DE in 7th viable

Hello all, I realise you get these posts regularly but hoped you could assist one more time before I commit to spending funds.

I have played 40k on and off for many years Im no where near the best and play for fun rather than competitively.  So having played all the armies I like i wanted to clarify a few things before going back into dark eldar.

First are they still viable in 7th? looking at the internet they seam to have been nerfed quite badly and there blades dulled. Second do they still play as a scalpal, fast moving selectively removing chosen targets before moving in to finish up. glass cannon

I was thinking this for my first purchase:

Archon
    Huskblade, shadow field, phantasm grenade launcher, blaster
    court Sslyth x4
    Venom splinter cannon

Trueborn
    4x blasters
    venom splinter cannon

warriors x10
    splinter cannon
   Raider, nightshields, splinter racks,

warriors x10
    splinter cannon
   Raider, nightshields, splinter racks,

Scourges x10
  3x splinter cannon

Ravager
  3x dark lance

the points are a bit messy and model wise I can run another squad of trueborn if I add another venom

thoughts and assistance would be greatly appreciated

From my experiences playing, from what others have said, and from what the current meta is - I would avoid taking a pure DE list for competitive play, but they can very easily compete with your local groups armies unless everyone is min-maxing or just playing blue smurfmarines.

With your army below:

Your archon is crazy expensive, do you want to be in combat or do you want to shoot? The blaster is great, but why take it if you're taking a cc loadout? huskblade sucks and the nade launcher is pointless as it doesn't affect marines or fearless units.

The court with sslyth are great, but putting 300+ points in one basket and charging up the middle will result in simply losing said 300 points to basically any army that can shoot - does your archon waste his blaster shot on infantry, or are your carbines wasted against vehicles?

Trueborn are good but again, are going to be a target, and blowing a venom up isn't hard, bolters do it just fine, jetbikes with a blaster and caltrops, scourges with haywire, ravagers etc do it better, cheaper and safer.

Gunboat Raiders with 10 kabs and a cannon was a thing, with the new faq draft and how it relates to units snap firing after their transport jinks, snap firing if you move more than 6" and splinter cannons firing less and at a shorter range b/c of salvo. They're not going to do much IF they survive getting close enough to actually make use of the splinter racks, you don't want be in rapid fire range as your unit = dead against basically anything that can shoot.

Scourges are good, basically either take haywire and possibly take potshots from deployment or heatlance and suicide them in. There is literally no reason to ever take splinter cannons and or a squad of 10, we're not space marines.

Lance ravager's are alright, however, with little redundancy - 3 lance shots hitting on 3's, glancing on 4's vs av12 and with most competent players using cover, probably not effective, i would take 2 or even 3.

You really want lots of small units, we don't do large blobs well as 5+ with a 6/5+ fnp @ t3 isn't going to keep you alive against much, venoms always take the cannon upgrade as they are the best and most reliable source of survivable poison shooting.

Ditch trueborn, take msu squads with blasters, make the enemy work to remove the threat, not just shoot at one unit.

eg just messing around with stuff but something like this would hold up better:

lhamean + 4 sslyth in a venom w/cannon (175)

3 x 5 kabs with a blaster in a venom w/cannon (360)

1 x 5 Scourges with haywire blasters (120)

Ravager w/3 lances(125)


Your hq unit now has a single role, shoot stuff, you have 6 obj secured units, 4 venoms to shoot infantry and your kabs can multirole and or hunt MC's or take potshots at vehicles, scourges can sit in cover and zone or deepstrike and attempt to remove something. Your ravager can sit backfield and shoot.

This comes to 780pts, i would add a second ravager and maybe a 3man reaver unit with a blaster and caltrops.

Please excuse awful spelling, punctuation and generally bad sentences

Wow I couldn't be further from my previous games and as such design. thanks for the help I think a rethink is in order taking into account what you have posted

The fun part of playing DE is that they ARE one of the worst armies out there currently. I switched to them because I was tired of playing with the top tier SMs.

I used to walk away from games thinking either: "Wow, that was one sided. I just killed him without any trouble. I didnt really enjoy that" or "Wow, that was one sided. I took one of the best armies, and STILL lost. I didnt enjoy that"

Now I walk away from games either going: "HAHA, I brought one of the weakest armies, and STILL WON! WOOT!!1!1" or "HAHAHA, I lost badly. But I brought one of the worst armies, so it was to be expected. Unit _____ really worked well though, next time I will do ______".

Even when you loose with DE, you still win

I mostly agree with this assessment, except I also do not like single blasters in kabalite groups for the exact same reason why the 300pt archon ball was a bad idea: your relying on suboptimal shooting.

The problem with the 300pt archon ball was more the fact that:

Archon cost 155pts
- Launcher is a shooting attack
- 2 wargear gun upgrades but also CC upgrades
- Sslyth + Venom is 165pts, this is already a target

4 Carbines and a blaster will dent MC's and do well against infantry (more so than not taking a blaster on the archon as the blaster > pistol in terms of Anti MEQ/TEQ effectiveness).

Dropping 120pts on a Kab squad with a dual cannon venom and a blaster is only 120pts, already less of a target and if you've got ravagers, they're going to get focused first.

As for suboptimal shooting, if it was a haywire blaster, it would be less useful as the squad would then be a man down when shooting infantry as the haywire blaster becomes a single shot bolter.

Eg, some quick 216 method mathhammer for when the primary role of hunting infantry/MC's whilst also preventing the fun situation where the opponent brings many vehicles:

Probability of hitting, wounding, and failing save:
- Multiply them together, and then divide by 216.

Quick reference:
----------------
6+ = 17%
5+ = 33%
4+ = 50%
3+ = 66%
2+ = 83%

Shooting at a standard T4, 3+ Space Marine not in cover, with no invulnerable save or FNP.

BS4 Splinter Rifle to wound T4 with 3+ save: 4 x 3 x 2 = 24. 24/216 = 0.11 Chance to inflict unsaved wound
BS4 Blaster to wound T4 with 3+ save: 4 x 5 x 6 = 120. 120/216 = 0.55 Chance to inflict unsaved wound

Therefore:

5 Kabalites 4x Rifle = 10*0.11 = 1.1 Unsaved Wounds
5 Kabalites 4x Rifle, 1x Blaster = 8*0.11 + 1*0.55 = 1.43 Unsaved Wounds
Venom 2x Cannon = 12*0.11 = 1.32 Unsaved Wounds

I've found that the blaster kab squads easily outperform the ravager in AT as they tend to survive while my ravagers get focused, and having a str8 ap2 gun that can instadeath t4 stuff, is always useful.

You can ditch the blasters, and bring another kab squad, more poison may help, but its useless if theres armor and for the most part, turns the unit into something an opponent can ignore once the venom is dead.

If you run the blasters, remember that you can literally use them to kill 2+ saves.

I have been thinking about 4 blasters on scourges. I know 140, but hey I just want to try it out.

Personally, I normally run four squads of warriors, one blaster with each, all in Venoms. I will soon be dropping the blasters. I will get my anti-tank from Ravagers and Scourges, and with the points saved can get another Venom, either for another squad or as an empty fast attack choice. Single blasters just never do very much for me. Against infantry, I'd rather have volume of fire than one lucky shot.