Null Deployment Dark Eldar - The Way of the Webway

In 5th edition, reserving everything as a dark eldar player was commonplace! I am very excited that the Null deployment concept has returned once more! I requires three things:

Autarch (for reserve manipulation)
Dark Eldar force of some sort.

The Scalpel Squadron (formation from the coven book) - this is what allows you to keep everything off the table. Why? well, it deepstrikes turn 1, and stops you from loosing the game automatically.

So, why is null deployment so effective?

Ideally you want to go second. This basically negates your opponents entire first turn of shooting, and drastically reduces the second turns (if you placed the scalpel squadron right) This makes the enemy army not as effective at dealing with the fragile dark eldar units, and gives us a chance to do the most damage when we arrive from reserve.

The autarch is there to really assist in reserves, and if you get a dark eldar re roll reserves warlord trait, then its even better! Re rolling and then adding +1 or -1 is awesome like that you can really choose what comes on quite reliably.

I find the dark eldar do most of their damage in the first 3 turns of play, and the enemy will usually get beat up pretty hard, but then, turn 4 and 5 is when they can come back into it if they begin to win the war of attrition (lets face it, dark eldar are not the toughest). SO! by keeping everything in reserve, those first three turns of dark eldar dealing out punishment and death are the second, third and fourth turns! This allows less time for the enemy to fight back as effectively and gives the dark kin a great advantage in game.

So! What are your thoughts? To illustrate my point, you can watch this video battle report, I use a Null deployment dark eldar army, with three fliers and venoms and a wwp against a knight and a space marine biker heavy army.

Skari - out.

I like the idea but there's some thing that can simply stop it, ruin entire game.

One of my last games: Enemy picked the trait who get me -1 to reserve rolls :-/

And one Scalpel Squadron isn't so hard to kill it. Even 2 cannot do nothing vs some list like Wavespam, Tau etc.

I don't know, there's too much thing witch can ruin this strategy :-S

sorry, twice

I'm a big fan of null deployment with my drop pod marines but with Dark Eldar, I find its too defensive. I want to have as much of my army as close to my opponent to force them into a corner, restrict their mobility and then death by a thousand cuts. Although I must say that I follow exactly what you say and I do agree with it Skari. But for my personal play style and list preference (very important as is what you are playing against) I like to overwhelm and out-offence rather then trying to be defensive. Truth be told, if it goes well then usually the game is over turn 3 and if it doesn't go well its nearly over for me turn 2, but with the volume of stuff there, there is always a chance to draw it back.

The few times I have tried Null with Dark Eldar I do a bit of damage turn one, then get blown to smitherines as my piecemeal units drop in. I have more success in rushing turn 1 (first turn is so important though) or if i'm going second, to deploy everything on one flank and ignore one side of the board to minimise what can be shot at me. Venoms turn one soften stuff up and the raiders just boost straight into their deployment or close enough as possible as to be effective next turn. I take most damage turn 2 and deal out a crippling blow turn 2 depending on who goes first!

Now if there was actually a proper thought out raiding deployment such as the daemons deepstrike half the army first turn, then I would love null deployment. Its the lack of reliability which I cant cope with without resorting to Eldar-Cheddar! The best defence is a strong offence and a couple of scalpel squads isn't enough of an offence for me!

Cerve wrote:

I like the idea but there's some thing that can simply stop it, ruin entire game.

One of my last games: Enemy picked the trait who get me -1 to reserve rolls :-/

That's the trait his opponent has in the video. Didn't stop him.

Do you guys somhow "choose" your warldord traits? Everytime you play you get labarynthine cunning (at least if my memory serves me right)

Cheers
Caspaar

ShadowcatX wrote:

Cerve wrote:

I like the idea but there's some thing that can simply stop it, ruin entire game.

One of my last games: Enemy picked the trait who get me -1 to reserve rolls :-/

That's the trait his opponent has in the video. Didn't stop him.

But stop me.

And sorry, i really love the batrep of Skari, but 2 Razor, Archon WWB, 3x5Kabal Venoms going in at second turn....just 1 fail, 3 Eldar Bikes....I mean, ok, any plan will works with fortune

In my game, on 6 units I've failed 3 times WITH the Orbital reroll by the Wall (forget the english name, the fortification) :-/..vs Eldar wave spam.
Conceeded in 2 turns.

Sorry, I'm not really interested in a batrep video, for the same reasons I mentioned not being interested in a tactica video. The information works better in written format for me.

That being said, null deployment is a great strategy to sucker punch folks with. It's very hard to counter if you aren't familiar with it. It shouldn't be relied on as a win-button, though.

Honestly, my only contention would be an Autarch. The reserve manip just isn't worth his cost. If I'm paying the points to bring in an Eldar, a Farseer offers more than an Autarch can ever hope to.

I think I disagree with that. (the Farseer thing - I rather agree about batreps )

Back under 6th the Farseer was a massively better choice - but in 7th with the new psychic phase business a Farseer is basically just asking to be half shut down by any opponent's army with a half decent psychic assortment. It doesn't make the Farseer a joke, but it certainly donks him off the 'auto-include' pedestal he was once on.

What role do you have for autarch? I find him with a minimal role other than reserve manipulation. Hanging out with a banshee mask with incubi is ok, but the Farseer seemed to have an easier time once the battle started.

I've been running mine as a brawler with Bikes or Grots or as a shooter with Firedragons and a WWP Archon.

playing Null Deployment with dark eldar is my favorite way to play them. I even did this in 6th, just not to the same extent obviously.

With 7th ed I can play my DE the way I want to now.
I tried mono Dark Eldar for this, BUT found that adding an Eldar Autarch help soooo much, and really helps prevent that bad reserve roll turn. I take and Autarch with a fusion gun and have him deepstrike with and WWP Archon with blaster, Blasterborn in a raider. I won many tournaments with this kind of list in 5th. Hoping to do so with DE in 7th.

On another note. I never really considered the Scalpel squadron, but they seem like they could be fun. I tend to run with a unit of 2-3 Talos on the board and usually not deploy anything else unless I have a good reason to deploy something else.

I am eager to attempt a null deployment list, but if you don't get first turn, don't you auto lose because your opponent ends a game turn and you have no models on board?

game turn is different than player turn. The scalpel squadron auto arrives turn one. For me I use 2-3 talos to deploy

If using an Autarch for reserve manipulation, why not start with just a Wraithknight?

I may tinker with a brawler type Autarch. The investment in a WWP with fire dragons sends expensive.

I always see it personally that if you want to start with an Eldar side why not just go full Eldar? If you wanted to commit to a purist army its still probably possible to do it even without labyrinthine cunning. Scalpel squads and a talos hiding out if los would pretty much guarantee survival against most standard armies. Perhaps not DS armies though.

Its the wrong type of risk for me though. An autarch gives a good chance of making those reserves happen but we hit hard when we have a lot of stuff hitting. If you have ever played against Dark Eldar you will know the pain that can be dished out in one sitting. A few bits don't have the same impact as a whole army which is why null deployment concerns me. Sticking a scalpel down and the risk of it getting wiped off the board is greater than the potential risk of losing a few transports to first turn shooting but then having the rest of the army to hit first/hit back. Null deployment for me means every turn, if reserves don't go great is a squeaky-bum-time where you are hoping you don't lose everything as the enemies shooting is concentrated on to a couple if units rather than a huge amount of them. Safety in numbers.

Grub wrote:

I always see it personally that if you want to start with an Eldar side why not just go full Eldar?

Because, personally, I really love the idea of elven unification; Eldar putting aside personal differences in favor of their racist arrogance makes for a lovely army concept for me.

Quote :

If you wanted to commit to a purist army its still probably possible to do it even without labyrinthine cunning. Scalpel squads and a talos hiding out if los would pretty much guarantee survival against most standard armies. Perhaps not DS armies though.

Its the wrong type of risk for me though. An autarch gives a good chance of making those reserves happen but we hit hard when we have a lot of stuff hitting.  If you have ever played against Dark Eldar you will know the pain that can be dished out in one sitting. A few bits don't have the same impact as a whole army which is why null deployment concerns me. Sticking a scalpel down and the risk of it getting wiped off the board is greater than the potential risk of losing a few transports to first turn shooting but then having the rest of the army to hit first/hit back. Null deployment for me means every turn, if reserves don't go great is a squeaky-bum-time where you are hoping you don't lose everything as the enemies shooting is concentrated on to a couple if units rather than a huge amount of them. Safety in numbers.

A fair point. The counter side is that if you Reserve everything, it'll all get at least one turn of action. If your opponent is Tau or some such, an army that started on the board might get half its units shot off before it does anything.

Grub wrote:

I always see it personally that if you want to start with an Eldar side why not just go full Eldar?.

The obvious answer is because we don't want to go full eldar. There is a lot of synergy between the two codexes to make playing the mix fun. So why should anyone go purist when the two sides offer one another so much? Seems a waste to me.

Jimsolo wrote:

A fair point.  The counter side is that if you Reserve everything, it'll all get at least one turn of action.  If your opponent is Tau or some such, an army that started on the board might get half its units shot off before it does anything.

Very very true. Situation is very important, as is first turn. To me if I was going to go second I would consider a null deployment against Tau say IF there was a better method to Null deploy. I really expected there to be a raider detachement where half the army could deepstrike first turn if they were in transports, a bit like the Nemesis formation or what Daemons get. That way it would A) Be really fluffy as well as fun and B) Gives a little bit of security to null deploy.

Current null deploy armies do well because they are tough. Drop Pod Marines and Nemesis formation GK for example have the staying power to drop down, shoot the hell out of something nasty and then hang about. Deep striking IMO is about gambling to get into a great and aggressive position turn 1 and to cause some damage. Sternguard in drop pods with meltas and flamers suiciding in to take out what ever they can is great. Because the opponent has to commit to taking them out because you then have a bunch of marines, termies with GK who will hang about and take some punishment. Dark Eldar aren't particularly great at taking punishment so I worry about the effectiveness of them and then not being tabled before reserves can come on.

ShadowCatx: I can't put aside my disdain for craftworld (Used to run them before converting to the dark side), I don't particularly like Allies in general besides Imperial Knights, just my preference, I would rather die horribly then join with the space hippies

colinsherlow wrote:

game turn is different than player turn.  The scalpel squadron auto arrives turn one.  For me I use 2-3 talos to deploy

This means you can deep strike the squadron on your opponents turn? I'm very confused on this, I can't find any rules that support this.

You lose the game if by the end of the game turn you have nothing on the board. Scalpel arrives on your player turn 1 so when the entire first turn comes to an end, you should (hopefully) have something on the board so its not an auto-lose.

Grub wrote:

You lose the game if by the end of the game turn you have nothing on the board. Scalpel arrives on your player turn 1 so when the entire first turn comes to an end, you should (hopefully) have something on the board so its not an auto-lose.

Makes sense, I don't have my rulebook on hand to verify though. Thanks

I like the idea of null deployment, but like Grub, I just find it's not reliable enough, even with reserve manipulation.

I think the Webway Portal should grant guaranteed arrival when you want it in addition to the non-scattering deepstrike. Especially given its cost.

I like the concept but where I struggle is to have the scalpel squadron alone on the board definitely for at least 1 turn.

I would like it much better if everything could arrive at the same turn, which is impossible currently

How many here have tried running multiple scalpels? Just for info sake?