500-pt TAC (first 40k army.... criticism please!)

Yep, first army.  Be gentle, yet firm.  

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Lhamaean in Venom w/ 2x SC

9 K.Warriors w/ Blaster in Raider w/ DL and SW

9 K.Warriors w/ Blaster in Raider w/ DL and SW

Cronos
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My thought is that I have a nice variety of targets.  I'll push the Cronos up the middle, hoping to have it soak up fire while the shooty bits hide in cover until they can all fire on the same target(s) at once.  If this sounds crazy, it's because I haven't even played my first game of 40k yet!  Teach me your evil ways, o evil ones!  Note that I only have one Venom right now, so Venom spam is not an option.

Hi and welcome! I liked your intro on port of lost souls. Looks like you have a good idea in regards to fluff, style, and theme. IMHO, that's the most important thing to have when starting off. Oh, and $ doesn't hurt either

Anyway, to your list: looks like a good list with a good strategy (chronos) The biggest problem I see is not enough antitank. There are a lot of different ways to accomplish this task with Dark Eldar. Here are a few: Dark light (blasters and lances), Haywire from Scourges, Caltrops from reavers, and some strong Coven units like Chronos or Grots. There are a few more but these are some of the main ones. I personally run Gunboats, Ravagers, and Blaster born. Not a super popular combo, but for me it fits my theme. (I'm not big into Coven) With that in mind, I find that Dark light needs to be a percentage of my army to be successful. I have found that I'd I can get 70% or less worth of dark light, I'm good. For example. My 500pt list has 5 lances and 2 blasters (7 total). 7 into 500 is about 71%.

Looking at your army, (remembering you have a Chronos) you have 4. Not bad, but maybe not enough. It will take you a few games to find what works for you but that's my advise. Best of luck and have fun! Bring back as many souls home with you as possible!

Thank you for the reply. So what would YOU change in this list? If I drop the Cronos, I could beef up the gunboats (adding the 10th men/extra DL), bringing my darklight weapons total to 6. Or I could take as many Scourges with HWBs as I can. I would like to run Reavers, but I'm not sure how to make a unit of six (a unit of three is not advised, correct?) with caltrops. I could trim down the warrior units and add a Ravager...

I do feel as though if I trade my Cronos for more darklight, I'd be sacrificing some survivability by taking away the "anvil" unit. Again, that might be my naivete. I've got lots to learn when it comes to 40k.

Also, I'm a bit confused about your percentages. 70% of what?

That 70% is basically for every 70points in the army you have a dark light weapon. So for example, my 1000 point list has 15 dark light guns. 15 into 1000 is about 67%

And yes, you will be sacrificing "survivability" but that's a risk I don't mind taking. It depends on what style of army you want to play.

I would stay away from adding dark lances to the warriors in the raider because you can't move and shoot so you either end up not moving to allow you to move or move, not letting you shoot. It usually doesn't work out. Personally, I would add the ravager.

Let's look at a list that has a bit more antitank then your original list

Lhamean in venom 2 cannons
2 raider gunboats with 9 guys, one with a blaster. The raider has a DL
6 reavers with 2 caltrops.
495pts

This army is faster than your original and has a bit more antitank. It will play significantly different the other list. But try both, try one with a ravager. The best way to see what works is to play the game. Which is the fun part!

Thanks for clearing that up for me.  There's so much flexibility with this army.  I love that I can take a core concept like "gunboats" and take it very different directions depending on how I choose to support those gunboats.

Do my two gunboats look okay? I'd like "two gunboats" to be the staple of my 500-pt. lists. Is it a good staple to keep while I tinker with the supporting actors? Totally new to the game, so any advice is appreciated.

Well, personally, I base my army around gunboats. Ideally you can have a mix of both venoms and raiders. Both have their pros.and cons. In regards to my gunboats, depending if I have enough points to spare and where my anti tank is, I'll run my boats with no blaster. Ill run them with between 8-10 guys, all with rifles, with splinter racks. Its cheap and has an objective. Hopefully you'll get some advise from some more guys (not just me, haha) Everyone has their own play style and experience which helps in building lists.

I have had a few games where I needed a lance shot, and the only one available was in my gunboat. Well, that wastes the 9 splinter rifles cause they are strength 1 and can't hurt tanks. Now, on one side of the coin, at least I had a blaster shot there, which is good, on the other side, I'm wasting splinter shots. In a venom it makes more sense to take the blaster.

Question about bumping... is my post above really considered "bumping?" Feedback from the original post led me to a new question, which I asked. I have to wait two days to continue the conversation?

Nariaklizhar, so what you're saying is I might be better off dropping the blasters and putting the points into, say, a fat unit of Reavers with caltrops, Scourges with HWBs, or even a Ravager? The thought of putting all my anti-tank in one unit makes me go, "Eep." Given how fragile everything is, I naturally want to spread the anti-tank around as much as I can. Is that line of thinking "wrong," or is this a matter of debate?

Debate is a good way to say it. I find that trying to get a dark Eldar unit, any dark Eldar unit, performs better when it is specialized, excelling at one thing, as opposed to average and a few different things. Granted, this isnt always the case. Lets look a a few examples: reavers with both lances and caltrops. Looks like a versitle unit on paper but in game, you may have to jink, not allowing you to use the lances. More useful maybe, but if you don't get to even use the points your spending, maybe not worth it. Another example is the Archon. You can give him both a blaster and some close combat ability, but he starts to get pretty expensive, especially for a t3 model. Making him oriented for one major task saves points and allows you to put points back into your army. There are a bunch more examples, and some will disagree with me but, that is just my opinion

That makes sense. I'll tinker with the list this weekend. Right now, I'm thinking of dropping the blasters from the Raider crews, dropping the Cronos, and adding a nice, big unit of Scourges with HWBs or HLs... or maybe Reavers with caltrops... orrr a Ravager. Games won't start for a few more weeks. I won't have it all painted by then, but I'll have an acceptable TAC list to start with! I'll return here and post updates after I get my first few games under my belt.

Please do. I'd like to hear your experiences

You'll probably want to keep your scourge unit at a min 5. Not really worth it to put blasters on the kabbys. Your gonna want splinter racks though. You lack in anti tank though. To be completely honest though at 500 points you can fit 3 venoms with 5 warriors for about the same amount of points as the two raiders and they will have a larger threat bubble. I tend to use Raiders more as a delivery system. I tend to build my lists like so: Venom spam for anti infantry, Ravagers for anti tank, Coven unit as an anvil, and flyers. I like MSU spam.

MSU = multiple small units?

Could you please expound on why I would not want more than 5 Scourges in a unit?  I haven't come across that suggestion yet.  In fact, I've read that it'd be better to add a couple extra if possible, just to provide a buffer to ensure you get off as many HWB shots as you can.

At this time, I must be satisfied with the minis I have; I have four Raiders and one Venom, so gunboats will be my primary anti-infantry.  Considering this, however, makes me rethink my HQ.  If I put the Lhamaean in a Raider with Warriors, does that count as a troop choice, too?  If so, I could then take a small units of Warriors in a Venom as my second troop choice, which would free up even more points without investing too heavily in anti-infantry.

Revised list:

Lhamaean in Venom w/ 2x SC

6 K.Warriors in Raider
6 K. Warriors in Raider

Cronos

5 Scourges w/ 4 HWBs