2000 Dark eldar venomspam list

HQ
Archon, shadow field, blaster 115

Troops:
5 Kabarlite Warriors, Blaster 55
5 Kabarlite Warriors, Blaster 55
5 Kabarlite Warriors, Blaster 55
5 Kabarlite Warriors, Blaster 55
5 Kabarlite Warriors, Blaster 55

275


Elite:
5 Kabarlite True Born, 4 Blaster 115
5 Kabarlite True Born, 4 Blaster 115

230

Fast Attack:
5 Scourges, 4 Haywire Blaster 120
5 Scourges, 4 Haywire Blaster 120

240

Dedicated Transport:
Raider, Dark Lance, Nightshield 75
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65
Venom, Splinter Cannon 65

465

Heavy:
Ravager, Night shields, 3 Dark Lances 140
Ravager, Night shields, 3 Dark Lances 140
3x Talos, Ichor injector 390

670

1995

I tried to put together a basic venom spam, multiple small units list.
The Archon will go on the Raider along with 5 True Borns and will alongside the rest of the venoms fly around firing at the infantry at maximum range.
The Scourges and Ravagers will try and take out the tanks
The Talos will try and take down the Dreadnoughts and walkers and such.

I tried to post this list on Dakka dakka, the main critique was that in a tournament i would get floored which such a list and i would need some allies in order make up for some of my lists weakness.
Okay i think either Harlequins or Eldar would be the best choice.
But which Eldar units should i bring and which Dark Eldar units should i replace?

How do you tackle flyers?
Deepstriking flamers could also be a problem I think ...

Personal opinion:
Apart from that, maybe it is somewhat effectiv, but I wouldn't want to neither play nor play against such a list. Only one word: Boring. It looks like the only unit that is worth taking in our codex are venoms, ravagers and maybe scourges. If you want to win, don't play DE (pure codex), if not, why are you spamming? Just curious about the reasoning ...

Omega1907 wrote:

Only one word: Boring.

I couldn't agree more

Omega1907 wrote:

It looks like the only unit that is worth taking in our codex are venoms, ravagers and maybe scourges.

I disagree with this one however, I think venoms are overrated against many opponents and only work due to being able to take them in high numbers - most of my regular opponents wouldn't struggle to beat a venomspam list. Conversely I love a warrior gunboat (without the splinter cannon) with nightshields, scourges are awesome (in various forms). Talos and Cronos are also really good (though better from the supplement), Incubi are situationally effective, I'm a huge fan of grotesques (supplement or codex), reavers remain very cool and very effective.

In short, there are plenty of options for variety if you want to look hard and find out how to make them work.

As for the list, flamers would make a nasty mess of it (they pretty much will however you want to take your AI in a DE army though) and how much firepower would an opponent really need to put your way to make 4+ of those venoms either dead or jink? Not that much methinks. I'd strongly recommend taking a couple of units of 10 warriors with no upgrades in splinter rack raiders and deep strike them. They should average doublt the casualties of a venom at short range, bring long-range AT and can jink away to your hearts content (increasing the durability of the unit against many targets).

I want to win i just heard that a venom spam list was the way to go, if you wanted to win with Dark Eldars.
Also i heard in a videos that Raiders where for getting in close army, while Venoms where useful if you wanted to stay as far away from the enemy as possible.
But as you (and others) have pointed out a pure DE list has a very hard time in tournaments.
And since i am of the mind set of painting miniatures first before i truly start to go into battle with them.
I really would like to have a finished armylist to work on, so that once i am done painting them i can safely bring them to tournaments, without constantly having to add and subtract new units that needs painting.

So since a pure codex army (and i guess even adding the supplementary codex won´t change that) isn´t going to work in a tournament, what allied forces should i bring and what DE units should go?.

I have heard the advice of removing the Talos, Venoms and merge the Kabalite warriors into 3 units 10 and put them into 3 raiders with Nightshield, Splinter racks and a dark lance to free up some points.
I have heard that Blasters are almost mandatory in any warrior list of 5 or 10, but i don´t know it that counts as an upgrade or not.

Someone also recommended that i throw out the True borns and take Eldar Fire Dragons instead as the bodyguard for an Archon with WWP and plop them down right next to a tank, to make the opponent use not so friendly words to express his opinions about that move.

Well, the most obvious and most common "quick little allied force" to add in would be a variation of this

HQ

Farseer on jetbike with various other wargear (to support with guide/prescience on our ravagers and just to hang back)
OR
Autarch on jetbike with various other wargear (the better option if you have things coming in from reserves)

TROOPS

3 Windrider Jetbikes
OR
5 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent with Scatterlasers and Shuricannon/Holofields.

HEAVY SUPPORT

Wraith Knight.

That's the quickest/simplest/smallest allied detachment that I see most commonly that immediately adds more competitiveness to DE lists.

You can start to make things a bit more interesting when you start also bringing in Fire Dragons to join one of our Webway Portal toting HQs - this combo is one of the best knight killing combos in the game.

Then Wraithguard with a Webway Portal HQ work really well too (less so against knights, however) Having 6-8 S10 AP2 Distort guns coming in behind an IG parking lot is brutal, especially since Mech IG is one of DE's worst matchups. (usually accompanied by a Blaster Archon to tank the shots with majority toughness 6 and his 2+ shadowfield, and an Autarch with Fusion gun to help them come in when you need them)

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

I disagree with this one however, I think venoms are overrated against many opponents and only work due to being able to take them in high numbers - most of my regular opponents wouldn't struggle to beat a venomspam list. Conversely I love a warrior gunboat (without the splinter cannon) with nightshields, scourges are awesome (in various forms). Talos and Cronos are also really good (though better from the supplement), Incubi are situationally effective, I'm a huge fan of grotesques (supplement or codex), reavers remain very cool and very effective.

I'm with you on that, the part you quoted was meant as an analysis if I'd only see lists like the OP one

About the list though:
A few formations from the supplement bring very useful things for a "pure" DE list. Dark Artisan and Grotesquerie are mentioned often and for a reason I think. I've used the grotesquerie with another HQ (Succubus) for the second squad in raiders. Boost them up front, if the raiders explode no problem, as the grots are/get fearless in the 2nd turn. More effective when you make a pincer move with the two squads.
DA with WWP is nearly a no-brainer, tough as hell and really killy in CC.
Gunboats (with or without blaster) deepstriking in rapidfire range hands out a lot of pain.
Reavers in squads of 3/6 with caltrops (mandatory imo) and maybe HL/blaster are awesome obj grabbers, harrassment units and able to kill light vehicles, like landspeeders and transports, quite easily (unless you fail horribly with the dice, 10 caltrop HoW hits only causing one pen on a landspeeder ).
Personally I see venoms more as long-range harrassment units rather than the heavylifters. DE really depend on synergies, tactical and rule-wise. We CAN spam quite easily, but as burning_eye said, it's easier to make a hard-counter for a spam list than a list with more variety.

CWE can bring some nice gimmicks to DE, firedragons for one, wraithconsturcts in all forms on the other hand. Not to mention some cool psyker abilities/synergies (armour of misery, WWP, wraithguard, spiritseer as a psychic shriek bomb with lethal shooting).

Harlequins aren't tested yet, but they probably have more potential with CWE than DE ...

Question could you combine the two? Take the grotesquerie and combine it with Eldar allies?
Sounds like it would make things quite nasty.

The rulebook says so, but I read that TO sometimes limit the lists to two codices (you could argue that the coven is a supplement and not a codex on it's own) or two detachments/formations/whatsever ...
Still, if you really want to win tournaments, DE aren't the first choice I fear. But that should not discourage you on playing them. The models look just awesome (well, most of them anyway) and with enough training/learning, they can also be quite challenging for the opponent.

The only thing to keep in mind is, the more points you spend on allies/formations, the fewer points you have to the cool things in the DE codex like reavers, scourges and gunboats

If you couldn´t win with the DE nobody would play them, yes DE has from the beginning been quoted as an army that´s hard to master and i may have to put in some Eldar allies to have any real chance with them.
But there in lies the fun, sure they are hard to master, but if i wanted an easy army i would just pick up either some Chaos Space Marines (still might as i think they have awesome conversion and painting potential) or some regular space marines.
The Dark Eldar may be though, but i think they can be a rewarding army, once you learned how to use them properly.

Erikjust wrote:

If you couldn´t win with the DE nobody would play them, yes DE has from the beginning been quoted as an army that´s hard to master and i may have to put in some Eldar allies to have any real chance with them.
But there in lies the fun, sure they are hard to master, but if i wanted an easy army i would just pick up either some Chaos Space Marines (still might as i think they have awesome conversion and painting potential) or some regular space marines.
The Dark Eldar may be though, but i think they can be a rewarding army, once you learned how to use them properly.
 

You're not wrong (except maybe on the Chaos Marines being easy to win with). I think that's possibly my biggest issue with your list, which doesn't show any real understanding of how the synergy between units works in the DE codex and just seems to be 'I've heard that venomspam is good, this is venomspam therefore it must be good'.

My advice would be to spend some time learning the units in the book, identify both their strengths and their weaknesses in relation to common tournament builds and also look for ways to maximise and minimise those elements.

Spamming something can be a winning strategy (sadly, cos I still think it's boring) but it also opens you up to some serious hard countering on occasions (for example your list vs a list with 5+ wave serpents? I reckon if you're lucky you'd last 2 turns)

I did look over the guide i have previously posted http://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=112392#p998181

And taken advice from Hedonismbot in the army list´s construction.
But again it never hurts to get a second or third opinion in order to tweak the list into something you can work with and start learning from there, through tabletop play.

Oh and these are the units i have
20 Warrior kabalites
20 Wyches
9 Reavers
4 Raider
2 Ravagers

I think the key thing I'd take away from that guide (having skimmed some of it) is this:

hedonismbot wrote:

Despite what many in the De community might say, I find spamming venoms over rated and leads to some serious flaws in a list that will simply keel over the moment it encounters an army that's the rock to it's scissors.

Which is basically exactly what we've said.

Hmm strange he didn´t voice that opinion when i was making the list, but no matter i will try and re-do the list, to the best of my abilities.
Capturing these kinds of mistakes in the uptake before going out and buying the miniatures will in the end be better for my wallet and my tabletop experience.

It should be said i haven´t really played a whole lot of 40k, most of my experience is with Warhammer Fantasy.

Wyches are sadly nearly unusable, especially in tournament environment, but the rest of your models looks like a good start imo.

Looking forward to what you come up with

Yes it was still the previous edition when i bought the miniatures and back then the Wyches where still relatively useful.
Now they will shear the space with Mandrakes in the category of units i might paint one day just for the fun of it (i do love the painting bit....which might explain why i usually use several hours on each part of the miniature before assembling it), but will never actually field.

I would look to use everything you've already got except the wyches. Raiders will always find a home in our lists (they're the only transport we have big enough for grotesques) and are a pretty nifty transport option for trueborn (if you want to take them, i personally find them too expensive). I'm also planning on painting on of my raiders up to take Incubi, though Incubi are useful only in very particular circumstances (no grenades - no chargey anything in cover!)

Okay tried to make another list, using battle scribe roster.
HQ: 150
Archon: Blaster, Shadowfield, Web Way portal. 150

Troops: 285
10 Kabalite warrior, Splinter Cannon 95
10 Kabalite warrior, Splinter Cannon 95,
10 Kabalite warrior, Splinter Cannon 95

Fast Attack: 184
6 Reavers, Arena Champion, 2 Caltrops, 2 Heat lance 142
6 Reavers, Arena Champion, 2 Caltrops, 2 Heat lance 142

Dedicated Transports: 225
Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks 75
Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks 75
Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks 75

Heavy Support: 250
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance 125
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance 125

Eldar:
HQ: 135
Autarch, Eldar Jetbike, Mantle of the Laughing God, Fusion gun 135

Troops
3xWind Rider Jetbike 51
5xWraithguard D-Scythe 340
Wave serpent Shuriken Cannon, Twin length Scatter lasers

Heavy Support: 240
Wraith Knight 240

1995

The archon will join the Wraithguard
And the Autarch will join the winder rider squadron.

The Wraith knight will try and help the Ravagers to take down tanks
I have given the Kabalite Warriors Splinter cannons and put them in raiders with Splinter Racks and a Dark Lance (mainly to save on points)
The Ravers will help where needed.

That format is unreadable, sorry ... how many models are in the reaver squads?
I guess the archon goes with the dragons ... good unit, but they won't last, maybe squeeze in a FA raider for them? At least a bit more protection with jinking ...

And I think, the point costs for all the upgrades shouldn't be posted here. Total points for units are ok, but not individual points.

Okay changed a bit, again if something doesn´t fit in the army please say so, any useful tips will be appreciated.

I think that looks good so far. Just keep in mind, that all of that list, except the wraithknight/-guard will die easily and fast, but that's nothing new with DE