1000 point army list

Hello!

I was looking for some opinions on my army list, and from what I hear, this is a fantastic place to do it!

This is my first post on the site, so sorry in advance about my formatting:

Ten Wyches:
3x Hydra Gauntlets
Hekatrix w/ Agonizer
Total: 150 points

Raider:
Dark Lance
Enhanced Aethersails[1]
Night Shields
Total: 80 75 points

Ten Wyches:
3x Hydra Gauntlets
Hekatrix w/ Agonizer
Total: 150 pts

Raider:
Dark Lance
Enhanced Aethersails[1]
Night Shields
Total: 80 75 points

Seven Lhamaeans
Total: 70 points[2]

3 Medusa
Total: 75 points


Raider:
Dark Lance
Enhanced Aethersails[1]
Night Shields
Grisly Trophies
Total: 90 85 points

Venom
2x Splinter Cannon
Total: 70 points

Beast Pack:
1x Clawed Fiend
1x Razorwing
Total: 50 points


Beast Pack:
1x Clawed Fiend
1x Razorwing
Total: 50 points

Beast Pack:
1x Clawed Fiend
1x Razorwing
Total: 50 points

Archon:
Webway Portal
Blaster
Armor of Misery [1]
Total 125 points

Five Scourge:
4 Heat Lances
Total 120 points

Total: 1000 990 points

At the start of the game, the Archon would be attached to the Scourge in reserves. The raiders would advance, using the beasts as cover, taking shots at enemy transports. With his army on foot, the beasts lead the charge, and the Wyches and Lhamaeans bring the hurt in combat.

If theres something particularly nasty on the table, like a dreadnaught or something similar, my Archon and her cutter squad would, eventually, deploy behind it via webway portal, and cut it apart with heat lances.

I decided to go with really small, 50 point beast backs. Each have 8 attacks, and half of those attacks rend, so they shouldn't be so small that someone can ignore them. And with six wounds at toughness 5 I'm hoping they'll either draw fire from my raiders, or put out enough hurt on their own that I don't miss the girls should the raiders go down anyway.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Is there anything "illegal" about this list that I'm missing?
As you can see I'm pretty fond of violent chicks with knives.

If the raiders are following behind the beasts why take the enhanced aethersails? And im not keen on spending points on wych weapons either.
I'd spend those points on making your warlord more durable. Maybe a clone or shodow field? You don't want to lose an easy point late game because your warlord died.

Good point lol, I think I might remove the Aethersails, and spend the 15 points on the Armor of Misery. Then my Archon will have the same save as the scourges at least. Maybe I'll even sacrifice a Wych weapon to have enough for a clone field.

But since wych weapons are so cheap, I don't think I'd sacrifice more than or two.

Wych weapons may be cheap, but they are also bad. I'd drop a combination of upgrades (weapons, sails, night shields) that you are comfortable with to get Haywire on the Scourges and a Shadowfield. That way your warlord can stand not right in the face of the enemy.

Also I'm not a fan of your court. Maybe Medusae instead? They get MUCH more work done. And can help paper over the fact that Wyches are bad at killing just about anything, but particularly MEQ.

Why would you drop the Nightshields though?
The raiders are going to be behind the beast-packs, and the Nightshields would give them a 4+ cover save.

I took the 7 Lhmaean court mainly because they cost so little. I mean I can totally see how AP3 Templates could rock, but 21 Fleshbane attacks on the charge (with a chance of instant death) seemed like a steal for 70 points (Which would only get me almost-three Medusa)


I don't know how good the wych weapons are in practice, but I could use the points to give my Archon a shadow field generator.

Are Wyches really that bad at killing things in Melee? I thought people just hated how vulnerable they were to overwatch?

Night Shields you kind of have to do the math on. I actually doubt they'll be getting tons of cover from the beasts - Claw Fiends are pretty tall, but can only block the small frontage, people that want to kill Raiders can just move to the sides if they need to. And even so, you are talking about vehicles that aren't carrying much and can be targeted by bolters. I generally only advocate Night Shields on either expensive vehicles that you are going to keep away (Ravagers) or vehicles carrying expensive cargo. Your Wych Raiders meet neither of those requirements.

For the Lhamaeans you are right that Fleshbane is handy, but they are super fragile. They lack Dodge or Combat Drugs that Wyches have. And I don't think you really need to get more bodies that can hit things in melee at AP -. And they die to Overwatch as easily as Wyches. Medusae you could get 3 of, yes, and put your Archon with them in a Venom instead. That will be much more helpful to your list.

Wyches are bad because they have STR 3 and only 1 base attack. So they really don't actually kill things in melee. Assuming you are fighting MEQ, you hit 50% of the time, then wound 33% and they save 66%. So each attack only causes 0.05 unsaved wounds. So, assuming no upgrades, you need 10 Wyches (not on the charge) to kill a single Space Marine. They get a benefit against things like GK that have massed power weapons since they still get a save, but in the majority of cases having Dodge is no better than having Carapace armor. And no one claims Carapace vets are awesome at combat.

I hadn't thought much about being shot from the sides, but I suppose any sort of deep-strike would screw over my beast screen! I may drop the night shields.

I am starting to realize how few Anti-Space marine options I have. I see how the wyches suck at killing things now. I didn't think about how many rounds it would take to kill a simple squad of 10 tactical marines.
It also occurs to me now that I cant count on sweeping them by charging them with an agonizer. Darn.

And While Lhamaeans do hilarious things to Carnifice and Ork boys, They have the same problem wyches do against Tactical marines/ are a smaller and even more fragile squad.

I think I'll let the scourge deep-strike and scatter, and put the archon and the portal in a small squad of medusa with a venom, because deepstriking AP 3 flamers actually does sound like just what the doctor ordered...

That would even allow me to screen more of my raiders with my beasts.

I generally just use my wyches to lock down something dangerous until I can bring my incubi down on it like the wrath of a scalpel shaped god.

Also gets over that pesky no grenades thing incubi have going on.

If you prefer the look consider counts as conversions. Since you only need like 5 (I'd say 3 at that point range) incubi. A single box of dark elf wyche elves or whatever would work fine. Or maybe vestal blood brides from raging hero?

I'm an advocate of incubi though most people prefer grots. Sure they are tougher but nothing beats the look on that grey knights face when he gets all smug I'm charging his termies and then he finds out they're AP2 and all his precious armour didn't stop them from dying before they ever swing.

I don't know about you but I got into dark eldar to feast on the anguish of my foes lol not to be tough.

I'm pretty much the same way Red, I don't play Dark eldar to field high toughness, multi wound units, I play them to laugh at those units! (Ignore my beast packs for a second!)

And that's the sort of tactic I was planning to use, but I suppose I over-estimated the effectiveness of Wyches (I was going to lead with beasts, let them absorb overwatch and deal a few wounds, and then hammer the unit off with wyches lol)

Interesting thing to note about Incubi, for the same cost, Lhamaeans deal almost as many wounds to marines as incubi, more wounds to horde units than Incubi, and are much more capable of downing monstrous creatures.
Incubi are hands down more durable though.

I do need anti marine units. And between medusa and incubi, I do like the idea of Incubi better... even if I think medusa would be more effective.

I'll check out Raging heroes though!

Hello!
Had a chance to play a game today, thank you for all of your input, I thought I'd come back to tell you how things went.

So A few things I had taken away from this was that I didn't have any answer to MEQ, My commander was teleporting into the enemy with no armor (and would no doubt be gunned down for a quick victory point), and that if I was relying on wyches to kill things in combat, I was going to be very disappointed.

I still liked the idea of chicks with knives raging across the landscape behind a mob of ferocious beasts, but, I realized, I could always proxy some of that.

The army I decided to go with was
2x
5 wyches
Hekatrix w/ agonizer + Haywire
Venom w/ dual cannons

4 Incubi
Klaivex
Raider w/ Dark Lance

3 incubi
Klaivex <- Warlord
Raider w/ Dark Lance

2 Cronos Parasite with Spirit probe
1 Talos Pain engine with Venom Cannon

7 Lhamaeans as my HQ
Raider with dark lance

As weird as it was, It seemed that the list was legal (correct me if I'm wrong). After dropping the Archon, Webway portal, and Scourge, I had enough points left over to upgrade my beast packs to pain-engines. I realized that I lacked AT that I lost with my scourge, but it was too late, I was already making up lore for my army.
I called up some friends, and decided to Proxy some games!

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The first game I played against my friend, he had brought his Tau. We decided to play the "Vanish into the Gloom", from the Coven supplement. After we set up the game, the raid begun.

I believe someone must have tipped off the tau about a possible Dark Eldar raid, because they came equipped with weapons that seemed perfectly suited for shooting down grav-craft. Strength 6 blasts, Ignores Cover and Homing abound... But no none of the ludicrously strong rail-guns they were known for.

My transports hovered outside of range until turn three and exited the board immeditately. The Pain engines stayed behind to kill as many Tau as they could before they expired. Corralling the Tau back into their board edge as volley after volley of pulse munitions and missiles exploded harmlessly off of their exoskeleton was new. Hilarious. Intoxicating. I'm already thinking of ideas for conversions.
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The second game I played was against a different friend proxying a psyker heavy tyranid army. Malceptor, and several broods of Zoanthropes. Invulnerable saves everywhere. I probably could have won the game by default had I brought the helm of Spite.

My amazing pain engine from earlier crumbled in a single charge from the his flying hive tyrant. The high borne Lhamaeans from their elegant raiders, double-dog-dared the wyches from a nearby venom to charge the Hive tyrant, and as high as the wyches were at the time, they did it.
After the hive tyrant fired overwatch with its Miasma cannon, The Lhamaeans killed IT in a single charge (losing a few of their own in the process)

The incubi with their 4+ feel no pain butchered their way through a truly absurd amount of gaunts.

The gun crew of the venoms mowed down Zoanthrope after Zoanthrope, while the raider's dark lances were completely and utterly foiled by their warp field save.

All in all, I had two fun games, that were not at all indicative of what one might expect to find in the wilds of the hobby-store. I know this new list probably has it's own glaring flaws, but I thought I'd post this to say, thank you all for the input. I'd still be open to critiques of my new list! I might make every change, but it is much appreciated. I'm pretty sure these games would have been disasters otherwise.

Szungrave wrote:

The high borne Lhamaeans from their elegant raiders, double-dog-dared the wyches from a nearby venom to charge the Hive tyrant, and as high as the wyches were at the time, they did it.