1850 list

Hey everyone! (Bit cheery sounding for you more seasoned Archons, apologies!)

Some background:

Recently bought a nice collection of the denizens of Commorragh for a great price. I currently play space marines (and have been doing so for the past 6 years now) and would like to think I have a solid understanding of the rules (been playing since 3rd edition, and 7th is arguably my favourite to date, controversial I know!).

With this in mind I thought I'd introduce myself to you all by posting my very first list of the dark kin, for your comments and criticism. I am not looking for an absolutely 110% competitive edge (I wouldn't have picked up dark eldar if I had been, and this will become evident with some choices in the list), but am simply wondering of any tips/strategies to increase the effectiveness of the units I have chosen in order to stand more of a fighting chance. Attached are pictures of the collection now in my belonging for reference.




Alas, on to the list!

HQ:
Succubus, Archite Glaive
(She gives the Incubi assault grenades, provides a cheap CC HQ. Plus combat drugs are neat.)

Elites:
5 Incubi, Raider w/Dark Lance
(Retinue for Succubus, plus models are too cool!)

5 Trueborn, 3 Blasters, Venom w/2 Splinter Cannons

4 Mandrakes
(Harassing infiltrating unit, gives snipers/artillery something to be bugged by. Again, I know they aren't great, but cool models! Hopefully the closer proximity to firing lines will take fire away from more important units and the cover will keep them relatively safe until flamers/templates ruin their day)

Troops:
2 units of = 5 Kabalites, 1 Blaster, Venom w/ 2 Splinter Cannons

2 units of = 10 Kabalites, 1 Splinter Cannon, Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks

Fast attack:
Razorwing, 4 x Shatterfield Missiles, Splinter Cannon, 2 Dark Lances
(Quick query, how many weapons can this fire on turn it comes in? My stormraven can shoot all 4 missiles and both of its other armaments, but that's thanks to PoTMS if I am not mistaken?).

6 Reavers, 2 Heat Lances, 2 Cluster Caltrops

5 Scourges, 4 Heat Lances
(Had some debate between heat lances and haywire blasters, which is needed more in my army?).

Heavy Support:
1 Ravager, 3 Dark Lances

1 Ravager, 3 Disintegrator Cannons
(Fancied trying a ravager with each loadout, see how they perform).

1 Talos, Ichor Injector

So overall, how do you all think this would play? Imo it looks great fun as it offers a very different playstyle to my marines while still being reasonably effective. Any suggestions on synergy/what units to deploy and run alongside each other?

Apologies for the surplus of questions but as you can likely tell I am very excited by the prospect of fielding this challenging yet super slick looking army.

First off, welcome to The Dark City!

Donatron wrote:

HQ:
Succubus, Archite Glaive
(She gives the Incubi assault grenades, provides a cheap CC HQ. Plus combat drugs are neat.)

Assault grenades are actually on a per model basis, so Incubi won't benefit from her assault grenades, unfortunately.


As it appears your list is primarily created to take advantage of the existing models you have, it looks fine. I'd probably go haywire blasters on the scourges, and try to find points to make the second ravager have lances.

Aside from those immediate changes, the list certainly isn't ideal, but since it's the models you have, I'd encourage you to field them a bit, put a few notches on your belt insofar as games played goes before you decide to expand on your available models.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't use raiders for kabalites these days. Venoms are just so much better since raiders can't jink while allowing Kabalites to fire at full BS. The best use for raiders is to transport grotesques, who don't care about jinking because they're not shooting anyhow, and probably are going flat out across the table.

As a general rule with DE, most of the time, the fewer upgrades, the better. Exceptions to this rule are the following upgrades which are pretty much auto-takes every time:

splinter cannons on venoms
dark lances on ravagers
haywire blasters on scourges
archite glaives on succubus
klaivex in incubi units
cluster caltrops on reavers
ichor injector on Talos

Other than the above upgrades, most things are extremely situational purchases that should have a very clear and beneficial plan for them to be useful/worth their points. Our various leadership-based items are also useful, but require a very particular type of army composition to get the best use out of them. You can find tips for these by searching for "freakshow guide" on the forums.

These are largely tips that you can use later, once you've got some experience with the models you have. So, since you already own the list you posted, go use it and have fun! Let us know how it goes, and if you have any other questions!

I hope I helped, and good luck!

Hi there, thanks for the in-depth reply, much appreciated! Cheers for the reminder about the assault grenades, I was thinking they would work much in the same way as the inquisitorial rad grenades, my bad!
Any tips for my current list for going up against Slaanesh daemons and marines? They seem to be designed to take us on with plentiful ignores cover and preferred enemy for the daemons, and I'll be playing against them sometime this week! :O Still think the haywire blasters for scourges are the way to go?
Also, I have read multiple times that dark lances for ravagers are an auto-include. Why is this? I thought the disintegrator cannons would be a good answer to 2+ save infantry? Perhaps drowning them in poison fire is just as effective?
Finally, you mention the Klaivex is also an auto-take. Is that just for the I6? Otherwise 10pts for an extra attack seems quite pricey (half the cost of another incubi).
Not saying you're wrong on the above points at all (on the contrary I am the greenhorn here and I am enjoying picking at a vet players brain) Just curious about your thought process on these.

Hi there. Before I give my two cents on the matter I have to say that I too am a new Deldar player and I haven't played with them yet (still assembling and painting my army). But I have watched a ton of bat reps and read every slither of info I could find on the net.

With that out of the way lets go for some feedback:

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Any tips for my current list for going up against Slaanesh daemons and marines?

Just in general: Pick your fights! You have the faster army so use this to dictate where the fights will take place. Your army should be fast enough to just shift to a side of the table in a single turn and burn through the units there. You also have to create threats with different units in order to divert the fire of the enemy.

Quote :

Still think the haywire blasters for scourges are the way to go?

Maybe not against the Daemons since they probably won't bring a lot of METAL BAWKSES. But against the Marines you will love the haywire.

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Also, I have read multiple times that dark lances for ravagers are an auto-include. Why is this? I thought the disintegrator cannons would be a good answer to 2+ save infantry? Perhaps drowning them in poison fire is just as effective?

Because the Disi cannons are ONLY good against 2+ save infantry. Against everything else we have the Venoms. And since no army except Gray Knights will field more than say 5 Termis, you don't need the Disi cannon. After all, our Dark Lances are also AP2 so you can still kill TEQs with them but also have the option to go after vehicles. Since our only source for (reliable) anti-vehicle weapons are either Haywire Scourges or Dark Lance Raiders/Ravagers (or the occasional Blasterborn Squad) it is much more important to stack up on Dark Lances than it is to take Disi Cannons.

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Finally, you mention the Klaivex is also an auto-take. Is that just for the I6? Otherwise 10pts for an extra attack seems quite pricey (half the cost of another incubi).

That and Rampage. The Klaivex alone can dish out 7(!) attacks on the charge, which I would say is worth the 10 points. He also has better WS, one more attack and is Ini 6, which comes in handy against Daemons.

The changes I would propose:

Drop a Mandrake and an Incubus to free up points. Invest these points into a Klaivex and three Dark Lances for your Ravager. You may also want to swap the Incubi-Raider for a Venom w/ Splinter Cannon.

Give the Scourges Haywire weapons (those are much more reliable against AV).

Why "only" 4 Incubi? Because you actually don't want them to kill those TEQs in a single turn. Because then your squishy T3 models would be standing in the open. It would be much more desirable to have them win the combat on your opponent's turn, thus avoiding shooting.

Other than that, just have fun!

Causalis actually did a good job answering all your questions, almost how I would have.

On the Klaivex, rampage is a big one, and also one of the reasons to keep your squad size at 4 or less. Rampage on a Klaivex gives you(on average) 3 attacks more than a standard Incubi, so you're actually getting slightly higher than an additional Incubi's offense, without the extra wound, for less than half the cost of another Incubi. It's just more cost-efficient that way. In simple terms:

5 Incubi produce fewer wounds at a higher cost than 3 Incubi & a Klaivex.

Hi again, thanks for the rundown, much appreciated peeps!

Are disi cannons ever worth it in your opinion? I rarely see them and might try them on a ravager at some point, but you do make a very good point about the lances. In all the batreps I have watched it is lances or nothing.

Ah ofc! I completely forgot about rampage, I remember Drazhar having it but forgot standard Klaivex do too. I do love reading up on people optimising the current codex given its limitations as you have done here yet again Betray, there's something oddly satisfying about trying to maximise the effectiveness of what is typically considered a "low-tier" codex, definitely something I am not used to having previously played marines.

Looking forward to giving them a spin soon.

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Are disi cannons ever worth it in your opinion? I rarely see them and might try them on a ravager at some point, but you do make a very good point about the lances. In all the batreps I have watched it is lances or nothing.

Well, that depends on your opponent. If you want to make a Take All Comers List then you'll probably always take the Lances as it is vital to have enough anti-tank weapons. The issue at hand is that Disi Cannons would be more valid if they were S6 or S7. Because the only way you will want them over the Lances is, if you are facing an opponent without any tanks (Tyranids, certain Daemon lists etc.). The problem is that those armies will most likely field some monstrous creatures instead of tanks. And whilst the Disi Cannons will punch through their armour, it is only S5, meaning that you will wound most monsters on 5s or even 6s. Thus the Lances would again be better because they too ignore the armour but since they have a higher strength value, they will wound the monsters more reliably.

You can of course test the Disi Cannons and against a list with only minimal vehicles (Orks w/ two Trukks for example) they could pull their weight.

I mostly agree with the above assessment. If not for all the same reasons, we at the very least come to the same conclusion.

S5 Disintegrators were a shock to me when I came back after missing a couple of editions. They used to be S7 blast, and three of those on a Ravager was one of the genuinely scary things Dark Eldar had.

S5 is a real problem at times, especially when trying to deal with stuff like artillery.

Hi all, apologies for the delay in letting yous know how it went.

It was an interesting list for me to come up against, as the only form of shooting they had was from 2 soulgrinders. Unfortunately on my very first turn of my first game playing with the dark kin the first shot from my opponent (a soulgrinders harvester cannon) destroyed one of my venoms! I was laughing a lot at it though to be honest, as I knew it was something I would have to get used to.

The succubus and the incubi did okay, they fared well against some daemonettes in CC but unfortunately the succubus met the wrong end of a soul grinders claw. She had the WT that gives 2VP for each obj taken by her though so she still ended up securing 4 VP over the course of the game.

The trueborn performed excellently, both shooting down Chariots and shockingly beating charging seekers in CC, to the extent where their instability wiped them out. The mandrakes made for a good linebreaker unit too.

The kabalites all did their job too, the raiders in particular were fantastic as due to his lack of shooting they were not being forced to jink so there was much twin-linked goodness!

The razorwing was unfortunately a letdown, but that was due to it's preferred targets (the daemonette blobs) all either being tied up or dead by the time it arrived.

I opted for the heat lances with the scourges, and this proved to be a good choice as one luck shot got through one of the soul grinders armour and cover, blowing it up on the turn they arrived.

My jetbikes were the unit I was looking most forward to, but the daemonic warpstorm deemed that Khorne was angry. He lashed out at them, killing a couple. They then failed their morale and went off the board early in the game!

The talos did not fare too well, but that was to be expected against so many rending attacks. He was a useful deterrent against the keeper of secrets though as if she charged him in the terrain his ichor injector could have potentially one shotted her.

As for the ravagers ... I now wholeheartedly agree about the dark lances, after it took the ravager with 3 dark lances, the unit of scourges, a couple of units of kabalites with 1 blaster each and the jetfighter with its lances two whole turns of shooting to bring down 1 soulgrinder in cover! Thankfully I could afford to use so much firepower on 1 unit as that was around turn 5 and I had secured board control everywhere else.

The final score was 20VP to the Dark Eldar and 16VP to the Slaanesh daemons. A fun, close game and a good start for my space elf ninja pirates!