2,000pts Drukhari

Good day!

This is the first list I've put together for 8th edition and I wondered if some more experienced Dark Eldar players wouldn't mind taking a peak and giving me some feedback on it.



Battalion Detachment

HQ
1. Archon                                                                      
           Huskblade, blaster, phantasm gl
2. Archon                                                                        
           Huskblade, splinter pistol, phantasm gl

Troops
1. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                    
        blaster
2. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
         blaster
3. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
        blaster
4. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
        blaster

Elites
1. 4 x Grotesques
         Grot with scissorhand, 2x liquefier gun

Fast Attack
1. 6x Reavers                                                                    
        2x blaster, 2x cluster caltrops
2. 5x Scourges                                                                  
         4x haywire blaster


Dedicated Transports
1. Raider                                                                            
          Dark lance, shock prow
2. Venom                                                                              
          2x Splinter cannons
3. Venom                                                                              
          2x Splinter cannons
4. Venom                                                                               
          2x Splinter cannons
5. Venom                                                                               
            2x Splinter cannons
6. Venom                                                                               
           2x Splinter cannons

Air Wing Detachment
7. Razorwing Jetfighter                                                        
           2 dark lances, splinter cannon
8. Razorwing Jetfighter                                                        
           2 dark lances, splinter cannon
9. Voidraven Bomber                                                            
           2 void lances, voidraven missles


So that give me a grand total of 1991 points or 95 power level.

In general what I plan to do is deploy around the center of the table and then use the speed of the army to shift fully towards the weakest flank available. From there I'm planning to split them into 4 groups.

Group 1: Airwing
The flyers goal in the game is relatively simple, prioritize heavy armor then transports. Depending on what my opponent is doing, I may reverse that order to prevent them from grabbing a checky line breaker towards the end of the game. Obviously that won't be a possibility if they're deepstriking (other unit specific rules are available) behind me.

Group 2: Kabalite Flotilla
This group contains the 4 kabalite units in venoms as well as the blaster archon in his own venom. They're goal is to swing towards the weakest flank and start ganging up on infantry. Having the blasters in the units will give them some flexibility to hurt transports or to put some big time damage on character models, should the opportunity arise.

Group 3: The Pain Train
The grots and the cheap archon are taking a raider and going to get stuck in somewhere. I'm not quite sure what they should prioritize this edition. I imagine they should go after something like a blob squad and just merrily chop away for a bit, but it might be better to use them to hunt other close combat units. Where ever they go, the reavers are going with them, for a bit of fun. The blasters will help soften up heavy units, or potentially pop a transport to expose the unit inside for the grots to then happily smack about.

Group 4: This may be a one way trip
The scrouges exist to drop down somewhere and nuke an annoying vehicle. Failing the ability to find a place to land or the lack of a target, they'll drop late game near an objective. If the nuclear option is available, I don't imagine they live long afterwords.


And that's it.  Let me know what you guys think. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Why not take a haemonculus for the grots?

Like the list andnplan in general. Hope it does well for you.

Specifics though, i dont find huskblades to be worth the cost on any archon build but especially on a blasterchon who doesnt really plan on spendong much time in cc. The Agonizer is a really cheap and very solid option against anything that is more than t3.

If yoy drop the shock prow i think you can afford 2 reaver grab talons (cant remember if they are 5 or 10 each. If 10 the huskblade switch would help) and the mortal wounds from the reavers is better than the raiders extra attacks.

The fliers are good. You either take these pr ravagers its your choice and depends on what you have access to. The missiles and bomb help for aome versatility which a ravager lacks.

Im not sold on the haywire blasters this edition. That said i havent tested them, they just look ... uninspiring, i would prefer them with dark lances and drop onto the top of a building and snipe tanks or just into any terrain piece near a vehicle you want dead. The - to hit for a turn makes up for it if they get to shoot a 2nd time which they are more likely to do with a 36 range.

The grots ... i have no idea. I use incubi for this role because i dont take coven units outsode the odd haemonculi and even then its only for the crucible. But for the same function they will do their job well enough and s re tougher but you pay far more

Thanks for the replies guys.

BloodyOdd
- I haven't included a haemonculus as I don't own one, but it does sound tempting. I guess I really don't need the better invuln the archon has if I can give the grots + toughness.

helvexis
- My reavers are currently modeled with the cluster caltrops, but it  might be worth while to try and get them off and put the grav talons on.
- I've taken your advice and replaced the husk blades. That should save me some points in the long run
- I'm not sold on the haywire blasters either, but I don't have the parts to replace them on the scrouges so they might get replaced by a different unit down the road. They're simply a stop gap right now. I'm not really sure what I should replace them with though.


Thanks for the suggestions guys, much appreciated

If you aren't set on keeping scourges you could add a ravager for Anti tank. But honestly just custom make some guns for them. I like blasters, but I also don't give kabalites blasters

Hammy is an easy conversion and will fit fluff wise and tactically better

Grav talons are 5, and worth jt

Evening everyone,

Sorry it took so long for me to reply, I've been working overtime for the past couple weeks. Like a lot. Lots and lots of overtime.

I took some time and rewrote the list to include some modifications using some suggestions you guys gave me. I think this is the way to go once things come back in stock on gw's website.

I dropped the bat boys, 1 grot, and the other archon and replaced them with a Haemonculus and a ravager. I've also replaced the cluster caltrops on the reavers with grav-talons.

Take a look and let me know what you think.


Battalion Detachment

HQ
1. Archon                                                                      
73 points
          Agoniser, blaster, phantasm gl
2. Haemonculus
91 points
          VenomBlade, stinger pistol

Troops
1. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                    
50 points
       blaster
2. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
50 points
        blaster
3. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
50 points
       blaster
4. 5x Kabalite Warriors                                                      
50 points
       blaster

Elites
1. 3 x Grotesques
140 points
         2x liquefier gun

Fast Attack
1. 6x Reavers                                                                    
220 points
       2x blaster, 2x grav-talons

Heavy Support
1. Ravager
155 points
    3x dark lance


Dedicated Transports
1. Raider                                                                            
116 points
         Dark lance, shock prow
2. Venom                                                                              
95 points
         2x Splinter cannons
3. Venom                                                                              
95 points
         2x Splinter cannons
4. Venom                                                                              
95 points
         2x Splinter cannons
5. Venom                                                                              
95 points
           2x Splinter cannons
6. Venom                                                                              
95 points
          2x Splinter cannons

Air Wing Detachment
7. Razorwing Jetfighter                                                        
170 points
          2 dark lances, splinter cannon
8. Razorwing Jetfighter                                                        
170 points
          2 dark lances, splinter cannon
9. Voidraven Bomber                                                            
194 points
          2 void lances, voidraven missiles

Adds up to 2000 points on the nose.

Pretty much the only models I don't own for this list are the flyers and 2 of the venoms. So not crazy expensive to finish out.

I'm not sold on Splinter cannons being worth their price in my honest opinion. switching them all back to twin linked rifles would save you 105 points which you can spend elsewhere. I'm personally a big fan of disintegrator cannons since they can do both AT and AI decently well. upgrading all the lances to those would cost 80 points. Alternatively, you could use the 105 points get 3 more reavers with one having a blaster. Another good option, in my opinion, would be to opt for a five man squad of mandrakes which would cost 95 points and the left over 10 could be spent on an additional upgrade like giving the raider a dissie cannon.

I put you at 4 points over and the points values you have for your Archon and Haemonculus are wrong, they should be 76 and 88 respectively.

I'm not a fan of the load out on the Haemonculus, I don't think the venom blade or stinger pistol really do enough for their points cost. IMO the best weapon for the Haemonculus is the Electrocorrosive wip. Over all very powerful and worth picking up. It would also bring your list to exactly 2000 points if you took the Haemonculus with just this bit of kit, which is the easiest way to fix the points IMO.

Next up, I'm not a fan of the splinter cannons on our vehicles and don't believe they're worth the points. I'd drop these on all the Venoms and the Razorwings as well. They're just not worth it and as stated before, it will save you 105 points.

I don't like leaving our HQ in transports by themselves, as if the transport is destroyed with them inside, we roll dice for the number of models and remove models on 1s. I would suggest moving him to the grot Raider, but this has the same issue as before and you don't want to remove any of the models in that Raider. I'd suggest dropping the Archon Venom and one of the Kabalite Venoms and picking up a Raider. This helps to protect the Archon better and also helps to deal with your lack of dark lance fire.

I know you have around 10 or so, but this only does around 16 wounds against t7 3+ (which you will see a lot) and in the early stages of the game you can't rely on blasters to pick up slack here, so getting a few more here and there definitely helps. I also feel fairly comfortable removing AI in the form of Venoms because you have the Grotesques and Reavers.

As far as the Voidraven is concerned, I don't rate the missiles at 25 points a pop and I believe dark scythes are better than voidlances. The voidlances are marginally better against T8 and t9, but these are uncommon and anything below this the voidlances is essentially another dark lance. The dark lance is about 1.75x more damaging than a Blaster so having 2 dark lances will be the equivalent of 3.5 blasters. With the Scythes you will average 4 'Blaster' shots, so will work out statistically better than the void lances when shooting at the most common toughness values. It is also by far better for killing TEQ, MEQ and primaris, which are definitely going to be high on the Voidravens list of priorities considering the power of the void mine.

With the points saved I would then pick up a Ravager to help further your darklance count and add in some PGL for your warriors and a couple of agonisers. I can see this getting a bit hard to follow points wise, so I'm going to show you what the list would look like if you followed all my advice.

Battalion detachment
HQ
Archon
- Agoniser
- Phantasm grenade launcher
- Blaster

Total : 76
Haemonculus
- Crucible of malediction (no points cost so may as well take it)
- Electrocorrosive wip
Total: 84

Troops
X3 5 Kabalites
- Blaster
- Pgl
- Venom
Total : 399

5 Kabalites
- Blaster
- Pgl
- Agoniser
- Raider
- Dark lance
Total : 172
Elites
3 Grotesques
- X2 Liquifier
- Raider
- Dark lance
-Shock prow
Total : 256

Fast attack
6 Reavers
- X2 Grav talon
- X2 Blaster
-Agoniser
Total : 224

Heavy Support
X2 Ravager
- Triple dark lance
Total : 310

Flier wing
Voidraven Bomber
- Dark Scythes
Total : 169

X2 Razorwing Jetfighter
- Dark Lances
Total : 310

Grand total: 2000 points

Edit: Another simpler option to just up the lance count would be do drop the cannons, the missiles and the liquifiers from the grots. That would get you 156 points and you could bring another Ravager. I'd only recommend this if you expect to see hordes and feel the extra 20 splinter shots will make the difference however. IMO I can't see this being the case, but just food for thought.