Hordes and how to deal with them

So Im little over three months into playing dark eldar, loving them so far, but one of the biggest problems that I cant seem to counter are hordes. Mostly of the Ork or Guard variety.

So I was wondering how you guys deal with hordes and hordes of lightly armored enemies?

You'll hear a bunch of people say poison, which is true, however my razorwing does pretty decent with all kinds of hords

4 monoscythe missiles

Actually... shredders.  I know most people would never use them, but I have a squad of scourges I deep strike vs hordes with shredders.  4 blast templates that wound on a 2+ with a reroll will wipe out a good chunk of low armored units (like 9), add the remaining shardcarbine or plasma grenade if you are close enough.  If you have the armor of misery (or any other leadership shenanigans nearby) and there is a pretty good chance even a 40 strong unit will be broken.

If you're looking for a cheap and effective melee tar-pit clearer though, I use my raider full of  Lhamean conversions.  10 points a piece, 3 attacks on the charge at initiative 5, that wound on a 2+.  Compared to the old counter-tarpit: wychs - Kabalite armor means their melee save is only 1 point less than the dodge wychs get vs hordes plus they get it vs all those lasguns on overwatch.  Their weapons put out 150% more wounds against toughness 4, about 50% more versus toughness 3, and are 2+ with a reroll versus the rare toughness 2 enemy.

Edit: I didn't realize noone mentioned grotesques either.  Rampage can have them putting out more melee wounds per point than any other unit in the codex.  Also if you know you're fighting T3 hordes ahead of time, the liquifiers might well be worth it.  Charging grots get 3 attacks + 1 if they have melee weapons +1 for charging +D3 if they're outnumbered (by say - a horde).  8 possible attacks per model that wound toughness 4 on a 3+ with a re-roll due to the poison, toughness 3 on a 2+ with a re-roll.  With toughness 5, 3 wounds, and FNP, they're pretty un-killable by low strength attacks.  The downside is their cost and leadership.

TLDR; razorwings are good, but there are also other options.

Grotesques against shorty hordes like guard blobs. Using superior mobility to play keep away from Melee blobs is best, drowning them in poison fire until your own melee units can hold their own. Hope that helps, as far as general strategies go.

Gunboats...venom Spam. Either one. A raider can put out 20-22 poison at 12. 12-14 poison at 18 inch range. All twin linked. Venoms can pit out 12 shots up to 36 inches.

Grotesque do wonderso against hordes, I have been using the grotesquerie formation lately and they tie them up pretty well for a few turns. If they die out there by that time there are so few enemies left that you clean them up from shooting.

If a unit of grota die to a horde something went wrong lol. Give each siccorhand and watch then eat both the transport and the guys that charge them. I mean on anything T4 they wound on 3a and reroll. I personally cannot wait to run grots....though it may be a while.

8 grots held up 40 Khorne hounds, the warlord, one mauler fiend and one blood thirster with D weapon for 3 rounds, things went pretty good considering what I was up against. By the end we both had 3 models left on the board.

^now that is a grot story. Like seriously.

Against a greater demon with a D weapon??? How???

Fearless from the suppliment and it was two Grot units of 4 with haemonculus and archon. The archon hung in there like a boss. The demon with the D weapon strikes at initiative one and is not a eternal warrior so when two of my grots rolled a 6 on instant death and the demon didnt make his save he was dead. The Mauler fiend was ultimately the thing that killed (slowly) my grots because of his strength 10 attack (I got a weapon destroyed result on one of his fists before he got into combat) and my grots had nothing that could kill him since he is armor 12. I also had feel no pain 4+ that does no good vs str 10.

Nö Haywire Grenades for the Archon? Too bad.

He was stuck in a challenge for 4 round's with the chaos lord.

I'm liking the medusae's s4 ap3 template. Taking 3 or more in a court has the potential to take entire squads off of the table. I haven't yet had to deal with a group of infantry greater than 20 models, but I'm sure they can do significant damage.

5 Ssylths, 4 Medasue, 1 Archon WWP, in a raider. Deadly. Would hurt eldar bikes....hardcore.

True but that would cost 400pts. Probably better ways to kill hordes

Of course. I was just saying. Also wracks with loads of liquifier guns.

Liquifier are just bad. Back when they were S4 they were amazing but at S3 they while struggle to kill anything but guardsmen blobs.

Which is one of the ones he listed. Also, they work pretty well on gaunt blobs. Mass splinter fire is usually the best out.

The killing blow to liquifiers was not that they decreased the weapon strength 25%, but that when revising the price to reflect this, they decided to increased it 50%.  

If they were say - 5 points a piece and a unit could take 4, it'd be fine (remember wracks are an elite choice, most elites get 3-5 special weapons).  The massed Str 3 AP3 would be effective versus heavy infantry, stormtroopers (or whatever you call them now) are a pretty good example of that.

Even if they kept the strength but added some fluffy downside like the gets hot rule to represent a chance for a wrack to die from exsanguination I'd be fine with that.

Flamers-Pain engines can tie them up as well as Groteques (Rampage), flyiers with templates, Bikes work well against hordes too. Cluster caltrops and bladvanes can really do some damage. Kabalites, trueborn, and scourge have the option of shredders (I personally think lance and poison weapons are a better role for them)

The only reason I wouldn't run scourges with shredders is I already run two squads with haywire blasters to combat heavy tanks.

I have two squads of 5 Kabalite Warriors in Venoms. Each squad has a Shredder and the Venoms both have 2 Splinter Cannons. This would probably do well against hordes as it is 190 points for the 2 units combined

Its 110 a pop for that set up, putting you at 220. Still cheap, and still good at killing hordes