasing the points as I've been getting more models and on Thursday we're ramping it up to 1500. Planning on buying some more models in the next couple of days.

I've tried a few things that have worked, wyches chew through most of his troops and I did have a lot of fun with Duke Sliscus in a squad with 9 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks.

Any ideas on an army list would be amazing.

First off an agoniser is a power weapon so it bypasses fnp. The rest you really have to see what you like and what kind of play style you like, do you want an assault army? More shooty? I would suggest going to the army list section and check what ppl posted then once you have a good idea post a rough draft of your list and then we can help you develop it to something you will consider fielding.

I've been having a look at other army lists and working on the 1.5k list. Just finished a rough draft now.

2x Haemonculus, 2x Liquifier Gun, 1 Casket of Flensing

2x 9 Wyches, 1 Hekatrix with Agoniser in Raider with FF and Torment Grenade Launcher

2x 3 Trueborn, 3 Blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

5 Scourge with 2 Heat Lances

6 Reavers, 2 Grav Talon and 2 Blaster

3 Ravagers with FF and NS

Is there any point in converting one of the ravagers to disintegrator cannons? Not to sure about the assault or shooty. I have enjoyed both but against the BA guy i tend try to break open his armor before assaulting with the wyches. Was planning on using the Raiders to help decrease their leadership and then to unleash the Casket of Flensing

Na not really just keep the DL on the ravagers. For the reavers ether go with cluster caltrops or heatlances. Those are the best, the grav talons are not that great. And I think your talking about the crucible for use of the -leadership. The casket is the random effects all around. The list looks good so far if you get the right mix of shooting and cc this can be a decent list all around.

Cheers mate, I'll swap around the reavers wargear, never used them before. I was planning on using the grav talons with the -1 leadership but I just read some more into that and realised it doesn't affect the pinning test. And yes I was thinking of the crucible thanks for that, that could have been a nasty surprise.

I was reading your liquifier list, whats the verdict on those? They seem amazing if you get the right roll plus they're relatively cheap. Made me attempt a 1.5k list for those. Might give it a go if there's time just to see how fun it could be.

I re-did the math and had to drop the crucible and TGLs, currently sitting on 1497. Another thing who would you suggest I give the Pain tokens from the Haemonculi to? I was planning on giving them to the wyches but I could give one to the Reavers. Is there any point?

Pain tokens on Reaver Jetbikes makes me reaally begin to question what you think those jetbikes are going to be doing. I think Reavers are one of the most often overestimated tools in the codex and I'm one of the few competitive DE vets who seems to believe they even have a place at the table.

Let's consider;

You've paid out points to give them an upgrade to help them hurt people by turboboosting - they can't use it and still shoot or assault.
You're given them an upgrade to allow them to shoot mech effectively - they can't use it if they turboboost and...*might* be able to assault after it if it's a transport and dropped infantry.
And you're contemplating giving them a pain token to...prevent them being shot off the board by small arms fire...? 6 Bikes is pretty easy to kill - T4 and 4+ is a Space Marine Scout - when was the last time you had difficulty shooting Scouts off a board? Even with FNP 1-2 5 man combat squads will be fairly able to wipe the unit with one round of shooting.

So, what I see is you spending a lot of points on a unit that can never actually do everything you're paying for it to do.
The easy solution? Give it less to do.

I would decide if they are a unit built to attack mech or a unit built to harras infantry - and equip them thusly. Pocket those save points and use them elsewhere.

Also, I've argued it before, I'll argue it again, two 3 man RJB squads is tougher to kill than one 6 man squad. Bank on it. It's also, overall, a better use of identical points.

Next big thought - you're building this army like a Space Marine player. I won't hold that against you (much ) because we've probably all been Marine players of one sort or another at some time. But here's the big difference; DE have GREAT Troop choices. Our Troop choices kill the heck out of stuff. I could build a competitive list using almost nothing but Troop choices (Marines can barely empty water from a boot with instructions on the heel with their gak Troop options). Don't be scared of fielding more than two Troops.

In fact, considering how easy our Troops can die, and how aggressive you'll have to play the Wyches to make them any good, and how 66% of all games are objective based, I think you would be *well* served by fielding at LEAST two additional Troop choices. I'd happily drop any of that fast attack stuff you're playing with to do it too - our Troops can do everything RJBs and Scourges can do - but do it better and for less points.

Moving on - besides the fact Reavers are too wussy to deserve FNP, recognize the value of your Wyches as a Troop slot first off, and also recognize that giving FNP to 9 models is superior to doing it to 6 just in a general sense of making things hard to kill - leave the pain tokens with the Wyches.

As far as other advice you've received; I basically agree that Caltrops are better than Grav Talons (though I never take either anymore). I definitely agree that Ravagers are generally best left as 3 lance. I totally disagree that heat lances are the 'best' choice for RJBs (I personally think Blasters are better in every way) but in any case, smart money says that it's a reasonable debate as to whether a Blaster of H.Lance is best - go with your own gut on that one.

My thoughts,
Thor.

Liquifiers are very fun and and amazing for there point cost. For rolling the ap it gives you half a chance to ignore most saves from marines on up and you can even blow some tanks up with a lucky roll and good positioning. And Thor hit the nail on covering most of the topics you listed Now all you have to do is find what you like and keep on testing

Cheers both of you, this is the kind of stuff I need to know. Sorry for building the army like a space marines player, only two armies I've played against are Blood Angels and a dreadful Chaos Marines player kind of thought that was normal. I was planning on giving the FNP to my wyches, just wondering what the general opinion was.

Planning on dropping both the fast attack choices for more troops, thought I had more than enough anti tank without them. I am thinking of 2x 5 Kabalite Warriors with 1 Blaster each in Venoms with Splinter Cannons for a bit more anti infantry. Which leaves me with 83 points somewhere else. Could do one squad of reavers with a blaster or heat lance. Another option would be to have 2x 10 Kabalite warriors in Raiders with splinter racks.

I'll write up my list for dissection once I've decided.

Thanks

I'll probably say it again later when you show us your list - but you probably don't have as much anti-mech as you think you do.

As an example to understand there is a discussion we had on the topic of 'how many lances is the right amount at various point levels' and though the generally agreed upon answer was 'depends' the next answer that got the most agreement was my modified answer for the question and that is 'one lance per hundred points' which isn't really true, but should get you tinking in an area where you understand what is or isn't 'plenty' of lances in a DE list.

Just a consideration for you as you build your new list.

I think I just learnt that lesson about lances. Played 1.5k against IG with the following list which is what I was planning on using tomorrow to test it out (played on vassal engine):

2x Haemonculus, 2x Liquifier Gun

2x 9 Wyches, 1 Hekatrix with Agoniser in Raider with FF

2x 3 Trueborn, 3 Blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

2x 10 Kabalite Warriors in Raider with FF and SR

3 Ravagers with FF and NS

Changed out the agonisers for venom blades just to give them a go. It was going well until I missed with 9 lances and 3 Blasters in turn 2. Apart from the the wyches did well, as did the warriors. Probably not the best list against a mainly mech IG but i wanted to trial run the list. So far I'm happy with what I've got although it is a little boring on the variety.