1850 Competitive All-Comers

Hi. Please critique my army list for 1850 points. I tried to crunch as many vehicles as I could to make the list more resilient vs mech IG, while trying to still keep a venom spam config with 6 venoms minimum. And it should be able to take on termie spam lists such as GK Draigo wing using the ravager with disintegrators. These are all theoretical, though. Let me know what you think.

Dark Eldar Army

HQ

Archon, Blaster (rides with a wrack unit)

Court of the Archon
Lhamaean
2 Medusae
Sslyth
Ur-Ghul
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

Elites

3 Wracks
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)
3 Wracks
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)


Troops

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)


Fast Attack

Beastmaster Pack
5 Beastmasters
10 Khymerae
4 Razorwing Flocks


Heavy Support

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield

Ravager, Night Shields, Disintegrator Cannon (x3)



Models in Army: 73


Total Army Cost: 1850

Total Vehicles: 12 (6 Venoms, 3 Raiders, a Ravager and 2 Razorwing Jetfighters)
Total Darklight: 11
Total Killpoints: 23
Total Claiming Units: 6

furyan wrote:

Archon, Blaster (rides with a wrack unit)

Fine.

Quote :

Court of the Archon
Lhamaean
2 Medusae
Sslyth
Ur-Ghul
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

Derp?
What do you think this unit is for? If it's for the Venom, you can do that cheaper.
If it's for the Liquifiers - well, okay, maybe. Though you could still do something almost like this for less via 5 Wracks w. 1 Liquifier, and could field two in your elite slot and save points for other things.

Quote :

Elites

3 Wracks
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)
3 Wracks
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

Okay for what they are.

Quote :

Troops

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster
Raider, Flickerfield

Smart move putting them in Raiders, your army is very heavily slanted towards anti-infantry.

Quote :

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

5 Wyches, Haywire Grenades
Venom, Splinter Cannon (x2)

Fine.

Fast Attack

Quote :

Beastmaster Pack
5 Beastmasters
10 Khymerae
4 Razorwing Flocks

That is a big pile of Beasts...why not find the points to use Baron Sathy instead of your Blaster Archon? +1 to first turn and 3+ cover for the Beasts is probably worth more than a single Blaster shot.

Quote :

Heavy Support

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield

You really think you need a lot of anti-infantry, don't you?

Quote :

Ravager, Night Shields, Disintegrator Cannon (x3)

Egads, yes, yes you do.

Quote :

Total Darklight: 11

For competitive play this is the one thing that worries me. Yes, you have the Wyches, but this is still dicey - especially when Razorwings are best used on infantry, not vehicles. That means you really have about 7 shots (3 Raiders, 4 Blasters) and probably the blasters wont be in range Turn 1, leaving you 3 anti-armor shots...maybe 5 if both Razorwings focus on mech, which is possible considering how many Venoms you have (it's not like you need the Razorwings to drop super bomb hell on Longfangs when you have 6 Venoms...) but at the same time then...why have Razorwings in that case if you aren't using them for what they're best at?

At 1850 I usually field 20+ darklight when going competitive.
Sometimes I feel like I'd like some more darklight in my list...
About once a quarter I think I need more anti-infantry.
I would suggest doing something to up your initial strike ability with anti-armor - I would tend to point at at least two Ravagers with Lances as a good place to start.

My thoughts,
Thor.

@thor

The Baron sounds like a good idea. I will try to incorporate him in the list. I bumped up the beastmaster squad to keep my opponent busy shooting at it - it makes DE frail vehicles more survivable since their guns are busy shooting at something else.

I really want to have 2 flyers in my list. And i already tried 3 DL ravagers before, I feel I wont miss out on anything if i played the razorwing jetfighter since it has 2 DLs anyway AND it has those cool missiles. Should i try fielding voidraven bombers instead?

For me to increase my darklight, seems like I need to add blasterborns and DL ravagers. Is it imperative to have blasterborns and DL ravagers to make a list competitive? I mean do I really have to have 20+ darklight minimum to make a competitive list?

The thing about darklight is, whatever crack that GW is smoking as they price them out, Str 8 lance weapons just aren't really all that great at dealing with vehicles. Vs. AV 12+ close topped a Dark Lance has a 7% chance to wreck it. That means, if you absolutely want to wreck something, statistically you need about 14 dark lances to *know* you can do it.

Yeah - check that out with how much other armies are paying for Str 8 Auto cannons or Lascannons, or Rail guns, ect. ect. ect.

Then check out the price of our vehicles - do the math to find out how hard they are to kill.
Compare that to the cost of a Lascannon equipped Razorback.
Of the various multi-targeting units out there - like Longfangs, flyers, practically everything with Power of the Broken-arse Marine Uber Spirit.

For example;
Raider w. 5 Warriors and Blaster - 120 points.
5 Grey Hunters w. Melta w. Razorback w. Twin Linked Lascannon - 155

Chance of us wrecking him - 11%
Chance of him wrecking us - 37%

This doesn't even bring into account the Blaster and melta, which is a whole other interesting ball of wax, or the fact he has better range then us and can also use cover easier - but needless to say those Grey Hunters can stomp on us to a degree that is very disproportionate to the 35 point difference.

Other armies that are built to deal with mech saw through us like a sandblaster versus a cheescake.
The way we compete is to bring so many frellin' guns that we can shake/stun/weapon destroy them enough that they can't sneeze and wipe us off the board.
Do you *NEED* to do it...well, no, probably not. And new army lists pop up all the time that work because they operate enough outside the meta that people don't expect them or have ways of dealing with them.
But they do work for a reason.

As regards the Razorwings vs. Ravagers - just understand that Razorwings are anti-infantry. You're paying more points than a Ravager to get something that isn't as good at killing mech. That's fine - but understand you're buying an anti-infantry tool and play accordingly is my advice.

I do think you need more anti-mech for competitive play though.

It looks like you have all the aggressive units in Venoms and most defensive units in Raiders.
I should suggest to mix it up a bit.
The court benefit greatly from a larger hull to be able to fire their flamers more effectively and wyches benefit from a longer vehicle increasing their threat-range.

@ speedfreak

I actually never thought of that. I agree and even find it interesting that the transports hull is beneficial to the kind of unit embarked and what it does. The way I chose my transports is by their ability to hide. Venoms for example are more survivable because they are easier to hide in terrain than raiders, hence using them with the aggressive units. I am still having a hard time putting together the list, though, because I want to have 6 venoms in my list but unfortunatly it seems that raiders are more valuable competitively in the current meta. Should I take out the venoms entirely since I already have razorwing jetfighters, anyway?

@ thor

Thanks for you comment. With the type of list I am trying to make (mech), seems like Ravagers are the way to go because of their cost efficiency. I guess I need to rethink how the army is suppose to work first before stuffing in all the units. I will update soon.

Yeah, Ravagers are very point efficient, and are pretty much without competition on a point for point value in their ability to kill mech. (I think they're the cheapest unit to get mobile anti-mech with, and statistically are better able to 'hurt' other vehicles than the Voidraven (though the Raven is better at getting actual wrecks)

Knowing the purpose of your units is a *very* good thing to have in mind when building. It helps avoid you being overbalanced at one thing, or lacking the ability to do something you know will be important.

I also underrepresented the Razorback's chance to wreck us - it should actually have an extra 2% due to his ability to wreck us via glancing and us being open topped - so 39% chance to wreck us. Jerks.