Pure DE 1850 with Dark Artisan (played vs. Necrons)

Hey Guys,
yesterday I’ve played my first WH40k-game for years. This forum and the wonderful podcast gave me an idea, what kind of army i want to play.  Many lists of new players posted in this forum seem to consist of totally overequipped archons and Succubi. I would like to take a different approach.

So thank you very much for this.

I’ve played this list:
++ DE Realspace Raiders Detachment (Dark Eldar: Codex (2014)) [1443pts] ++
+ HQ [80pts] +
Archon: Blaster, Close Combat Weapon, Haywire Grenades, Kabalite Armour

+ Troops [667pts] +
Kabalite Warriors: 5x Kabalite Warrior
. Venom: Splinter Cannon
Kabalite Warriors: 5x Kabalite Warrior
. Venom: Splinter Cannon
Kabalite Warriors: 5x Kabalite Warrior
. Venom: Splinter Cannon
Kabalite Warriors
. 8x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Raider: Disintegrator cannon, Night Shields, Splinter Racks
Kabalite Warriors
. 9x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Raider: Disintegrator cannon, Night Shields, Splinter Racks

+ Fast Attack [416pts] +
Razorwing Jetfighter: 2 Dark Lances, 4x Monoscythe Missile, Splinter Cannon
Reavers : Cluster caltrops
. 2x Reaver
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models)
. . Reaver jetbike [10pts]: Blaster
Reavers : Cluster caltrops
. 2x Reaver
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models)
. . Reaver jetbike [10pts]: Blaster
Scourges
. Scourge
. 4xScourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Haywire blaster

+ Heavy Support [280pts] +
2 x Ravager: 3xDark Lance, Night Shields

+ Formation [405pts] +
Formation: Dark Artisan [405pts]
. Cronos: Spirit Probe
. Haemonculus: Close combat weapon, Scissorhand, Splinter Pistol, The Nightmare Doll, Webway portal
. Talos, Ichor Injector, Twin-Linked Splinter Cannon
++ Total: [1848pts] ++


I played against Necrons. Maybe it was not the best matchup to start with, but I wanted desperatly to play and honestly I don’t think it mattered, which army i would face.

Decurion Detachment
Reclamation Legion
Catacomb Command Barge
Immortals
3 Units of 3 Tomb Blades
Warriors and a Ghost Arc
10 Warriors
5 Warriors
Triarch Stalker
2 Units of Triarch Praetorians
Canoptek Spider
3 Canoptek Scarabs
6 Canoptek Wraith
Orikan, the DIviner
Night Shroud Bomber (Foregeworld)

I’m not sure if this list is complete. I’ve browsed in the Necron Codex this morning and tried to reenact his formations and the detachment, cause he told me he had objective secured. I don’t think this fits, cause he would need to take another overlord and lord to put Orikan in the Detachment and is missing several HQ. But I‘m no Necron player, so whatever.


We rolled Cloaked and Shadow as our mission. My plan, to hold him in distance would be hard, because of the narrow table.
He won the roll and deployed first, putting his whole army (except the Night Shroud Bomber in Reserves) at the edge of his deployment zone.
I left the Dark Artisan formation, the Scourges and the Razorwing in reserve and placed my whole Army next to my table edge. The idea was, to stay out of his 24“ fire range as long as I could and that part of my tactic worked well.


I was totally smashed. if your interested, I posted a small battlereport down below.


Thoughts after the game:
- I love MSU, especially the venoms and their firepower
- Reavers are fast and Cluster caltrops are wonderful
- The Dark Artisan Formation is expensive, good and very tanky, but attacking in turn 3 because of deep strike could be to late
- Maybe it would be a different game if we would have played lenghtwise. I had no space to maneuver. He caught me in a the corner and i could not keep him in distance
- Necrons are fast and resilent. In addition to my lack of knowlege, what to shoot first, I killed nearly nothing in turn one. And they moved so damn fast. Back in the days, that was the unique feature oft the Dark Eldar. Necrons were the opposite of it.

I know, the lists were not even roughly balanced. He was an experienced Tournament Player and my Army list was limited by the models available to me. I’m not sure if I would field the forgeworld-Bomber versus a Newbie, but I don’t condemn that.
Maybe I have to keep my characters and vehicles cheaper and add a unit of melees maybe Grotesques or incubi. But I don’t wanted to put a more than 100 points in a ramshackle Raider.

If you read through this wall of text, feel free to comment. Or comment anyway.
Thank You!

NECRONS Turn 1:
In round 1 he rolled like landslide in my direction and scored two of his Tactical Objectives by holding the markers.

DARK ELDAR Turn 1:
I drawed „Behind the Enemy Lines“, „Supremacy“, and a „Hold an Objective“-card for an objective in the middle of his army. Wonderful. Kidding me? I would score nothing this round, his table edge about 70“ away from my fast jetbikes and venoms. At least my shooting whould hurt him. My whole army was in fire distance. But I killed only 2 of his tomb blades and his ghost Arc lost a hull point. Everything else was soaked by his Armor saves and his regeneration-Protocols, thanks tot he Canoptek Spyder and the Formation / Detachment rules.

NECRONS Turn 2:
His Bomber arrived and Orikan, the DIviner fransformed into Orikan the empowered son of a … This turn would be really hurting. He destroyed 2 venoms and immobilised the Raider with the Archon and the Kabalite Warriors. He failed his charge rolls, so I got off cheaply. But he scored another three victory Points for making me fail a pinning test and reaching my lines with several units.

DARK ELDAR Turn 2:
My reserves arrived and I placed them in the back of his army. The scourges did their job, landed in a building and blasted his Triarch Stalker. Mission accomplisehd. The Razorwing fired four missiles into a large blob of Warriors gathering around Orikan the diviner and tore several apart, failing their saves on Protocoll-rolls. The Dark Artisans tried to kill a three-model tomb blade-squad and destroyed 2 of them. My last Venom boosted into his deployment Zone to reach „behind enemy lines“ next round.

NECRONS Turn 3:
This turn I lost the game. The Bomber crossed the scourges und dropped his S10/AP2/no Scatter/no cover-bomb. They failed feel no pain and they really felt pain. My Raiders and Ravagers were crashed by Pretorians, the Catacomb Command Barge and the Canoptek Wraith. The last vanom was destroyed but three brave Kabalite Warriors survived this turn, only a few inch away from the place to score Behind Enemy Lines.

DARK ELDAR Turn 3:
The Dark Artisans chased the last tomb blade and scored two victory Points for 2 Mission objectives. And the surviving warriors from the venom finally scored behind enemy lines. I shot 3 Canoptek Wraith with the Warriors from the Raiders with blasters and Splinter Rifles.

NECRONS Turn 4
His Praetorians and Wraith killed the last Kabalites in my deployment zone including my blaster-archon. He scored several Mission Objectives.

DARK ELDER Turn 4:
The Dark Artisan Formation charged his Warrior-Blob and Orikan the Diviner, killed several Warriors und won the fight, destroying his whole unit. Facing his massive lead in victory points, I conceded.

First off; welcome to the Dark City! It's great to see new faces (well, usernames...) around here, and I hope you enjoy your foray back into the True Kin.

Now, onto some stuff relevant to your posts...

In my experience, melee really isn't the way to go for seventh ed.

Dark Eldar are a predominantly shooty army with a lot of melee units, some of which simply don't live up to what they should for their points (Wyches and Hellions) so don't even touch them.
Grotesques and Incubi, on the other hand, are great at killing things once they get to melee, though if you're taking two units of Grots, they should definitely be in a Grotesquerie formation (Haemonculus Covens)

Now, as to your listbuilding:

MSU Venoms are definitely the way to go, and the additional Raider Units will hardly hurt you if you have them, but they get expensive quickly, so you generally don't want to take both Splinter Racks and Night Shields on the same boat.

Cluster Caltrop Reavers are great, but giving them extra shooting weapons is a bit of a waste.  My suggestion would be to go Heat Lance (as it's cheaper) or not at all (as it's much cheaper).   They can be used to harass things with poison fire, kill things with Cluster Caltrops and Rending Hammer of Wrath, screen other units in your army (cut off enemy line of site with your 63 point Reavers so that your 100+ point Venoms and Raiders get cover save bonuses for being partially obscured.  Another great use for Reavers is grabbing or contesting objectives late game with their 12" move, 36" Turbo Boost.  If they survive that long.

Haywire Blaster Scourges are definite win.  If possible, I would recommend taking another unit of them as they are by far the most efficient and effective means of anti-tank in our codex.

Ravagers are good, but they aren't great at anti-tank.  Three Lance Shots just isn't enough for their cost.  They are, however, brilliant at dealing with TEQ if you keep their Disintegrator Cannons.  And they're also cheaper.  Win-win.

Your Dark Artisan setup is great.  My suggestion would be to drop the Webway portal, deploy the unit front and centre and maybe swap out the Talos' Splinter Cannons for Haywire Blasters to give the unit some ranged-anti-tank threat.  The majority toughness 7 unit is great for tanking.  If its not AP3, take the save on Talos or Cronos, if it is AP3, take the wound on your Haemonculous and hope to bounce it with FNP.  The unit functions well at area denial and distracting the opponent from other threats.

Now, changes I would suggest:
You don't need to take an Archon, a counts-as Lhamaen will save you 70 points.

Your three Venom-bound Kabalite Warrior units should take Blasters.  This gives you more diverse threat potential and can function as reserve anti-tank if your opponents list is mechanised or if your other anti-tank options are unavailable.  The Venoms should definitely keep their double Splinter Cannons.

The two raider units should drop the Blasters and Night Shields, upgrade to ten man units and take Splinter Cannons. Alternatively, the way you currently have them kitted out, is just shy of the cost of another two Blaster and Double Splinter Cannon Venoms.

Keeping the Razorwing Jetfighter as is would be perfectly reasonable.

As stated above, the Reavers could stand to lose their Special Weapons, and another Unit of Haywire Scourges would not go astray.

Personally, I would drop the Ravagers entirely, the points could be better spent elsewhere.  Perhaps in a minimalist Combine Arms Detachment.

The Dark Artisan is fine.


I understand that you are limited by your model availability, but these are methods of play and list-building I have found to be effective.

If it helps, let me know.  Otherwise, happy gaming!

A WWP dark artisan need a lot of preparation to be really effective. You need to aim for a multicharge if you can. Stuck as much units in combat against it if you can. Avoid the unkillable ones (the praetorians), it's a waste of your expensive unit.

regarding the necron list: if your account of your enemy's list is accurate, then he not only had to play unbound (because not enough troop choices for both recl. legion and CAD, which means: no objective secured, no Decurion bonuses other than formation specific things), but also had an illegal unit - necron warriors can only come in squad sizes 10-20, never just 5. plus, he might've had too many points. without the illegal 5 man necron warrior squad, he'd be at 1847 points, not a single upgrade on any unit. with the squad he'd be at 1912 pts.

My point being, always verify that all players involved have a proper army list and know what they're doing. a good game, even a friendly one, should allow all players to review the other people's army lists before a match.

/Edit: in case anybody's interested, the necron list mentioned by Endstation contained: 1 Decurion consisting of Reclamation legion (Barge, Immortals, Warriors, Ark, Tombblades), Judicator Battalion (Stalker, Praetorians), Canoptek Harvest (Scarabs, Spyder, Wraiths), and an unfinished CAD (Orikan, Nightshroud).
Endstation himself mentioned he isn't sure if his account is correct, because he couldn't recreate the necron list. Neither can I, and Necrons are my other main army.

/Edit 2: Actually... he might've played a CAD with 2 Formations, Canoptek Harvest and Judicator battalion, but not the reclamation legion/decurion. the 5 man unit is still not right, but without it everything else would fit. 2 HQ's, 3 Troop Choices, 3 FA Choices, 1 Heavy Support, 2 Formations.

Is it possible that those 5 warriors were actually deathmarks (perhaps proxied?) I know quite a few players, me included, use spare bit from the boxes to make them.

Your getting the Realspace Raiders detatchment for the extra Fast Attack Slots right? You could just go double cad grab a Lhamaen in the 2nd cad (give her a venom obviously) and have just as many Fast Attack Slots, while still retaining Objective Secured.

Anarchistscourge wrote:

Is it possible that those 5 warriors were actually deathmarks (perhaps proxied?) I know quite a few players, me included, use spare bit from the boxes to make them.

Would still put the necron player at too many points. without the 5 man unit, he's at 1847 points.

Hey Guys,

Thank you very much for your constructive advice. I value that you took the time to help me to improve my game. Other Communities would simply link to google or YouTube. I've made another game following your hints and will post sth later this day.

You're awesome


Edit:
Hey Guys,

I’ve played another game, another Player. This time 1500 pt because we both needed to work next day.
I did some improvements on my list, for example skipping the Archon (and didn’t missed him).
Units that worked very well were the Razorwing, the Venoms and the Scourges. Unfortunately my opponent, playing Black Templars, seized the initiative. In the first turn my army got visited by a devastator-unit with grav cannons. With his Chapter Tactics and my misfortune on Feel No Pain-Rolls the Talos and Haemonculus died first turn. The Chronos survived injured with 1 Wound left.

Another Droppod included two heavx flamers, burning the embarked Warriors in a Venom and a Raider.
We played a few turns and I scored some Points, but conceded after 4th round, primary because of the heavy losses in Turn 1 and 2. My performance was ok I think. Next time I’ll try a CAD, maybe two, but last game I wanted to field to the two small units of reavers. I like Cluster Caltrops, but the Black Templar were a bad matchup for them. Too many flamers and heavy flamers.
After all: It was a funny game and I learned some things about my army and the  Supremacy of other armys detachments, formations and ruleset. What else can I expect 

Here is the list:
++ Formation Detachment (Dark Eldar: Supplement - Haemonculus Covens) [375pts] ++

+ Formation +

Formation: Dark Artisan [375pts]
. Cronos: Spirit Probe
. Haemonculus: Close combat weapon, Scissorhand, Stinger pistol, The Nightmare Doll
. Talos: Ichor Injector, Twin-Linked Splinter Cannon

++ DE Realspace Raiders Detachment (Dark Eldar: Codex (2014)) [1121pts] ++

+ HQ +

Court of the Archon [75pts]: Lhameans
. Venom: Splinter Cannon

+ Troops +

Kabalite Warriors [120pts]
. 4x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Venom: Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors [120pts]
. 4x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Venom: Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors [155pts]
. 9x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon (up to 1 for 10 models): Splinter cannon
. Raider: Dark Lance

Kabalite Warriors [155pts]
. 9x Kabalite Warrior
. Kabalite Warrior with heavy weapon (up to 1 for 10 models): Splinter cannon
. Raider: Dark Lance

+ Fast Attack +

Razorwing Jetfighter [130pts]: 2 Disintergrator Cannons, 4x Monoscythe Missile, Twin-linked Splinter Rifle

Reavers [63pts]: Cluster caltrops, 3x Reaver

Reavers [73pts]: Cluster caltrops
. 2x Reaver
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models)
. . Reaver jetbike: Blaster

Scourges [120pts]
. Scourge
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Haywire blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Haywire blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Haywire blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Haywire blaster

+ Heavy Support +

Ravager [110pts]: Disintegrator cannon, Disintegrator cannon, Disintegrator cannon

++ Total: [1496pts] ++