My experience at NOVA

After Razorwing Flocks got nerfed I honestly hadn't given NOVA another thought until my friend reminded me he'd already put money down on a hotel room so I was basically obligated to go. Literally 1 week before the event took place I was starting to assemble a Death Masque box and put together a list as follows:

Aeldari™ Air Wing Detachment:

1x Razorwing Jetfighter, 2x Disintegrators
1x Razorwing Jetfighter, 2x Dark Lances
1x Hemlock Wraithfighter
1x Voidraven Bomber, 2x Dark Scythes

Harlequin Battalion Detachment:

2x Troupe Master, Fusion Pistol, Embrace
2x 5-man Troupe with 2x Fusion Pistol and 5x Embrace
1x 5-man Troupe with 3x Fusion Pistol and 5x Embrace

1x Solitaire

3x Starweaver

2x 2-man Skyweavers w/1 Zephyrglaive, Shuriken Cannons
1x 2-man Skyweavers w/2 Zephyrglaive, Shuriken Cannons

All in all it came out to 1999 points.

I playtested the list twice and it seemed workable but dangerous with so little on the ground. This went on to bite me as I went 1 and 6 before dropping. I had 6 fabulous, wonderful opponents with different and interesting army lists. No two of them were the same even if a few were the same faction. And I had 1 guy who was so obnoxious he ruined the entire event for me in the 3rd round but that's whatever.

The most common result from my games was that I was getting tabled but with max, or close to max points. Most of my Ls were in the 10-12 points range before I lost the last of my ground units. Part of this was terrible, awful luck with heavy weapons/Fusion pistols, but most of it was me not having more ground forces. The alternate version of this list that I was tossing around involved using 4 Troupes in Starweavers with only 3 flyers and 2 units of Skyweavers, ditching a gimp Skyweaver unit and the Dark Lance Razorwing. I decided against it since I liked flyers but in retrospect it would have won me at least 3 of my 6 Ls and possibly more than that. Almost every single loss, the total number of MODELS left on the table at the end of turn 5 you could count on one hand, including against Poxwalker hordes and Tyranid swarms. Also of note, I did not play these units as Ynnari as I originally intended. I played them as Harlequins because frankly, Rising Crescendo is way, way better for a melee-focused army in most circumstances than Soulburst. Without being able to advance and charge, I would have never been able to use my Solitaire effectively or get my Troupes where they needed to be half the time.

So yeah, figured I'd share this little tidbit and say that clowns supported by air, but NOT TOO MUCH AIR, is really effective. Their sheer damage output, their mobility, and the fact the ENTIRE deployed army is -1 to hit denies the turn 1 advantage the opponent gets so hard. For reference, I had a Solitaire almost solo a Knight Titan at one point. I know this is supposed to be about Dark Eldar, but those bombs the Voidraven dropped coupled with the ability to basically cover the entire board with anti-infantry and anti-armor fire with the Disintegrators, missiles, and Dark Scythes was instrumental in killing so many dug in units.

Good observations. Thanks to know.

Wow.. 4 fliers, thats hard to play in tournaments when almost 800pts can be ignored.

I thought 3 was to many sometimes XD

Well thanks for the added POV of fliers atm.