1500pts Pure DE

Hi everyone,

 I'm a long time lurker and DE fan, but I've been dark for quite some months. I came back to Dark City so I'm a bit out the loop. I frequented some of the painting stuff and wow, great stuff.

 I want to make a competitive list to try and compete in my local gaming areas. I am one of the few that play a fun, "fluffy" list so it's quite difficult for me to make something that could even be competitive. Everyone else is playing net-lists and I'm a little tired of being kicked around. I want the other players to at least work for the win

The list:
DE CAD

• Archon, huskblade, haywire grenades, shadow field, soul trap, armour of misery - 155pts
  
• Warriors x5, blaster, venom, splinter cannon - 120pts
  
• Warriors x5, blaster, venom, splinter cannon - 120pts
  
• Warriors x 9, shredder, raider, nightshield, splinter racks - 175pts
  
• Razorwing, 2 disintergrators, nightshield, splinter cannon, 4x monoscythes - 155pts
  
• Scourges x 5, haywire blaster x 4 - 120pts
  
• Scourges x 5, haywire blaster x 4 - 120pts
  
• Ravager, dark lance x3, night shield - 140pts
  

Haemonculus Formation: Dark Artisan

• Cronos, sprit probe, spirit syphon - 125pts
  
• Talos, chain flails, splinter cannon - 125pts
  
• Haemonculus, flesh gauntlet, liquifier gun, vexator mask, webway portal - 140pts
  

The Archon will ride with the only raider, going in for the kill with soft units. The Artisan formation will portal in, nuke a soft squad and then serve as a backfield disruptor/bullet magnet. My Razorwing has had many successes in this build for shooting down FMC's. If I don't have any viable targets, 4 missiles into a squad usually does the trick too.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Well a good bit of competitive depends on what you face locally. Your list looks fine from where I'm sitting although there's some upgrades that I would call extraneous.. but overall it should do ok.

What do you face regularly? What are you having problems with?

@Brom: Thanks, any advice to trim the fat would be appreciated.

As mentioned, pretty much net lists left, right, front and center. I've faced the Eldar scatter bike, wraithknight combo; grav-turion death star; thunderwolf cavalry spam; necron decurion. So yeah, pretty much all the nasty stuff.

Last game I saw was an Eldar players with a wraithknight, warp spiders, d-weapon platforms, some scatter bikes versus a blood angels podding, grav-turion and bikes list. Both looked pretty brutal. I only saw from mid-game, so many casualties already.

I'd consider ditching the Shredder on the 9 man warrior squad and maybe buying the Enhanced Aethersails for those 5pts. The re-deployment on that Raider then becomes pretty huge, which is useful.

I'd consider switching the Huskblade for an Agoniser on the Archon. The 4+ poisoned is I think better than the 1 in 6 chance of instant death. You don't necessarily need to change the Sword for a Whip either as they apparently come in a variety of forms.

Also consider switching out the Armour of Misery for a Blaster on the Archon. High BS, plus decent shooting on him is pretty cool.

Liking the list though.

If you had the models, and wanted a more close combat orientated unit to go with the Archon I would maybe get some Grotesque to stick in a Raider with him. 140pts would get you 4 of them.

Dyemor wrote:

I'd consider switching the Huskblade for an Agoniser on the Archon. The 4+ poisoned is I think better than the 1 in 6 chance of instant death. You don't necessarily need to change the Sword for a Whip either as they apparently come in a variety of forms.

Just realised my mistake on this. The Huskblade is ALWAYS instant death, you don't need to roll a 6 with it.

The other problem though is that your Archon is only Str 3, so against stronger or elite CC troops, he isn't going to do that well... avoid if possible. Against weaker, standard troops, the Instant Death isn't as useful as being able to wound always on a 4+ IMO.

Personally, i dont like shredder. I would choose blaster over it to be a little more flexible in the AT issues. Maybe you'll have to pop out the last HP from a veichle that is passing by.

Huskblade vs agonizer is debatable. I prefer the huskblade personally and especially once I've minced a unit champ with soul trap but either way.

Quote :

As mentioned, pretty much net lists left, right, front and center. I've faced the Eldar scatter bike, wraithknight combo; grav-turion death star; thunderwolf cavalry spam; necron decurion. So yeah, pretty much all the nasty stuff.

Well thats unfortunate, although not all bad. We do rather well against cents and TWC already. Decurion is too wide open to pin a build down but I wouldn't count us out there either. Its really wraithknights and bikes your gonna need to tool up to handle. Getting some more disi's in there would be [one of] my goals.

So first I feel you need to go 'underneath' most of these lists since our higher cost units don't match up to theirs, especially WKs.. so MSU.

Empty transports from FA/HQ is a nice start. Warrior boat should go IMO, maybe get replaced with something like 2-3 medusa. On that note while I love combat archons you might want to reevaluate his role if you know specifics of your opponents armies. A utility build might serve you better here.

Scourges are great but I'm not sure I'd run 2 units here over say a second ravager or TB simply from what you've listed as opponents. Too much dead weight vs eldar and centstar, not high enough impact against mechcrons due to 4 hp and jink and not good vs their non mech builds either.

The razorwing should be packing 4 necros. Its one of the few ways we have outside of dark light of dealing putting a couple wounds on a wraithknight. Plus its better vs TWC/wraiths etc.

Dark artisan I don't see performing well here although if you've found otherwise then carry on. Reason is its really the ideal target for WKs and centstars among other things. If I were to run any combat units in that meta it would be min sized grots or, more likely reavers and beastmasters.

Thanks everyone for your input, much appreciated.

@Dyemor: Yup, ID is very nice. I first try and bump up the strength by targeting smaller squad sergeants. When I'm above 5 I get more adventurous.

@RCZ: True, I could drop more warriors to fit it in, also maybe drop the splinter racks.

@Brom: Thanks for the ideas. MSU is a strong point there, too many bodies for them to focus on.
What suggestions do you have for a utility build? I'm very biased by the model and fluff for the huskblade/soultrap combo so I think I'm stuck in a rut there. My only other idea is WWP/Animus Vitae in a venom with Medusae. One shot wonder, so I'm a bit apprehensive about it.

Scourges are my main anti-armour (due to my terrible dl rolling ) but I hear what you are saying. The higher strength shots from a dl is probably a better choice.

Razorwing with necros I can see working with TWC/wraiths but not so much against the knights. Wouldn't it only work on a 6+? Or am I missing something?

Dark artisan has served me well so far. FNP and high toughness makes for some frustrated opponents as they pour firepower into them. But I do concede a point to the grot units, they are also very effective.

I was thinking wwp, blaster. Maybe shadow field and hwg etc. Non combat essentially.

Scourges are excellent, just in this case I would reduce their count. We need to tailor for competitive metas and actually that's pretty much what those net lists are anyway.

Necros are fleshbabe not poison so ya 2+ vs gmc.

If your opponents are dumping fire into dark artisan and leaving your other units be then cool. I would expect them to focus down your softer targets. Otoh WKs and cent stars aren't the greatest match for artisan but I could see it being useful vs skyhammer.

Double post

Brom wrote:

Necros are fleshbabe not poison so ya 2+ vs gmc.

You're a genius! Oh wait, dark eldar... A mad, sadistic genius!

I see what you are saying about the Archon. Adding in more firepower could do some good. I think the wwp, animus vitea, blaster, venom and medusae combo could work very nicely. It could also provide another point of pressure in the enemy field.

Haha thanks but I'm sure I'm not the first to scour through our book looking for ways to hedge that match. The old agonizer would of been nice but oh well. For something a little more janky you could try assaulting with lhamaeans. Probably magical Christmas land but 100 pts gets you 30 attacks with ID 6s on the charge. If even 2 slip through you might kill it outright since they would bypass fnp.

So, after some tinkering and thought, here is a modified list with all the comments/suggestions (thanks to everyone).

Dark Eldar CAD:

• Archon, blaster, clone field, haywire grenades, wwp - 135pts
  
• Medusae x 3, venom, splinter cannon - 140pts
  
• Warriors x 5, blaster, venom, splinter cannon - 120pts
  
• Warriors x 5, blaster, venom, splinter cannon - 120pts
  
• Razorwing, necrotoxin missiles x 4, nightshield, splinter cannon, disintegrators x2 - 155pts
  
• Reavers x 3 - 48pts
  
• Scourges x 5, haywire blaster x 4 - 120pts
  
• Ravager, dark lance x 3, nightshield - 140pts
  
• Ravager, disintegrators x 3, nightshield - 125pts
  

Haemonculus Formation: Dark Artisan

• Cronos, sprit probe, spirit syphon - 125pts
  
• Talos, chain flails, splinter cannon - 125pts
  
• Haemonculus, flesh gauntlet, liquifier gun, vexator mask, webway portal - 140pts
  

So, more shooting, more firepower. Ultimate power! Not quite, but hey.

 So, the Archon and medusae will port in and cause some havoc in the back lines alongside the Haemi and his unit. I have 7 points left-over, could put chain snares on the venom to make it perform some tank shocks if needed. The Reavers are just an objective grabbing unit that I used to fill in points, but thought that they could be useful in that regard.

 Is the list better? Worse? Much the same? Does it make sense of what I'm trying to accomplish. Have at it again!