Is the Kabalite Raiding Party Viable?

Although the Dark Elder codex has been out for a while now, there is little information available about the Kabalite Raiding Party formation. However, I suspect that the Kabalite Raiding Party is a viable option for building a Dark Eldar army. Most of the units required for the Kabalite Raiding Party are preferable for a Dark Eldar army. The benefits for playing the Kabalite Raiding Party are access to more blasterborn than the Realspace Raider detachment or Combined Arms detachment offer and the turn being treated as one higher than normal. However, The Kabalite Raiding Party only allows one Ravager, Zero flying units, and requires a minimum of 50 points of Hellions.

      The primary disadvantage of running the Kabalite Raiding Party is that it costs long range burst damage, hindering the Dark Eldar player’s ability to get ahead in the game. However, the burst damage lost can be replaced by deep striking blasterborn in Venoms. Additionally, playing more blasterborn in Venoms enhances the survivability and consistency of the Dark Eldar army. If a Ravager is required to jink, that Ravager is likely not going to do anything for the rest of the game, because the player who made it jink will continue to do so. If a Venom filled with blasterborn jinks, you are still likely to get all of your blaster shots.

Some TOs won't let you upgrade the Warriors to Blasterborn. That's a real bummer.

That and the hellions are why I usually take a pass, even though I could theoretically run one.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that you can upgrade warriors to blasterborn.

The opportunity cost of the Hellions isn’t that bad. They are comparable to warriors; they just cannot take a vehicle. However, they get 12” move and don’t need the vehicle for anything but saves. They get a 6+ cover save and a 6+ FNP on the first turn and a 5+ FNP on subsequent turns, so they have some amount of survivability. Additionally, you are only obligated to take one unit of them instead of two units of warriors. Although Hellions might be terrible overall, when you compare the negative externalities of taking one unit of Hellions to taking two units of warriors that need a vehicle to preform, the Kabalite Raiding Party can be understood as favorable.

Sorry. There is no amount of Escher-esque logic that can convince me that Hellions are anything other than wasted points.

In any event, the formation prevents you from taking our two most optimal units (Reavers and Grotesques), and instead saddles you with a slew of second string options, and in limited numbers.

Really, the issue of whether a TO would allow the upgrade of the warriors is moot: the formation belongs in friendly games. In competitive events, the CAD (or Realspace Raider, even) is superior.

My argument was certainly not that Hellions are good, but that the opportunity cost of taking a single unit of hellions is less than the opportunity cost of two units of warriors. Both the warriors and Hellions play a similar role in the army, but the total cost of one unit of hellions is less than the total cost of two units of warriors. However, the Hellions still have advantages over warriors. Hellions don’t need a vehicle for mobility, have a better effective range, and combat drugs. The advantage of the warriors is that they can take a vehicle. To evaluate the two options, requires comparing 5 hellions and 15 points to two units of warriors and potentially extra vehicles. Overall, the main point about the Kabalite Raiding Party is that you get to put more points into the rest of your army by paying the Hellion tax instead of the troop tax and that might be desirable.


The effectiveness of an army is the emergent property of a system of units and not the total strength of each individual unit added together. If a person evaluates an army only based on the strength of each individual unit, then the evaluation of the army will not include strengths of the list created through various other means like synergy. Although the Kabalite Raiding Party might not include the most point efficient models, the raiding party may have gain enough through bonuses and redundancy to be worth playing. Ideally, there is a single perfect 40k army that would be defined relative to variables like the metagame and overall power. However, the problem with searching for the perfect 40k solution is that there is only one. Furthermore, that solution is likely not a Dark Eldar army. As long as people want to play Dark Eldar in a competitive setting, the options available in the Dark Eldar codex merit exploring.

Honestly I don't think its good man. Even considering upgrading warriors to trueborn which IMO is fine since it IS an upgrade rather than a seperate unit entry, trueborn themselves are not worth the cost.

Its true that they are less effected by jink than say a ravager, but at close to double the cost. Then consider how often their ride will simply be destroyed. If going for massed dark light I'd prefer to supplement ravagers with a mix of scourges, blaster warriors, reavers and such.. the usual, and avoid all the built in taxation.

The other issue is really just how little PFP means to units like warriors/TB. Its much better for units like those in combat, again IMO, and thats where they never want to be.

Now it does have a certain cool factor to represent 6 TB but I just can't see the need for even 3 (or in my case more than 0) honestly.

I tend to agree with the comments already made. The unit choices are sub-optimal for a very mediocre gain in combat effectiveness.

A fun build, but not capable of playing with even most of the other base codex detachments in a competitive sense.

For the record, I think they SHOULD be able to upgrade. I only mention it because literally every event organizer I've asked has said 'no.'