Dark Eldar totalitarian board control/lockdown

Let's break down the basics of the universe and put up an army that will shatter the dreams of men. A controversial setup.

The main thing I like about Dark Eldar is their visciousness, along with the inexhaustible endurance of wyches in combat. The Dark Eldar can start the game without a single crawling wrack on the table to be storming the table using deep strikes, portals and infilrators from turn two. The unpredictability and shock momentum of the Dark Eldar is thus barely matched by armies such as deathwing Angels or ork stormboyz.

So what can we do to utilize them for this potential?

We have to start by asking ourselves what the main concern in wh40k is. Most players will deploy most of their force on the table from the beginning of the game. From there they move their transports in half the speed of our raiders straight towards objectives and other strategic points. A considerable part of their force, if not all of it, will be heading out on foot. Fronts will be established and your opponent will do everything he can to protect his akilles heels; his unguarded flanks. Most players will let his army take a beating during his advance.

Play a few games and you will know exactly what moves your opponent will be capable of with a certain set of units.

We Dark Eldar can see above that. We can enter the field where we like and fight them from every angle. This will terrorize them.

To the point.


HQ
Lelith
Succubus + gate

Troops
3 x 10 wyches + raider
2 x 5 kabalites + venom + lances or cannons

Fast attack
5 scourges

Elites
6 grotesques
5 mandrakes

Hs
2 talos pain engines
2 Voidraven bomber


The engines will start in the deployment zone and move towards the centre. Transports enter from deep strikes or dz. Bomber from dz. The grotesquerie will be deployed along with the Succubus where the enemy army is at it's thickest to break formations. Mandrakes will disrupt enemy movement from the sides.

This setup will give control over the board and opportunities to work from. The army is a bit more of a slow, creeping army with a tail that can hit like a truck.

Any thoughts or opinions?

Firstly, I see this is your first post, so a warm welcome to the Dark City. Don't forget to introduce yourself in the Port of Lost Souls

Unfortunately, you've posted this in the wrong area as well - it should be within army lists, as opposed to tactica.

Nonetheless, to your list itself.

Sadly, a lot of the units you've chosen look fantastic on the table but also perform terribly there, and belong in a display case until we get a new codex. Therefore, I must stomp on your dreams, fellow Archon:

Mandrakes, Wyches and Voidraven Bombers are all grossly inefficient for their cost, and the Grotesques  and Taloi need to come from the Haemonculus supplement to really do anything. The Grotesques at the VERY least need some kind of transport, be it a webway portal or a raider.

The good units you'd highlighted are your Succubus, Kabalites, Venoms and Scourges.

-Ensure the Succubus has an Archite Glaive, and she's pretty much ready to go. She can be kept really cheap, and lead your Grotesques in a Raider or through a Webway Portal quite well.
- Arm each 5 man Kabalite unit with either a single Blaster or literally no upgrades, then toss them in a double splinter cannon Venom.
- The Scourges really need special weapons to be of any use, and I recommend either 4 Heat Lances or 4 Haywire Blasters.

Your plan, while it sounds like it offers you board control, is actually simply denying you the opportunity to interact with your opponent's units. All of yours are fragile AND close ranged, which is a terrible combination to have. The Dark Eldar are primarily focussed around two things, high speed and raw shooting prowess, and you've strayed from both these strengths I'm afraid.

You desperately need some long ranged support, ideally in the form of Ravagers, Scourges and Venoms. This is the only way to ensure you last longer than 2-3 turns before losing your entire army without killing a single model of theirs.

You have come to the right place for assistance in list building and tactical reasoning, so we can definitely help you. Try have a look at some of the other lists in the Army Lists section, and you'll get the drift. Any questions or queries? Shoot!

I enjoyed your narrative description of the army, but sadly, as Hydranixx said, in our army what loks cool in the background is not cool in the game.

- Lelith is a poor copy of what she should be and of what she was in the previous rules

- Wyches are totally not "inhexaustible", on the opposite you just have to look at them to kill them.

- Mandrakes are not strictly bad to me, but not point effective, and for sure ar not able to control the advance of your enemy.

- Voidraven is cool, but totally too expensive in points.

That said, welcome in Comorragh!

Hehe. I can admit that I got a bit carried away. Nevertheless. It's my first post and I am always open to some new piece of advice.

The wyches will die to small arms fire but can last a few rounds in combat. Lelith is mainly aimed at killing basic infantry. Two ravens will kill off troops and suck up enemy artillery, opening up for the transports.

As mentioned, the idea is to pin the enemy into combat and take out key units which can be done with the ravens. The wyches can be given equipment for killing as well.

It would be nice to give the army a shot, might not be as strong as the meta but with some fixing it might become something.

Please do try that list. I'm curious how it works.

Otherwise: welcome to the dark city!

High risk. High adventure.

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

Most players will deploy most of their force on the table from the beginning of the game. From there they move their transports in half the speed of our raiders straight towards objectives and other strategic points. A considerable part of their force, if not all of it, will be heading out on foot... Most players will let his army take a beating during his advance.

...

Any thoughts or opinions?

That doesn't sound like any game of WH40K I've seen or played in the past 10 years.

CptMetal wrote:

Please do try that list. I'm curious how it works.

Otherwise: welcome to the dark city!

My list is similar.


Let me give you an offshot from a game I played against Imperial guard. Three objectives were deployed. I set it up for two objectives to be deployed on his side and one on mine.

The three key units I used was grotesquerie, five warriors with cannon and a unit of wyches.

The grotesquerie deep striked into the midst of the enemy deployment in a corner. There they survived for three rounds while the enemy amassed fire on them. They hindered him from movement and managed to assault and do some serious damage.

While his army was waging a war on my grots, five warriors took ground in the middle where they fired from cover and could later walk to claim the objective from my oponent's crippled, poisoned grasp. The second objective was lightly guarded: one walker and a troop. It would have to succumb to my wyches.

It is about gaining ground. Five rounds into the game my forces were spread across the table.

The last objective was out of his reach.

All-in-all a 3-0 domination.

Barking Agatha wrote:

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

Most players will deploy most of their force on the table from the beginning of the game. From there they move their transports in half the speed of our raiders straight towards objectives and other strategic points. A considerable part of their force, if not all of it, will be heading out on foot... Most players will let his army take a beating during his advance.

...

Any thoughts or opinions?

That doesn't sound like any game of WH40K I've seen or played in the past 10 years.

When Agatha and I agree, something is amiss....

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

Let me give you an offshot from a game I played against Imperial guard. Three objectives were deployed. I set it up for two objectives to be deployed on his side and one on mine.

The three key units I used was grotesquerie, five warriors with cannon and a unit of wyches.

The grotesquerie deep striked into the midst of the enemy deployment in a corner. There they survived for three rounds while the enemy amassed fire on them. They hindered him from movement and managed to assault and do some serious damage.

While his army was waging a war on my grots, five warriors took ground in the middle where they fired from cover and could later walk to claim the objective from my oponent's crippled, poisoned grasp. The second objective was lightly guarded: one walker and a troop. It would have to succumb to my wyches.

It is about gaining ground. Five rounds into the game my forces were spread across the table.

The last objective was out of his reach.

All-in-all a 3-0 domination.

I don't know exactly what you did in that game, but it sounds like you guys forge the narrative hard!

I tried to forge the narrative once, but left it in too long while I was formulating my strategy and instead burnt the narrative. Now I don't have a narrative, but I have a few good plans!

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I tried to forge the narrative once, but left it in too long while I was formulating my strategy and instead burnt the narrative. Now I don't have a narrative, but I have a few good plans!

Interesting. Do tell us more about these plans.

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I tried to forge the narrative once, but left it in too long while I was formulating my strategy and instead burnt the narrative. Now I don't have a narrative, but I have a few good plans!

Interesting. Do tell us more about these plans.

They're all over the forums my good slave! Scurry off and look for them while you fetch my wine. And bring girls. And Wine. But no whiny girls.

Hey Mulciber. Welcome mate!

Your list does include some pretty average choices (like wyches and void bombers) but that's not really important. Your list will evolve as you play more and experiment and practice.

What is important is that your on the right track. You've already identify a winning DE tactic that was discussed in depth in the most recent splintermind podcast. You should check it out.

One of the guys described it as the "Look at the monkey" tactic. Throw something tough and scary at your opponent to keep him busy (in your case the grots) while the rest of your army flies around, quietly winning the mission.

Once you master that tactic you can begin perfecting the null deploy and then skimmer spam then eldar, harley, corsair allies and freakshow and full covens... The possibilities are endless!!!

Ohh to be young and falling in love with DE again...

Painjunky wrote:

Hey Mulciber. Welcome mate!

Your list does include some pretty average choices (like wyches and void bombers) but that's not really important. Your list will evolve as you play more and experiment and practice.

What is important is that your on the right track. You've already identify a winning DE tactic that was discussed in depth in the most recent splintermind podcast. You should check it out.

One of the guys described it as the "Look at the monkey" tactic. Throw something tough and scary at your opponent to keep him busy (in your case the grots) while the rest of your army flies around, quietly winning the mission.

Once you master that tactic you can begin perfecting the null deploy and then skimmer spam then eldar, harley, corsair allies and freakshow and full covens... The possibilities are endless!!!

Ohh to be young and falling in love with DE again...

Greetings!

While some like to work with warriors, felling foes from a distance, some like to get acquainted in a more hands on manner, so to speak!

Worth mentioning is that I run my grots from the covens chart. I am fascinated by the Haemonculi and what their minds create. Where some see flesh and bone, I see possibilities. There are lots of

As mentioned, the firepower needed to take out grots can make for a gall on the foe. He will fire to kill them. They will just be there.  

Always nice to be on a good start, eh? It is all about dedication.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I tried to forge the narrative once, but left it in too long while I was formulating my strategy and instead burnt the narrative. Now I don't have a narrative, but I have a few good plans!

Interesting. Do tell us more about these plans.

They're all over the forums my good slave! Scurry off and look for them while you fetch my wine. And bring girls. And Wine. But no whiny girls.

Hahahaha!

If true board control is what you want, you need to drop the following:
Scourges
Grots
Voidraven
Anything with "Wych" in it
Mandrakes
Talos


Keep anything that has "warrior" and a transport.

Add more transports and warriors until you are out of points.

I have played the board control game, and it is deadly. But board control is not hand to hand, it is fast, agile, (objective secure) units that can change the battlefields landscape simply by moving/turboboosting.
And lots of shooting.

Just my .02

A very interesting idea. I may have to modify it slightly for my own plans >) Wyches are decent at locking things in combat but not great at killing stuff, even in hand to hand. In one of my games, one unit tied up a squad of space wolf bikers for 2 turns but another squad charged the space wolf equivalent of a chaplain and his depleted squad, took a few casualties, broke and got wiped out. Talos's can be a nightmare to deal with. 1 is nasty, two is insane but 3 will chew up almost anything in front of them while taking alot of firepower. Add to that deep striking grotesques behind enemy lines....that would put your opponent in to a rock and a hard place. whichever he chooses, it is going to hurt. Now I need to buy some grotesques!

Your opponent generally won't need to deal with the grotesques. Most armies would be able to either avoid them, or tie them into combat. I have to agree with earlier posts that your illustration of a typical game is not what I see, either at my local club or tournaments.

I see lots of bikes, usually with objective secured for mobility and grabbing of objectives, insane levels of firepower that would eat 6 grotesques for breakfast, and/or armies that are more than capable of board control themselves. My own space marine list I'm currently working on brings 11+ objective secured units to the table, along with lots of options for re-rolls on key units at key times, flexibility through deployment via drop pods for board control, and a combat tank easily tough enough to tie up your grotesques (and he's not even the nastiest one marines can build).

I'm certainly not saying your idea won't work - only knowledge of your meta and understanding of the units you're using can do that, but speaking as a pretty experienced DE player, I would have no concerns whatsoever about facing your list.

Dodo_Night wrote:

Talos's can be a nightmare to deal with.

Oh yes. The worst thing is, while a normal squad consists of up to three, the wrenched minds of the covens takes this even further. The corpsethief formation, from the covens, consists of five creeping Talos with scout. Add that to an army with high threat.

Painjunky wrote:

The possibilities are endless!

The larger the army gets, the more odd units will fall into place, depending on how the army is built i suppose. It is good to begin with lots of warriors. I'm starting from the other end.

Did I mention? I'm insane!

Cruor Mulciber wrote:

Did I mention? I'm insane!

Of course you are, everyone here is.