2.5k Covens List

Hey fellow denizens of the Dark City,

I'm gonna play my biggest game of 8th yet pretty soon. My Dark Eldar have had lots of success until now, going 2-0 against Tau, 2-0 against a small force of Marines and 1-0 against a 500-pt Deathwatch army. On Wednesday I'm back at it again, against the Tau and with 2.5k points - I hope to make it 3-0.

Here's what I thought of taking:

+++Drukhari: Brigade Detachment+++

HQ:
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade
Haemonculus
Haemonculus

Troops:
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers
5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers

Elites:
5 Grotesques w/ EC-Whip
5 Grotesques w/ EC-Whip
1 Medusae

Fast Attack:
5 Scourges w/ 4 Dark Lances
5 Scourges w/ 4 Dark Lances
Razorwing Flock (just 1)

Heavy Support:
Cronos
Talos w/ Heat Lances
Talos w/ Splinter Cannon

Transports:
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Venom w/ dual Splinter Cannons

The idea is to go after infantry with the Raiders (each raider with 10 Wracks, so 4 Liquifier Guns), and go after the bigger stuff with the Grotesques - hence the EC-Whip. The Medusae and Razorwing Flock are cheap slot-fillers for the sweet sweet 9 Command Points a Brigade Detachment gives you.

How do you think this will fare? I took the Haemonculi to buff Coven units, but I fear they might just fall behind really quickly. I thought of trying to reduce points elsewhere and give them each a sniper so they might be useful, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea.

I wanted to run Covens because they're more fun than shooty armies and give the Tau a better chance at killing me. I could ofc run pure Darklight spam, but let's be honest, that's no fun. It literally makes our shooting better than the Tau. That list would just consist of Blasterborn, Ravagers, Scourges and Razorwing Jetfighters, and would probably table the Tau within 3-4 turns, as it did in one of my earlier, smaller games. Seems to be pretty broken tbh.

Anyway, any comments would be much appreciated, thanks in advance!! Cheers :)

Maybe that many Haemonculi is overkill and it's worth considering one or two Blaster wielding Archons with PGLs to up the darklight even more and pack some points away for other stuff.

Is the LiquifierBoat THAT good? Like are you just pulling up to some unit/s 8" away and erasing them with 4D6 S3 AP -D3 shots?

Because if you are Khaine bless you man.

Hmm that's an idea. The Haemonculi buff is just pretty nice, but maybe I'll switch one or two out as you suggested, it's not too bad an idea.

The LiquifierBoat is pretty cool against infantry. Tbh though I dunno how much he'll be taking, after all he is running Tau, and started in 7th so has a lot of suits. I added them mainly because they're fluffier in a Coven list than Kabalites. Maybe though, I can add in Kabalites and even justify it fluffily, by saying they're commanded by an Archon. I know that fluff doesn't win games, but to me it's a big factor when building lists.

Also yeah, I do plan on just running two boats up to a squad of infantry and just drowning it in 8D6 autohits, it's breddy fun

Edited the list a bit to make it more balanced, changes marked with a > :

+++Drukhari Brigade Detachment+++

HQ:
>Haemonculus w/ Hexrifle and EC-Whip
>Haemonculus w/ Hexrifle and EC-Whip
>Archon w/ Agoniser and Blaster

Troops:
>5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers and Scissorhand
>5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers and Scissorhand
>5 Wracks w/ 2 Liquifiers and Scissorhand
>5 Kabalite Warriors
>5 Kabalite Warriors w/ Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher
>5 Kabalite Warriors w/ Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher

Elites:
5 Grotesques w/ EC-Whip
5 Grotesques w/ EC-Whip
>5 Kabalite Trueborn w/ 4 Blasters

Fast Attack:
5 Scourges w/ 4 Dark Lances
5 Scourges w/ 4 Dark Lances
1 Razorwing Flock

Heavy Support:
Cronos
Talos w/ Heat Lances
Talos w/ Splinter Cannons

Transports:
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
Raider w/ DL and Shock Prow
>Venom w/ Dual Splinter Cannons
Venom w/ Dual Splinter Cannons

With the Scissorhand, the Wracks get better at what they're supposed to do already: kill infantry
With the Hexrifles, the Haemonculi can actually potentially do something while moving up the table slowly. If I decide to have one of the Haemonculi move around with some Wracks, I'll give him a Scissorhand too, instead of an EC-Whip.

Grotesques get a Raider each, 2x5 Warriors with Blasters get a raider, 2x5 Wracks get a Raider
Blasterborn get a Venom, last Wrack squad gets a Venom

I was thinking of maybe running the barebones Kabalite squad underpower, so that the Archon can deploy with them in the Venom (would reduce amount of stuff deploying, which is important in 8th). I suppose it'll depend on how many units my opponent brings.