Why I give up

The Shredder wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

But DOES your opponent really WANT to play with OP full scatterlaser army? Or did he chose that build because it's the best and because he knows he will face other horribly OP armies?

Considering that, with the investment required for a full Scatter Laser army, he could probably have bought a full army for just about any other miniature game, I think it's fair to assume that he does want to play it. That or he has waaaaay too much disposable income.  

It's the same as our venom army. It cost a lot, and we "all" buy it. But are they really the unit we would like to use? I think it's the same for them. They have their scatterlaser army and they are happy with them (As I'm happy with venom army). They can use them in tournament. But the first units that did lure them into craftworld eldar was maybe something totally useless now. Being able to play them once in a while without sacrificing victory (because others will do the same) can make a memorable game.

When I chose dark eldar, yes, I liked kabalites, but the unit I LOVED was wyches. And lelith hesperax.

Yep. I LOVE Hellions, Wyches, Mandrakes, Incubi and Raiders. I utterly despise everything coven.
But well...

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Yep. I LOVE Hellions, Wyches, Mandrakes, Incubi and Raiders. I utterly despise everything coven.
But well...

+1
Except despising coven. It doesn't interest me, but as i play more and more games I don't mind the idea of changing what I field, so to add flavour so it's not the same old game every time.

For me, the fun is taking what I have on the table, looking at the enemy and trying to find the successful tactic. If i play the same units over and over, it gets boring

Don't get me wrong, I love everything our army has!  I've even bought more wyches and hellions since the new codex, hoping they might suck less with the next turn of the wheel.

My next (first) tournament list, for next month, consists of wyches, hellions and incubi.
I am well aware of the handicap i've set for myself, but the models were fun to paint so imma use them gawdammit!

nexs wrote:

My next (first) tournament list, for next month, consists of wyches, hellions and incubi.
I am well aware of the handicap i've set for myself, but the models were fun to paint so imma use them gawdammit!

I would like to hear how the tournament plays out.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I would like to hear how the tournament plays out.

I don't imagine I'll win. Knowing my own handicap, and that my archon+ 5 sslyth + medusa will be used as a combat unit (unlikely to shoot the carbines), I will take victory in a draw.
If i can place top 5 or 10, that'd make me feel like a decent player! haha

Personally, my favourite models are the Mandrakes. I just wish we had a Mandrake HQ option.

That didn't suck.

Jimsolo wrote:

That didn't suck.

I think you could extend that hope to all of our HQs.

In any event, I was more thinking of a customisable Mandrake HQ (rather than only having a Special Character one).

acolyte wrote:

My deployment depends a lot on the opponent, but typically the enemy will come to you. the goal is to get them to spread out on turn one and two so you can collapse a flank and then rush forward as your power from pain kicks in. Don't commit to unloading shots every turn, flat out will piss off your opponent way more. as soon as they commit to a flank, flat out and be 30 inches away leaving those silly 8" meltas and flamers shooting at the air, until 3 medusa webway in and melt their faces off.

against any army that doesn't have a knight or some other nonsense I need to drop lances on the trueborn start on board with the warriors out of range of everything and behind cover.

against nids the medusa start outside of their transport allowing you to place all the venoms on board on turn one which is key to try and kill one tyrant before it starts flying.

against knights everything but the scourges and trueborn start on table hidden as much as possible. the trueborn deep strike in the raider at an angle on the back and side of a knight so no matter what you will get to shoot at a side with no shield. this is a toss up game but watching one trueborn unit come in, kill a knight and have it fall over and blow up the rest of the adamantium lance is priceless.

in any case Dark Eldar are a great spoiler army, you do need a little luck and it will suffer sometimes. it also is much better at 1500 pts, above that we just don't have enough to escalate. at 1850 I add a dark artisan HQ bunker to the list and that has been pretty successful for pure DE.  

Not to derail this thread but on topic pretty much all has been said I think - but THIS is a really sweet list and tactics! May I ask how you handle those nigh-invulnerable Necrons?

Necrons are a pain, but really slow and I fear nothing that can't catch me. gauss is strength 0 if it can't touch you. First off there will be wraiths and a spider in most cases. The spider must die, this is key. After the spider is dead wraiths are just two wound space marines. Admittedly the ravagers are superior to the true born in this case because they kite necrons much more effectively.

Movement
Don't forget to flatout. I usually tell my opponent how much I hate his wraiths and how unkillable they are, let him overcommit to a flank and then flat out just as he thinks he's about the charge. Once the wraiths can't get back, wwp and ds to the squishy side on the army and shoot it in the face

Kill targets
Spider must die
Bikes with their ignore cover weapons
Wraiths
The key is not to lose faith and concentrate fire. A good necron player is going to try and pincer you so you can't run from the gauss. You have to collapse a weak flank with your deep strike and escape out that side, meanwhile shoot everything you can at anythjng mobile. Let the necrons be a big hard to kill rock that can't take any objectives

There will also be a deathstar of some sort, you can choose to commit to killing it - I usually just avoid it. If you do choose to kill it you gotta hit it hard with medusas to kill off the armor 3 units then follow with blasters . You need to be careful with the flamer location when you wwp in, make you position so that the unit you want to force saves on is closest to you. Also there are diminishing returns on templates, the more you kill the fewer hits you'll get moving forward.

Night scythes are bs. That is all. Get lucky and find a sky fire nexus and ds the scourges for a nasty surprise. I usually ignore unless the scythe is positioned so I can put a unit 18 " directly in front of it without a lot of risk . This doubles the chance of killing it outright since a stun result will force it to move 18 "without turning and your single warrior standing out in the open will give it the finger as it crashes and burns since it can't be placed on another model.

This was the list I was running though that last couple times I played necrons :

Archon
Medusas in venom
Warriors in venom
Warriors in venom
Blaterborn in raider
Ravager lances
Ravagers lances
Haywire scourge
Haywire scourge
Razor wing
Venom
Venom
Reavers

I took this list refined it to maximize the units everyone hated which were the trueborn and medusa deepstriking units. But as far as putting out poison volume and lances this is a fun list to roll dice. Reavers I had for tourney play to grab objectives they have no upgrades.

Jink, draw the enemy apart, deep strike the flanks, and force saves. Necrons I don't find that scary. Farsight bomb, however , I have no good answer for other than to go second, let it arrive and do it's thing, then template and blaster the hell out of it. If you get unlucky and it arrives after you.... Well that sucks shake you opponents hand and remember he's trying to win too.

Kinda rambled a bit but hope that helps !

That definitely helps, thanks for your extensive reply! I hope you don't mind me picking your brain a little bit as I am currently in the process of putting together a list for my first tournament with my Dark Eldar. And your list seems on the power level quite a bit stronger from what I had in mind orginally.

So far I've tried outranging or outmaneuvering Necrons but with little success. My Ravagers constantly have to jink due to Destroyers shooting at them which have also range 36". And my opponent really likes to clump his army together to give as many units as possible his Tomb Stalker bonus, as well as the +1 to RPs from his special character. So anything getting within 24" faces a lot of shots, even worse when I try to get within rapid fire range of my splinter weapons.

Unfortunately our resident Tau player is on a hiatus due to WOW so I can't provide anything helpful

Lastly, is the above list, the 2nd one, a TAC list you would take to a tourney? Or rather the other one, the first one?

I took the second list to a tourney and went 3-1, won vs eldar scatbike + wraithknight list, tabled plague marines, won a tight one vs triple flying hive tyrant nids, lost to eldar in my final game. I focused on versatility and it worked pretty well. I knew there would be a few Knights and this was the best balanced list I could make, 14 lances, 8 haywire, 99 poison shots max / turn . At 1500 that's a chance to win.

The destroyers can only go after one side of your force, try split up the two ravagers out of range, sacrifice a round of shooting if necessary. My list is there to kite and pester until the wwp arrives and that turn collapse one side. Doesn't always work but with some hot dice you can force more saves than anyone else which is what can ruin a necrons day.

I'm testing the other list now, it has first turn issues against drop pods.

What was the Eldar list like you lost against?

Very interesting!

What would you add to take this list to 1850? A Dark Artisan like you mentioned, or maybe squeeze in a Grotesquerie? Kit out the Reavers?

It was a balanced list with no d weapons actually, he had a couple of guardian squads w Farseer, a couple of ranger squads, 3 war walkers, and a falcon bomb - the formation where 3 deep strike in, carrying scorpions and fire dragons. I made some errors and got fixated on killing the rangers that cost me the game - he ended up winning the tournament. It was a kill point game so I did have a slight disadvantage with so many paper boats on the table.

I think the dark artisan gives you a solid hq bunker that can reliably sit on an objective and threaten most things. The grotesquerie I think would be more of an aggressive approach, just shove it in the enemies face and allow your shooting units two turns to stay at range while they deal with it. I used to run a 12 reaver squad with heat lances and caltrops and a shadow field archon. The idea was to wwp in so the lances would be on the backside on some high value target, then use the bikes assault move to hide behind the archon and let his shadow field tank any return fire, next turn get anothe lance salvo and caltrop something. It was fun and when it worked deavastating once that caltrop hit and run train got moving . All three sound viable, I'd go with the reavers or dark art though to add the firepower you'll need as the points escalate. Hope for the toughness drugs and have 12 t-5 bikes running around w 3+ /5+, that would be annoying to anyone.

Holy smokes Acolyte - you come up with some ideas that REALLY make me look forward to the tournament! And I just happen to have 12 Reaver Jetbikes in my collection!

Now this might be just me but your suggestions show some real sound tactical thinking outside the box. Great stuff!

I've noticed you said you put Necrotoxin missles on your Razorwing - why is that? T3/T4 units I wound on a 2+ anyway with the monoscythe missles, and anything T5+ usually doesn't even care due to an armor save. T3 units however might often bring a 5+ so I thought the standard missles are better. Also, what do you do with a Razorwing when going up against any MEQ army? I think the model looks ace but I don't even bother bringing it vs Necrons or Space Marines for example. Anti Air maybe?


Oh and I just thought of something else - in your lists you use your HQs basically as suicide WWP bearers - so who do you make your warlord? And do you try to protect him?

I bring the razor wing for hive tyrants - 2 lances and a splinter cannon can be nasty against them. The necrotoxin I like because it's fleshbane and wraith knights reduce poison to 6+ but not fleshbane. Also if my units venoms or raiders are nearby fleshbane does nothing, monoscythe can pen so I can shoot near my vehicles without worry.  I don't find the ap5 to be that important since cover is easy to find and it's much more effective against wraiths and other t5 things.  

My archon I try to keep alive but he is a wwp delivery system and if you deepstrike on a flank and collapse it often there's nothing there to kill him. Otherwise meh id rather make everything lethal and try to cripple the opponent  than have a durable bunch of points hiding. I even disembark the archon into cover when possible so the arriving unit gets to shoot 3 templates, 12 poison shots, and a blaster shot into different units. And then give the opponent a choice of what to shoot at.

Oh and against marines it's a tool kit unit, anti air, anti armor, anti air, general distraction from the scoring units on the ground . It's a good cheap unit that forces a lot of saves the turn it arrives. I like watching someone get nervous when I unload 4 pie plates on a pack of thunder wolves and dare him not to roll any 1s or 2s.

No double posts please. Use the edit function. Thanks - Count Adhemar

Thanks for your insights Acolyte. I've just ordered some missing components to build a list very similar to what you offered and look very much forward to fielding it!

acolyte wrote:

I bring the razor wing for hive tyrants - 2 lances and a splinter cannon can be nasty against them. The necrotoxin I like because it's fleshbane and wraith knights reduce poison to 6+ but not fleshbane. Also if my units venoms or raiders are nearby fleshbane does nothing, monoscythe can pen so I can shoot near my vehicles without worry.  I don't find the ap5 to be that important since cover is easy to find and it's much more effective against wraiths and other t5 things.  

My archon I try to keep alive but he is a wwp delivery system and if you deepstrike on a flank and collapse it often there's nothing there to kill him. Otherwise meh id rather make everything lethal and try to cripple the opponent  than have a durable bunch of points hiding. I even disembark the archon into cover when possible so the arriving unit gets to shoot 3 templates, 12 poison shots, and a blaster shot into different units. And then give the opponent a choice of what to shoot at.

Oh and against marines it's a tool kit unit, anti air, anti armor, anti air, general distraction from the scoring units on the ground . It's a good cheap unit that forces a lot of saves the turn it arrives. I like watching someone get nervous when I unload 4 pie plates on a pack of thunder wolves and dare him not to roll any 1s or 2s.

Hey acolyte I like your thinking with the razorwing but why bother with the dark lances? 6 disi shots are gonna be superior for your purposes at 10 pts cheaper.

If only the disi was str6 I'd love it. But at 5 it won't hurt night scythes, fire raptors, those space wolf flyers. Str 8 lances will force a jink and have a solid chance to one shot pop flyers. If I knew for certain there would be a lot of bugs I'd switch it, but going in I knew there were a couple of adamantium lance lists, necron flyers and wolves so I planned accordingly.

Ah gotcha, I agree maybe next edition disi's will be S6 eh? Ya I figured it was something like that. Still from my perspective 2 lance shots isn't much anti air to count on anyway although I haven't used DE flyers in recent history since I'm spoiled with raptors. My thinking was you may as well max it for anti infantry duty since its gonna be pretty unreliable at dog fighting.

I double up on lances too. Just to be a threat at least to other flyers. If I can get them to jink, I'm good

I'm back, denizens of Dark City... only to see that thoughts similar to mine are haunting other minds.

In fact, I believe our codex is pretty much worthless. Just that. As ETC/ESC participants have demonstrated, we're on par with Sisters. People were bringing Blood Angels, Orks, Space Wolves, Marines based on tacticals and assaults in drop pods and rhinos and other lists internet wisdom have dismissed as subpar. Of course, they have not demonstrated the best results, but they were able to participate, able to compete.

Nobody. No [a lot of obscene words, racism and homophobia] body thought it will be a good idea to bring Dark Eldar to the table. Some armies listed "DE primairy", but, in fact, "Primary" detachment consisted of 2 WWP Archons and minimal troops, with the rest filled by Craftworlders. And some French guy I believe used a small amount of reavers to complement his scatterbike army.

That's it, lads. Things have gone really south for dark eldar. We're outright unplayable, in addition to being a boring army with little to no special rules or interesting tricks, all of them were taken away by the "new" nerfdex.