1500pt - Tourny List w/ Special Restrictions

Hey all!

I'm putting together a list for my first tourny at my LGS - it's a primarily casual/fun tourny with a set of restrictions making it similar to 4th ed. rules (although it is a 7e tourny).  Here are the rules:

1500 points
No Formations
No Fortifications
No Lords of war
No Allies

Forgeworld units and army lists are allowed, providing they meet all the requirements.

30k lists for use in the Horus Heresy are not allowed.

The Death From the Skies supplemental rules and dogfight phase will not be used.

No Multiple Detachments/CADs
No Unbound Armies
Only Troop Units are scoring
All other units are denial units
Dedicated Transports are NEVER scoring even if purchased with a Troop Choice (unless a unit of troops is currently embarked)

CLASSIC HAMMER FOC - your entire army must fit within one CAD*.
*note this does not confer the objective secured rule.

Compulsory- 1 HQ, 2 Troops
Optional-1 HQ, 4 Troops, 3 Elites, 3 Fast Attack, 3 Heavy
The same unit may not be selected in triplicate.

Here's the list I'm proposing:

Dark Eldar CAD (1500pts)

HQ (115pts):

Court of the Archon – Medusae x2 (50pts)
Dedicated Transport – Venom w/ Splinter cannon (65pts)

Elites (360pts):

5x Kabalite Trueborn w/ 4x Blasters (115pts)
Dedicated Transport – Venom w/ Splinter Cannon (65pts)

5x Kabalite Trueborn w/ 4x Blasters (115pts)
Dedicated Transport – Venom w/ Splinter Cannon (65pts)

Troops (340pts):

10x Kabalite Warriors w/ 1x Splinter Cannon (95pts)
Dedicated Transport – Raider w/ Splinter Racks and Dark Lance (75pts)

10x Kabalite Warriors w/ 1x Splinter Cannon (95pts)
Dedicated Transport – Raider w/ Splinter Racks and Dark Lance (75pts)

Fast Attack (405pts):

Razorwing Jetfighter w/ Nightshield, 2x Dark Lance, Splinter Cannon, 3x Shatterfield Missile, 1x
Monoscythe Missile (180pts)

5x Reavers w/ 1x Heat Lance and 1x Cluster Caltrops (105pts)

5x Scourges w/ 4x Haywire Blaster (120pts)

Heavy Support (280pts):

1x Ravager w/ 3x Dark Lance (140pts)

1x Ravagers w/ 3x Dark Lance (140pts)

Let me know if there's any feedback!  A few of my feelings:
- I don't like blasterborn, but being restricted to only 2 of any unit (and not wanting to use wyches) means only 2 units of kabalites as troops and I figured blasterborn were a good way to extend that and get more venoms on the board
- I don't own any Razorwings and don't know if I like them, but have them as a concession for anti-flyer (I think there is one person at this LGS that routinely brings flying hive tyrants)

Interesting format.

As a disclaimer, I'm rather new to the game myself so take my advice with caution.
Here's what I would do.
Cut the Medusae and put a Lhamean instead with a Venom.
Keep the blasterborn, not because they're awesome, but because I can't see any other elite troop working here.
I think the 10 warriors in raiders is a bit too much. I'd cut them down to 5 warriors each and give them venoms.
Keep the Razorwing (I like them) but drop the shatterfield missiles and nightshield (if you need to jink you're not applying enough damage to justify it being there)
Cut the Sourges and add two groups of reavers (3 in each), one with a heat lance and another with Arena Champion (as WL), Cluster caltrops of course.
Keep the Ravagers as they are and add a Talos group, 2x with Ichor injector and haywire blasters.

That will amount to 1496 points.

Lhamean in Venom w/ dual Cannons

2x Blasterborn in Venom w/ dual Cannons

2x Kabalites in Venom w/ dual Cannons

Razorwing Jetfighter w/ Dark Lances and cannon

Reavers, 2 + Arena Champion with Agonizer
Reavers 2 + 1 w/ Heat Lance

2x Ravagers w/ Dark Lances

Talos, 2 Taloi w/ Haywire Blasters and Ichor Injectors


I thought about if it's reasonable to extend the troops with Wyches in Venoms, but it hardly seems worth it. However, given the lack of scoring units, you may have to take that rout anyway, in which case I would drop the Razorwing and maybe one of the Blasterborns to fit in more troop options w/ Venoms.

I feel like you need to petition the TO to slightly modify the rules, since we only have 2 troop types, and therefore it isn't even possible for you to fill 6 troops slots without violating the "triplicate" rule, which was definitely allowed in previous editions.

I always hate these types of tournaments, where they try to shoehorn a bunch of codices designed for 7th edition into an edition of the game that no longer exists. They're invariably unbalanced, unfair, exclusive of non-traditional armies like inquisition and harlequins that people paid the same good money for, and just generally put me in a bad mood.

Oh, welcome to The Dark City. Haha! I like your name.

Hi sixteen.scandals, and welcome to the forum.

Your list is fairly good, given the weird format, but can do with some fine tuning.

I disagree with much of what Bhaal's advice is, though he's entirely correct that 5 Kabalites in a Venom are much cheaper and better than your current Kabalite + Raider combinations.

As a rule of thumb, avoid ALL heavy weapons on Dark Eldar infantry; our infantry Dark Lances are terrible if they move, and mediocre at best if they don't, and that model (1 Kabalite with 1 Dark Lance) costs 33pts; more than 2 Reavers, half the price of a Venom, or almost an entire 5 man Kabalite unit riding said Venom.

Honestly, @BetraytheWorld is right, this set up seems like a seasoned 4th ed players "valiant fight back against the absurdity of 7e" but it goes way too far and literally invalidates some armies entirely, with blanket rules and bans.

I would encourage, if your models permit, you to 'abuse' the limits the tournament has put in place; they allow only 2 of each unit, so I say, fine, I'm putting Venoms & Raiders in every slot I can. Again, this is hugely model dependent, but I'd go like this:

1 Lhamean in a Venom with 2 S.cannons.
1 unit of 1-3 Meduse in a Venom with 2 S.cannons, deep striking.
2 units of 5 Kabalite Warriors each in a Venom with 2 S.cannons .
0-2 units of 5 Wyches each in a Venom with 2 S.cannons*
1-2 units of 5 Blasterborn, with 3-4 Blasters, each in a Raider with Dark Lance.
0-1 units of 5 Scourges with 4 Haywire Blasters.
2 empty Venoms in Fast Attack.
1 unit of Reavers, either 3 or 6 strong, with 1 or 2 cluster caltrops, respectively.
2 Dark Lance Ravagers**

The above list is very close to 1500, depending on a few of the optional choices. You could easily swap Raiders for Venoms and vice versa, and chop and choose with your Court of the Archon & Trueborn options. The basis of the list is to have plenty of transports to work with and swarm your opponent.

* Wyches are not good. However, the stringent rules set in place mean that troop options are the only 'scoring units' and you also cannot have more than 2 of the same option selected. So we have to explore options outside of our usual 2-6 units of Kabalites. I think Wyches might just be worth it, sitting in their Venom all game, taking objectives at the end of the game.

** You've overpriced your Ravagers; a Ravager with triple Dark Lance is actually 15pts cheap than your figures show. It's not worth buying any other upgrades for them in my opinion.

Either way, let us know how it goes.

Awesome, thanks everyone!

So worst case scenario - venomspam with 2 HQ, 4 troops (kabals and wych), and 2 blasterborn units.  Best case I can get them to make an exception for DE troops.  Cheers!

do dedicated transports count as units? as in no more than 2 of each? Anyway welcome to the Dark City sixteens!

sixteen.scandals wrote:

Best case I can get them to make an exception for DE troops.

I wouldn't even try to get them to make it an exception for DE. I'd just try to get them to drop the triplicate rule. There are some armies that simply CAN'T build an army with that rule in place. Like harlies have something like 7 units in their codex. Inquisition has 1, plus HQs. And these definitely aren't armies that are considered part of the "new stupid" stuff, aside from the fact that they pretty much CAN'T fit inside a normal CAD.

P.S. I agree with pretty much everything Hydranixx said. This is a rare time when I would say wyches are probably worth taking, only due to the "no triplicates" rule.

Marrath wrote:

do dedicated transports count as units? as in no more than 2 of each?

No, they're simply upgrades for existing units, unless you literally buy them as empty transports in the fast attack slot. Transports otherwise come from the same slot on the chart as the unit that buys them, which is why they can normally get Objective Secured if they're for Kabalite Warriors.

Theoretically, even with the rules this tournament has in place, you could still fit in a ridiculous amount of transports:

HQ - Up to 4 transports - 2 Archons + 2 Court of the Archons.
Elites - Up to 3 transports - Incubi/Wracks/Grotesques.
Troops - Up to 4 transports - Wyches, Kabalites.
Fast Attack - Up to 3 transports - Empty Venoms/Raiders.

Does anyone think it'd be beneficial to incorporate some Coven units into this (grotesques in elite slot instead of blasterborn)? Or is pure DE better in the absence of Formations?

Grots are still good without coven rules, but without the turn 2 fearless from the covens pfp chart, you'd really need to put a character with them, and that would fundamentally alter your list in such a way as to essentially be re-doing it from scratch.

Are you allowed to use supplements? If so, you could technically run a CAD that was from the covens supplement, giving your normal DE units the covens PfP chart. It would sacrifice FnP on your non-covens units, but give them very early fearless.

I don't know that that's worth it, as our main weakness is toughness/armour rather than leadership, but it's worth pointing out that it's possible, anyhow.

Sorry to drudge up again! Running into another dilemma - so no Death From the Skies for this tourny but speaking to some of the other participants it sounds like most armies will be fielding one flier. Is it worth fielding a Razorwing as an anti-flier? Or would it be better to spend the points on another unit of scourges and just ignore opposing fliers and try to take objectives and clear out opposing ground units quickly before the flier joins the battle?

sixteen.scandals wrote:

Is it worth fielding a Razorwing as an anti-flier? Or would it be better to spend the points on another unit of scourges and just ignore opposing fliers and try to take objectives and clear out opposing ground units quickly before the flier joins the battle?

No. Dark Lances are trash against air targets even if you use your normal BS. Razorwings are wasting their greatest asset (4 large blasts in a single turn at infantry) for mediocre at best results.

Keep your list focused. Extra boots on the ground, or skimmers carrying them, are better. The Scourges that you mention will yield better results in most games, especially if you're a little light on anti tank.

Our Razorwings base S6 missiles are reliable against blobs of infantry and light vehicles. They should only be brought in to deal with the above two unit types.