Is assault based pure DE viable

Helequin wrote:

Two, this is a way to reduce the effectiveness of overwatch. I'd much rather be charging with 2 squads of 5 wyches than one squad of 10, since they can only overwatch one enemy.

Unless the enemy is going to cause more than 5 wounds to the wyches I don't think this matters much.

viable
vi·a·ble
ˈvīəb(ə)l/
adjective
capable of working successfully; feasible.

Yes it works. I've won with a pure DE assault army before. You can do it.

worth
wərTH/
adjective
1.
equivalent in value to the sum or item specified.

When I first started running DE, I ran a couple of large wych boats, an Archon, and a company of Incubi at his side. Because our HQs are assault based and I didn't want him to be worthless.

As I played games, I ended up putting the wyches in venoms with haywire grenades since the large squads rarely had enough wyches left to contend with anything. With the extra points I added more warriors. I replaced the incubi with groteques because the Archon and Incubi rarely survived after their assault.

Now I use zero wyches and my archon only carries a blaster. A squad of warriors would wipe out a same size squad of wyches for less points, before they get into assault. My archon with a blaster could instakill the melee archon for fewer points, yeah, yeah, flickerfields and grots, that's fine, I'll take four more blasters.

For fun? Yes. But is it worth it? No.

Well, stop punching Wyches, they are on the ground, what is DE assault army now?

2 units that came to mind are Grots and Reavers, they are ok in assault. Is assault army based on those 2 units viable?

What other units is there in such an army? How do we do AV if we are assault based? Dark Artisans?

I have seen a succesfull CSM list with a deepstriking Hellbrute formation, that was backed by Las Preds. Man, they rocked hard. Their cc AV was pretty rocking.

aurynn wrote:

All I am saying is that I welcome everyone who has the balls to try something shunned by others and I want to encourage this because they might just show us that the truth is not as universal as is believed... :-)

This was a big motivation in starting both my active 40k armies (DE and Tau) - when I picked them up (4e) no one was playing either of them because the codexes were old and everyone thought the armies were weak.

Whenever I hear someone spouting off absolutes about this game (x is rubbish; you can't win by doing y) my first instinct is to prove them wrong

That said, I'm not seeing absolutes here; I'm seeing a balanced discussion of what is most effective, most reliable and best value for points.

Anyway, let's hear from anyone who is making "assault lists" work at the moment...

Plastikente wrote:

Whenever I hear someone spouting off absolutes about this game (x is rubbish; you can't win by doing y) my first instinct is to prove them wrong

Mandrakes are rubbish, you can't win by running an unbound army of pure Mandrakes.

Thor665 wrote:

Plastikente wrote:

Whenever I hear someone spouting off absolutes about this game (x is rubbish; you can't win by doing y) my first instinct is to prove them wrong

Mandrakes are rubbish, you can't win by running an unbound army of pure Mandrakes.

Although 125 of them in a 1500pt list would look awesome!

I would like to see pics from that batrep.

Thor665 wrote:

Plastikente wrote:

Whenever I hear someone spouting off absolutes about this game (x is rubbish; you can't win by doing y) my first instinct is to prove them wrong

Mandrakes are rubbish, you can't win by running an unbound army of pure Mandrakes.

Curse you Thor! Now I'm going to have to buy enough Mandrakes to prove you wrong.

Actually, come to think of it, when I wrote up my (now sadly out of date) DE unit guide, there was only one unit that I couldn't find anything positive to say about - Keradruakh

Thor665 wrote:

Vasara wrote:

We have two daemon players that do well with their rush lists.

I will admit, hearing that, and the CSM/Maulerfiend one, mostly makes me think that they are playing against players who haven't figured out how to build a shooting list. I would be pretty content facing those with my DE who are not a top tier list and are more fragile to multi-assault than most.

I would like to think that our gaming group has some international level players.

But I remember you (or someone else) saying there is 7 good shooty lists compared to one assaulty list.

Vasara wrote:

But I remember you (or someone else) saying there is 7 good shooty lists compared to one assaulty list.

I remember getting into a discussion about top finishers at LVO with Duck where we were debating which of the lists counted as shooty vs. assaulty.

My basic contention was some didn't even have assault as an element, and most of the ones that did had very little.

Is that what you're talking about?
If not you lost me

"Is assault based pure DE viable"

Short answer no

Long answer Noooooooooo

Such a shame but they do really struggle now. Assault is still viable but as part of a greater balanced force (that has a lot of shooting). We just do not have the tools to make a pure assault based list work. No grenades, poor armour saves, low toughness, very few low ap weapons ect.

So here's a question to those who know the current edition and the DE far better than me, since I seem to forever be stuck in 3rd Ed thinking.

I see a lot of "shooty list" vs "assault list" talk, but when I look at the DE codex I see a lot of tools with potential in both areas. Any deathstar type we had has been thoroughly routed out with the new Dex it seems, and MSU and boat armies are both popular.

With all that in mind, has anyone had success running lists which are closer to a 50/50 split in assault and shooting? I don't mean that there has to be a rigorous one shooting squad for every cc squad, but a generally more balanced force than shooting with a unit or two for counter-charge etc.

At a glance on paper, it looks like we have the tools and the speed to pull it off. And rather than trading shots with the most dangerous enemy shooting units, hopefully one of the cc squads can tear off and lock them down.

I currently play a hybrid list, as I find shooty dark eldar fairly dull to play.

I would say though that Coven is probably better at assault than the wych cult units are though, seeing as they can usually withstand a lot of firepower.

Wych cult would be more difficult to play and would require a lot of PFP buffs in order to make it work.

I would say try to proxy a variety of units and see how they play yourself. If you don't play ultra-competitive win at all cost then you should be able to make a variety of lists that will win you games.

Helequin wrote:

With all that in mind, has anyone had success running lists which are closer to a 50/50 split in assault and shooting? I don't mean that there has to be a rigorous one shooting squad for every cc squad, but a generally more balanced force than shooting with a unit or two for counter-charge etc.

The closest I have come to a 50/50 is probably my 1850 build wherein I field a Succubus w. Grots and a Dark Artisan formation. Only two units, but you're looking at around 600 points there. Nothing else was assaulty, so that's a roughly 1/3 assaulty 2/3 shooty build.

It did perfectly fine, and better against some lists than others. But if I had run up against the types of lists/builds you see in legit competitive play I would have been blown off the board.

I would say it was a list good for maybe local tournies at best.
I would go more shooting if I wanted to be more competitive - as the DA formation is too slow to be properly viable.

Helequin wrote:

At a glance on paper, it looks like we have the tools and the speed to pull it off. And rather than trading shots with the most dangerous enemy shooting units, hopefully one of the cc squads can tear off and lock them down.

We don't actually. All of our 'speed' assault tools (Hellions, Beasts, Reavers) are actually either terrible units for assault (Hellions/Beasts), or not really working assault as a tool but rather HoW (Reavers).

Reavers then suffer a bit more as they are rather reliant on cover saves and HoW to work - so in a world with a fair amount of ignoring cover on top shooting builds, they're of middlish quality.

Other "fast" things are...well, pretty much anything we can cram into a Venom or Raider.
Incubi are highly specialized and lack grenades.
Wyches have grenades, but aren't actually capable of hurting much of anything.
Archons are survivable but lack some combat impact.
Succubi have combat impact but lack survivability.
Lelith is basically just an upjumped Succui with all the benefits/drawbacks entailed and lacks wargear options for true army support.
Draz is laughably priced (and lacks grenades )
Grots are pretty solid, though have still a few weaknesses and tend to ask for a bit of support and are very pricey to 'spam'.
Wracks are weaker in assault than they were and were never that amazing to begin with.
Mandrakes aren't an assault unit anymore and grow markedly weaker in assault.

Then there is the Talos, which is a pretty solid little MC at a not unfair price, but 'fast' is not in his vocab and probably the best build available to them involves DSing, or footslogging/running forward - whoo-hoo!

That's about it.

I think there are good units in that list, and I think there are viable builds to add assault elements. But it is poorly designed if your goal is to even manage 50/50 assault/shooty and will, by definition, be inferior to a shooting focused list, which isn't even that frightening in the grand scope of the game.

Thor665 wrote:

Incubi are highly specialized and lack grenades.
Wyches have grenades, but aren't actually capable of hurting much of anything.

Could it be a viable plan to pair these together? Sure you need to be lucky enough not to budge the charge roll on these units.
But I can see Incubi (or reavers) taking the overwatch for the Wyches who than get to strike at initiative to reduce the amount of wounds coming in to Incubi and also because models in B2B with the Wyches need to target them.

I feel you need to be creative to combine units assaulting together to mitigate some weaknesses but mainly to stick as much in CC as possible.
This is the main advantage you can gain: units in CC aren't susceptible to shooting and enemy shooting units are worthless in CC.

To tackle opponent assault heavy armies we should have the speed to outrun them and weaken them with splinter fire before we counter-charge.
Raiders with EA are moving at 36" on flat out and Reavers do 48", I can't think of anything but a flyer that can keep up with that. Or you are playing vs (Dark) Eldar.

I'm mainly focussing on how to make assault work for Dark Eldar as PfP mainly boosts CC, especially if you can combine it with Coven PfP: Furious Charge together with Zealot can really put the pain on. Then you are no longer looking for 2 turn CC but rather smashing anything on the charge.
Hmm, this makes me wonder if I can come up with a useful Coven detachment of mainly Heamies and some Grots/wracks. Sadly the Sumps is limited to 1 piece per army

PS: I have tried to find your list on this forum but I didn't see any recent (up to October).

El_Jairo wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

Incubi are highly specialized and lack grenades.
Wyches have grenades, but aren't actually capable of hurting much of anything.

Could it be a viable plan to pair these together? Sure you need to be lucky enough not to budge the charge roll on these units.
But I can see Incubi (or reavers) taking the overwatch for the Wyches who than get to strike at initiative to reduce the amount of wounds coming in to Incubi and also because models in B2B with the Wyches need to target them.

Well, yeah, by doing that I can risk my valuable and expensive Reavers or Incubi to protect some Wyches who are going to be barely able to hurt the squad they attack, all for the bargain plot of sending 2 units in to beat up 1 in assault. Doesn't strike me as particularly cunning on my part.

El_Jairo wrote:

This is the main advantage you can gain: units in CC aren't susceptible to shooting and enemy shooting units are worthless in CC.

I can agree with that. You still have to get them in assault, natch.

Just to flog a dead horse.

Is Dark Eldar assault viable in competitive play?
Nope. There is a very solid case for this.

Is Dark Eldar assault viable in casual games?
Yeah, kinda. I still think that if you and your mates are playing a game and your both not obsessed with just tabling each other and play interesting and varied/fluffy lists then I think you can still do alright with what we got. Sure its not optimised for those comp games and yeah its going to be harder but if its a friendly game why not? It adds a bit of fun to it in my experience and also forces you out of your comfort zone which is arguably a good way of gaining a better understanding of the army and becoming a better player.

In short it depends on what level you are playing at. I've run a cult list recently in a friendly game with Orks and it was fun, it was a challenge and it led to a satisfying draw. I rather prefer to have a close fun game now then just stomping, unless it is competitive play in which case I will spam and play as unfair as the best/worst of them!

You know, instead of making Dark Eldar look bad for the internet, we could change the title to:

Is an assault based army viable.

Unless you're playing with Imperial Knights, probably not. Dark Eldar assault units don't necessarily suck so much as the assault mechanics of the game. Take away overwatch, and allow units to assault after deepstriking and suddenly wyches don't look as bad. Do I want those changes? No. But every codex suffers from those same assault gimping mechanics. Random charge distance too, but since we have fleet I don't really worry about that one. You can strategize and make it work, but I'll happily shoot you from 24-36" away every time.

Then how come assault lists filled with daemons, bikes, wraiths, and thunderwolves are dominating the meta here?

Because there are ways to overcome the limiters to assault, and generally the best way is to not need a transport, to be tough enough to handle overwatch and a few rounds of shooting, and to be able to assault effectively.

Bikes, and Beasts, and the ilk can do this because they can move 12", are tough versus shooting, and mostly have grenades and multiple power weapons and good armor, toughness, and invulnerable save options.

Most DE are based around the concept of being fragile, most actually aren't that fast and require transports, lack assault grenades, and have limited power weapons and invulnerable/armor save access.

So basically everything that makes life hard for assault units is magnified on us.

Thor665 wrote:

Because there are ways to overcome the limiters to assault, and generally the best way is to not need a transport, to be tough enough to handle overwatch and a few rounds of shooting, and to be able to assault effectively.

Bikes, and Beasts, and the ilk can do this because they can move 12", are tough versus shooting, and mostly have grenades and multiple power weapons and good armor, toughness, and invulnerable save options.

Most DE are based around the concept of being fragile, most actually aren't that fast and require transports, lack assault grenades, and have limited power weapons and invulnerable/armor save access.

So basically everything that makes life hard for assault units is magnified on us.

Indeed, just to expand on this, Grotesques are currently our best assault unit - surprise surprise they have T5 and multiple wounds to soak hits, and come with a FNP save that's sufficient to be taken pretty much all the time.

Incubi are very capable of damage dealing, and the 3+ armour save is very useful, but the lack of assault grenades and low toughness means that doing anything other than jumping on chaff units (which I'd rather not with my 20pts a model elite choppy choppies) is going to result in them taking enough casualties that they can't be effective.

Wyches, well, they've not been an assault unit for at least two editions, I currently equate them with playground slappy slappy fighting, in fact possibly the only 'assault' unit that annoys me more are the jump pack wearing rubber chainsword carrying assault marines.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Wyches, well, they've not been an assault unit for at least two editions, I currently equate them with playground slappy slappy fighting, in fact possibly the only 'assault' unit that annoys me more are the jump pack wearing rubber chainsword carrying assault marines.

And even assault marines would probably beat a unit of Wyches in combat.

At 17 pts a model I'd hope so!

Quote :

And even assault marines would probably beat a unit of Wyches in combat. Sad

There is not 'even' about it, if there is one unit wyches fail to fight its assault marine.

Count Adhemar wrote:

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Wyches, well, they've not been an assault unit for at least two editions, I currently equate them with playground slappy slappy fighting, in fact possibly the only 'assault' unit that annoys me more are the jump pack wearing rubber chainsword carrying assault marines.

And even assault marines would probably beat a unit of Wyches in combat.

Mhhh, those days when wych weapons where good.. Those where the days.

I support the statement that a competitive pure DE CC army is not viable, but that should not stop us from trying to find a pure DE CC army that can work ;-)