Dark Eldar THREATS vs WEAPONS list

Hell-o,

The recent tactica topic from the Fume Knight, stating that pure DE may have enough tools to counter any unit/situation, got me thinking...

"What do I have against that highly-competitive X unit or unit combination, and how many shots or attacks equal to weapons*turns I need to take them, statistically?"

and

"Could this knowledge be used to build a TAAC DE army for competitions?"

I think that this type of knowledge would actually help in list+tactica building, so I'll develop it. I'm betting for this approximation as DE deal better with things by killing them first.

Eldur wrote:

The idea is to provide a frame of reference. It will tell you how many offensive power do you need to confront particular threats , specially those in a competitive environment. With this data, not only I can choose more wisely when deciding between more lances or more poison, but if a Razorwing or X non-spammable unit would help me to cover more threats. Of course is up to you to see if it weakens your list in other areas. But, as I said to Shredder, this tool could even help when choosing your targets in battle.

This first post will name the most problematic units/formations/types-of-armies. (list open for completeness HELP ME HERE FIRST, adding (or removing?) things)

CW Eldar:
WRAITHKNIGHTS
Jetbike-heavy lists
Serpent Spam (still a thing?)

Tau
Riptides
Farsight&Friends
Firebase Support Cadre

Necrons
Decurion
Wraith-wing
Croissant(flyers)-heavy lists

Space Marines
Drop-pod-heavy lists
(free-)Rhino-and-Razorback-heavy lists
Bike-heavy lists
Grav-centurions+librarian/Tigurius

Imperial Knights
Individual IKs
IK armies

NAME OTHER THREATS AND I'LL LIST THEM HERE

[I'll just start here and edit it, but I need some feedback from YOU players]

(2ND PART)

In this second post I'll develop each threat, by naming WHICH WEAPON/S AND UNITS deal better against them and HOW MANY shots/dice it takes to deal with them, per miniature.

If the threat is a type of army, the calculations will be done for most repeated+durable types of unit.

If the author(s) believe it appropiate, each THREAT entry will include quick general ideas/strategies to confront it in favorable terms.

The format....

[Threat]
[Weapon of choice #1: shots to kill 1 miniature]
[Weapon of choice #N: shots to kill 1 miniature]
etc.
[Review+quick tactics]

NOTE: I don't account for DE losses in my conclusions, thus any statement like "Killing X would take Y turns with Z number of weapons" means the minimal input of Z and Y to achieve killing X regularly, not that it can assure it.

THREAT MANAGEMENT LIST

Wraithknight
Fleshbane AP 2 (Ossefactor, Talos Ichor Injector): 16 dice
Void weapons: 20 dice
Dark weaponry: 27 dice
Fleshbane AP 6-4 (Necrotoxin, Urien Rackarth): 49 dice
HoW hits from Reavers (caltrops +bladevanes): 54 dice (~30 reavers with 10 caltrops)
Dissintegrator Cannon, Heat Lances: 81 dice
Splinter/poison and other S5-6 AP6-4 weaponry: 240 dice
Review: taking into account the weapon availability in our codex, I'd bet for dark weapons to fight against him, and shoot the poison somewhere else. A Talos or a unit of them with Ichors could take him down, but if he survives he'll stomp so it's also risky. A Scalpel Squadron with ossefactors would make him 1,33 wounds in a turn... FYI.

This may led to a large post, so we'll start with the major threats and then continue.

POST YOUR THOUGHTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS POST, PLEASE

Do you think perhaps you should also note minimum point requirements? e.g. 16 Ossefactor dice is 1040pts of Wracks.


Anyway, one thing I'd be careful of is planning to take it down over two turns. I mean, for a start, even with 3 Ravagers (375pts), you've still only got 9 out of the 14 Dark Lances you need (and that's assuming it's not in cover). If you use Raiders, then that's 300pts. If you use Blasters, then you might struggle to even get them into range - given that the WK is faster than you.

Anyway, the issue is whether you'll still have all those dark lances and blasters next turn. It seems like quite a few are likely to be targetted by Scatter Lasers, D-weapons and such. And, if the Eldar player went first, you'll have had to endure two turns of that. It seems unlikely that you'll have sufficient firepower to finish the WK in your second turn.

I don't know, I'm just wondering if it would be better to try to include enough firepower to kill the WK in one turn - if only to build some redundancy into your army.

While I definitely think this will be fruitful, and hope to see it stickied when it is, I don't think it will enable what you are suggesting. I do not believe it is possible to field a mono-dark elder TAC WAAC list precisely because of the point you are referencing. It's an accurate statement that we can be built to destroy any of these lists through sheer linearly efficient output of the correct type, but that type is going to vary wildly against each of these builds. Breaking our tailoring down even slightly opens up glaring weaknesses in our play that some of these builds can abuse. Covering those weaknesses up opens up weaknesses to other builds. We are the best spoiler army, and in a completely constructed tailored setting we can handle anything, but TAC WAAC is going to be very difficult for us.

@The Shredder: of course I don't believe anyone will ever field those ossefactors, it's an ideal scenario just for calculations.... In this example, it tells me that against a WK I have the same chances to wound with 1 ossefactor than with 15 poisoned shots, thus maybe I can do more with them anywhere else and use the lone ossefactor or my lances and blasters instead. And yes, I don't account for DE losses, thus any statement like "Killing X would take Y turns with Z number of weapons" means the minimal input of Z and Y to achieve killing X regularly, not that it can assure it. I will clarify this in the article.

@The idea is to provide a frame of reference. It will tell you how many offensive power do you need to confront particular threats , specially those in a competitive environment. With this data, not only I can choose more wisely when deciding between more lances or more poison, but if a Razorwing or X non-spammable unit would help me to cover more threats. Of course is up to you to see if it weakens your list in other areas. But, as I said to Shredder, this tool could even help when choosing your targets in battle.

Eldur wrote:

@The Shredder: of course I don't believe anyone will ever field those ossefactors, it's an ideal scenario just for calculations.... In this example, it tells me that against a WK I have the same changes to wound with 1 ossefactor than with 15 poisoned shots, thus maybe I can do more with them anywhere else and use the lone ossefactor or my lances and blasters instead.

Fair enough.

Although, unless the WK is down to its last wound, I imagine there will always be better uses for an Osseffactor, 15 poison shots or whatever - since merely damaging the WK doesn't diminish your opponent's firepower in any way.

@Shredder: correct, but precisely this is about knowing if you have the tools to erase this kind of threat... if you know you can't, then do somewhat else. But what if you want to build your list so you have that possibility? Again, this may help.

Well...it's possibly the best idea to ignore it and kill the rest. Play the mission.

But we struggle the most against gargantuan creatures. But to be fair, anyone not Space Marines or Eldar struggles against those.

This proves me right on the Wraithknight entry https://youtu.be/2a3oIMCyAJ0?t=7m47s

more coming