Dark eldar. Starting fresh.

Greetings.

I have made the bold (or foolish) decision to start over with Dark eldar. I picked them up when they got their last book in 2011(?) and I am about to start over from scratch. So I would like to get as much advise as I possibly can because I just hate when you jump in and buy stuff that you wont use in the end. So please. Feel free to leave the knowledge you have in a comment below. Thank you.

Welcome home!

I'm rapidly expanding my True Kin force having started with a couple of squads of kabalites and a couple of squads of Scourges, plus one squad of Wyches. I bought the units I liked the look of initially... no regretS but they got shot to bits! So, the biggest advice I can impart from my experience of building an army is GET TRANSPORTS!

Not only do they get your units around the battlefield quicker, they also keep them a bit safer than just standing out there all exposed... add to the fact they carry much needed heavy firepower and they're essential!

Seeing as I'm a total fluff bunny too, the fact that Dark Eldar don't raid on foot shows that Raiders and Venoms should be swarming about all over the place!

I agree with Rathian strongly, Kabalite warriors in a Raider can be deadly units. I'd personally reccomend looking into what you want out of your FA, Scourges can destroy vehicles with haywire, while reavers work well as a strong charging unit with 4+ jink, and paired with better hammer of wraths. I personally love fielding gunboats, which is a Raider with 10 Warriors, 1 with a splinter cannon, and splinter racks. 15 shots hitting and wounding on 4, and re rolling to hit, and a jink on top of it. Look into the options I say, as there are a lot of options to be found, Coven themed and Kabalite themed are common, and determine if you want to use allies.

[quote=Jimsolo 664537 8137710 a71d605a4f814847ac5b0d96f11ee444.jpg]Warriors in raiders vs warriors in venoms is a debate that will rage eternally.

Wyches are abysmal in this edition, do NOT pick them up.

Here's a breakdown of my own (subjective) opinion on what's good and what's not:

Optimal Choices (If I leave these units out of a list, I feel like I'm missing out on something.)
HQ- None
Troops- Warriors in Venoms
Elites- Grotesques
Fast Attack- Reavers, Venoms, Scourges
Heavy Support- None
Formations- Scalpel Squadron, Grotesquerie

Reasonable Choices (Useful.  I'm not going to cry if I can't take them, but I might still take them.)
HQ- All
Troops- Warriors in Raiders
Elites- Trueborn, Mandrakes, Incubi
Fast Attack- Raiders, Razorwing
Heavy Support- Talos Engines, Ravagers
Formations- Raiding Party, Scarlet Epicureans, Corpsethief Claw, Dark Artisan

Sub-par choices (If I have to take these, I'm handicapping myself.)
HQ- None.
Troops- Wyches
Elites- Bloodbrides, Wracks
Fast Attack- Beast packs, Hellions
Heavy Support- Voidraven Bombers, Cronos Engines
Formations- Covenite Fleshcorps

I strongly prefer fielding units of five warriors with a blaster, riding in a venom, as my troop tax. Four to five of those is very cheap, and hard for opponents to handle with their quantity. [/quote]

Nice summing it up Jimsolo!

I mayby want to put Scarlet Epicureans in Supbar category, but other than that - just my thoughts. And i guess pretty much anyones..

Currently I am thinking about Archon in Venom with Grotesques. Warriors in Venom and one Raider with
Splinter racks. Some Ravagers an maybe a couple of Razorwings.

Sounds like you've got a pretty good idea of where you're going. Nid be tempted to invest my Razorwing money in Scourges or Reavers, myself, but your mileage may vary.

Well in time I probably will get Reavers. I have always liked them.
How many is optimal in a unit these days?

Reavers are not a bad choice. Watch out for ignores cover weapons and they can do work.

I've found units of 3 Reavers, one with Cluster Caltrops and Heat Lance, to be very useful.

Unless you blunder into flamer-range, most opponents probably won't want to use their Ignores Cover weapons to down a measly 3 Jetbikes. And, if they do, you're still only down 73pts.

Also, since only one Jetbike has the Heat Lance and Cluster Caltrops (who obviously goes at the back ), the squad can literally lose 2/3 of its members and still function at almost full effectiveness.

I bring units of either 3 or 6. One Caltrop per 3, and one Heat Lance per 3 (on the same guy) if I'm feeling saucy.

I like groups of six or maybe one group of nine. I don't like three as they can fail a morale test and run off the board after one casualty. The caltrop upgrade might as well be manditory. Adding in heatlances or blasters is up for debate. I don't do either personally.

I ran six with the same equipment as JimSolo with the last book.

large squads of reavers can be really effective but they have a much larger cost, threat and footprint which makes them a much higher priority to target them so you need to be more careful than the super cheap 3 man squad and the still easy to hide 6 man. Also if you take 9-12 man squadsdont bother with gun upgrades as they wlll be jinking almost constantly so a sybarite and caltrops is the way forward with them.

id put grotesques and your archon in a raider just so you get more of the grots in but i dont like covenites so i dont actually have any experience here.

Wyches... great in the fluff, but none of mine ever make it into close combat to utilise that 4++ dodge save.

I always go for Haywire grenades and Blast Pistol options on squad leaders (or wherever they can be taken) just for emergency anti-armour ability.

I'm building my Dark Eldar up in three groups, a Kabal (The Tormented Sky) a Cult (The Blade's Caress) and a Coven (The Masters of Metamorphosis) ultimately the kabal will be core army with cult and coven as CADs. I've created lots of fluff about them all so it works nicely for me, plus allowing me to build to slightly different styles.

Kabal is gunboats (the Splinter Racks are fab) with Heavy Support being Ravagers and FA split between Scourges and Razorwings. The Coven has a couple of squads of Wracks in Venoms plus a Talos (additional Talos and Cronos will be added) with a big unit of Grots for throwing at the enemy. Cult, which I have yet to fill out beyond Wychesd in a Venom, Hellions and a Beastmaster Pack, will be Reavers, plus Bloodbrides in a raider, maybe for soaking up enemy fire whilst kabal goes about the real work...

I learned with the CSM force I have about the need to "bunker" some HQ units in a big/tough squad to keep them alive longer, it matters even more with DE!!! I think the fluff is written as much as a tactics guide in later editions as background, the description of the Venom in the codex has it as the favoured choice of Trueborn who use Raiders as screens from enemy fire...

I have two questions:

1. Missiles on Razorwings?
2. Scourges or Reaver jetbikes?

1. The super cheap ones. (Monoscythe?)
2. I like both. Scourges kill more reliably, reavers are more survivable, and faster.

How do you equip your shooty Archon?

And I wonder about equipment on Scourges aswell.

I usually go in the blaster emporium for both. Blaster for archon, and four blaster for scourges.
Blaster, blaster, everyones want a blaster!

And yet GW gives you one blaster per box

There's a useful post elsewhere on here, can't remember exactly but probably on advice for staring a DE army, about converting other guns into Blasters.

In my current meta, we dont care much of WYSIWYG rule. You only had to clearify well the differences between models.

i.e: i have 5 scourges with 4 blaster. Told my opponent: "hey, the one with the pistol is the one without blaster, and have the splinter rifle instead". "ok".

That's a great way to play. We don't do WYSIWYG either, my Archon is an old model, pointing and carrying a Shuriken catapult. He's got a Blast Pistol and Huskblade in my army list!

With regard to shooty Archons, I'd probably go with either a blaster, or else Splinter Pistol + Parasite's Kiss (because gunslingers amuse me ). If I'm planning to put him with blasterborn, then he'll probably have a WWP.

With regard to Scourges, I'd always go 4x Haywire or maybe 4x Heat Lance. I don't see the point in their other weapons, as we have plenty of other sources for them.

RCZ wrote:

In my current meta, we dont care much of WYSIWYG rule. You only had to clearify well the differences between models.

i.e: i have 5 scourges with 4 blaster. Told my opponent: "hey, the one with the pistol is the one without blaster, and have the splinter rifle instead". "ok".

Same.

I could use that, too and to a certain amount this is done in my local gaming group. Maybe to try something new or stuff like that, but not too much.

But in most cases, we work with WYSIWYG.