First ever tournament list (comment more than welcome)

I’m considering entering a tournament for the first time (I generally play with a bunch of good friends) and would like some thoughts on my 1850 point list.

Firstly I’m under no delusions, I’m not going to win the tournament with Dark Eldar it’s just a fact of life. But I do want to field a pure Dark Eldar list and don’t want to be beaten to pulp in every game.

So here is my list

CAD

HQ:
Succubus, archite glaive, armour of misery

Troops:
5 warriors in a venom with dual cannons
5 warriors in a venom with dual cannons
5 warriors in a venom with dual cannons
5 warriors in a venom with dual cannons

Fast Attack:
6 Reavers / 2 caltrops
5 Scourge / 4HL
5 Scourge / 4HL

Heavy:
2 Talos each with HWB
2 Talos each with HWB

Covens Formation

Grotesquerie
3 Grots / raider with night shields
3 Grots / raider with night shields
Haemonculus with Sinriq’s pump

Firstly I’m not sure about taking the pump on the Haemy or putting sails on the grot raiders instead, what are your thoughts? I would normally put sails on the raiders as they can be a useful throw away objective grabbing unit particularly pain late game (if still alive). But every time I’ve not taken the pump I roll fleet on the latest experiments table.

BTW the succubus goes with one of the grot units

General strategy is to push the two units of talos up the table early on as speed bumps / distraction units, with the grots helping out when needed. With the rest of the army being flexible to sort out issues when they arise

What do people think?

For me - the plan is sound overall.

That said, I think its woefully lacking in ranged AT to deal with the vehicles/GMC you will face

In fact, you have zero dark lances or blasters! That's a recipe for disaster in my mind.

Yes you have 12 haywire blasters and the grots can work against some targets in a pinch but its very risky. A single wraith knight will ruin your day though imperial knights probably are not an issue

I agree with what Massaen says. You need lances. Your army, the way it is set up right now, would do fine against most armies, and struggle against armys with lots of vehicles

I dont agree with the more lances statement. In the current dex is highly inefficient spamming them, as they are way overpriced. I really like your list for a first ever tournament list, though it could be optimized a little more.

In a competitive setting, a Succubi wont do you any good 90% of the time, becouse she will be facing either greater foes (Deathstars), vehicles (useless) or be overkill against puny Battle company regular marines with no cc prowess whatsoever. Id rather have a cheap choice in a court of the archon composed by a single llhamaean with a venom with double cannon as assignated transport. It will be a safer and better choice as anti-infantry than the Succubi by a long shot.

In troops, I would reduce the number of warriors to 2 squads only, using the realspace raiders formation to get access to 3 extra FA slots to carry 3 additional venoms besides the scourges and reavers.

Speaking of wich, id rather have Haywire blasters on the scourges than heat lances. The S6 make them a throuaway unit as you have to get really close to efficiently pop an enemy vehicle. The 24" range is a great advantage over the 9" real range that the HLs offer.

Grotesquerie is a great formation, I used it a lot before I switched to harlequins (for the chance of killing both gargantuan creatures and superheavies). I used a configuration similar to your own except that I carried the barebones formation haemonculi in a squad of grotesques from the dark eldar detachment. This way they receive most of the bonuses from the Haemonculus covens PFP rule besides the ones from the DE dex PFP chart. I think that is the most efficient way to use him.

Oh, and if you already have 4 Talos, I would recommend looking up the Corpsethief Claw formation. It gives them scout, what helps a lot getting into the enemy backline faster, and a very handy rule that gives you 1VP every time they kill a nonvehicle unit in close combat, plus if they complete a mission that involves killing unit, another aditional VP. This means that in Eternal War anhilation, you get 3VP instead of 1 by killing units with that formation. Really awesome stuff.

I took the liberty of poking your list around on battlescribe for a little and this is what came out:

Dark Eldar - Realspace Raiders

HQ
Court of the Archon. x1 Llhamaean
-Venom, x2 Splinter cannons

Troops
x5 Kabalite Warriors
-Venom, x2 Splinter cannons
x5 Kabalite Warriors
-Venom, x2 Splinter cannons

FA
Venom, x2 Splinter cannons
Venom, x2 Splinter cannons
Venom, x2 Splinter cannons
x6 Reavers x2 Cluster caltrops
x5 Scourges x4 Haywire Blasters
x5 Scourges x4 Haywire Blasters

Haemonculus covens - Formation: Grotesquerie
Haemonculus
x3 Grotesques
-Raider, dissintegrator
x3 Grotesques
-Raider, dissintegrator

Haemonculus Covens - Formation: Corpsethief Claw
x5 Talos, twinlinked splinter cannon

I left 14 points to spare or tinker around. You will have problems with gargantuan creatures, fliers, superheavies, invisible units but every pure DE list does.

Hope some of this helps.

I'm in the "need more dark light" camp.

I personally don't think two units of Scourges are going to get the job done, and the lack of AP2 and S8 (which comes in handy a lot imo) is worrying.

Dark Light weapons seem like a very polarizing topic though. I'd test with and without them and see what you prefer.

*edit b/c i can't grammar*

Thanks for your input, I’ve got nothing against Dark Lances as such, I’ve found that if you go that way you need to go dark lance in a big way, it gets expensive very quickly and is not really that point efficient. I couldn’t figure out how to bring enough dark lances and still keep with my overall strategy of having a relatively resilient core (Talos and grots) with a MSU element. I’ve played with single blasters in venoms (up to 6) before but was not that taken by it. The main issue I have is that a single blaster shot at 18” leaves venoms seriously exposed, particularly if you’re trying to pop tanks / transports where you need to have a number of venoms within 18” of the target just to ensure you pop it.  But I’m guessing I’m not using these units properly as others seem to do okay with it?  

@ BizarreShowbiz, I do hear what you say regarding the heat lances, normally when I field scourges I generally field 2 HWB squads and 1 HL squad, as I prefer the HWB for reliability. The HL only really work with a good deepstrike. The reason why I went for 2 squads of heat lance was to bring a bit more AP1 and to potentially get lucky with deep strikes. However I was concerned about relying on DS to get an important kill, so I’ll play test the list with HWB as well as HL to see what works better.

On another note I only ever win with DE by playing to the objectives and thought that this would be even more important in a tournament setting. With this in mind I stuck to a CAD for objective secured, as in my experience the detachment bonus (and extra fast attack slots) for real space raiders is just not worth loosing objective secured. But again I’ve never been to a tournament and so my previous experience is likely to be misleading. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

WRT the succubus, I understand that points wise it’s not a good selection but my thinking was to get the armour of misery (to help with the grots freakish spectacle) and thought that a none IC warlord as a single model unit would give away SWL too easily. But I’ll think about it.

I’ve played with the corpse thief claw before and it was in my first iteration of the list. However, in games against my friends they soon learnt to keep out of charge range to prevent bonus VP for me, or blocked them off with tanks etc. it was amazing for board control, but I found that two units of 2 talos was actually more versatile and a bit more resilient and actually got more done as people were nowhere near as scared of them (an extra 6” move before the game starts is neither here nor there IMO). I’m assuming that other tournament players will know the score with the corpse thief claw and would deal with it in a similar fashion.

As a side note, I’m making a sixth talos so I can have two units of 3. Plus the two units of 2 talos goes better with my overall strategy of resilient core with MSU elements, in fact it brings a MSU element to the resilient core. Infact I was thinking about taking a single cronos to support the two talos units as it would be an interesting decision as to which to shoot, the cronos to stop the buff or the talos who are going to do the damage, but dismissed this as an expensive option. But I will try it against friends.

I’ve never faced a wraith knight (I’m the only Eldar player amongst my friends) and I’m guessing that I will see plenty, I can not think of anything that will deal with it effectively other than adding on inchor injectors to the two units of talos, but I hate to have to rely on 6’s to wound for ID (for extra wounds) what do people think?

I’ll mull over what you’ve all said and will rejig a couple of alternative lists to play tests with and post them once I’ve sorted them out in my head.

EDIT:

So thought about what was said and I’ve rejigged the list as follows:

HQ
Lhamean with Venom dual cannons

Troops
5 warriors in venom dual cannons
5 warriors in venom dual cannons
5 warriors in venom dual cannons
5 warriors in venom dual cannons

Fast attack
5 scourges, 4 HWB
5 scourges, 4 HWB
5 scourges, 4 HL

Heavy
2 talos, 2 ichor injectors, 2 TL HWB
2 talos, 2 ichor injectors, 2 TL HWB

Grotesquerie
3 grots, raider
3 grots, raider
Haemonculus

That leaves 45pts for upgrades any ideas?