Coven curious

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to Dark Eldar, in fact I've never played an elf in 40k or fantasy, although I've collected many (far too many, I have a problem) armies. I've played against eldar/dark eldar many times in the past, and for the DE side have fought a lot of kabal style lists and have never really been interested in collecting them myself, just not my thing.

With the new book however I'm taking another look at the army and interested in building a coven list, frankly because I think the models are awesome, and that's how I start all my armies.

So I currently have zero items bought and am starting from absolute scratch.

So before I drop the cash, I'd like some suggestions on how to build a coven list with the new book that can be effective. I realize that there are some awesome units with the kabals and wyches and I'm limiting myself by taking a fully coven army.

any help for a complete newbie would be greatly appreciated

thank you!

Right now there are no go for units like shining spears or dark reapers, but if you want to just start painting buy haemonculus and proxy rest of the army to try them out.

I definetly think an all coven list is viable these days. Not the best option, but doable.

Core of your list is probably going to be a coven battalion, so you'll likely want to pick up 2 haemonculi and 15 wracks so you can at least run the minimum requirements for a battalion. Go for ossefactors on your wracks, the liquifier gun is mediocre.

As far as the rest of the list goes, you'll definetly want a lot of grots and taloi as those are the main damage dealers for your army. Talos have a nice plastic model, but grots have an expensive mono-pose so you'll probably want to look into some conversations.

As far as the rest of the list, you'll need some fire support. What form that takes kinda comes down to if you want to include a small allied kabal force or not. A couple warrior and ravager units would definetly be solid, but if you want to stay pure coven you could just take a whole bunch of scourge units. Another option is just take an airwing of 3 razorwings, or 2 razorwings and a voidraven.

thanks! oh man, grots have one mono-pose model eh? that's sub-par... let me guess they're good too right? sigh

are the fliers worth taking?

In my honest opinion, our Razorwings are one of the best models in the codex. I almost always take 2.

Voidraven is fun but not as good... and more expensive to boot.

Coven are great if your interested in conversions and painting. It is very rewarding creating your 1 of a kind conversions. The Talos kit is one of the best in 40k for its conversion bits. Using a single kit I literally made 2 Talos, a Chronos and 3 Grotesques (using a bunch of other bits/bodies).

From a tactics perspective not sure how amazing they are, simply because they have the fewest units of all 3 <factions>. Far from bad though, and I intend on running a Vanguard with 1 Haemi, 2 Grots, 2 Talos (and a Elite Merc to fill out the formation).

Thanks for all the help everyone... this is what I came up with... feel free to rip this totally apart!

Prophets of flesh battalion:

Urien - warlord (for the extra CP)
Homonculous - whip, stinger pistol, nightmare doll

10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle
10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle
10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle

6 Grotesques
6 Grotesques

Prophets of flesh Spearhead

Haemonculus - scissorhand, stinger pistol

Chronos - spirit probe
Talos - 2 scalpel, 2 heat lance
2 Talos - double scalpel, haywire blasters
2 talons - flail/scalpel, stinger pods

Air Wing Detachment - Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Razorwing jetfighter - 2 disintegrator cannons, twin splinter rifle
Razorwing jetfighter - 2 disintegrator cannons, twin splinter rifle
Voidraven - 2 void lances, voidraven missiles

2,000 points, 8+D3 command points

thoughts?

That actually doesn't look too bad to me. Slow for a dark eldar army, but army wide you're at least t4 +4 invul, strangely tough for an eldar army and you can probably cover most of the army with the haemonculi to get everything t5. Only thing I'd probably change is make the razorwings have dark lances, your army needs the anti tank so you're assault army can get to units in transports more easily.

Raider for grots would also be handy, but not sure where you'd find the pts.

only thing i can think of is remove the hex rifles, and give all taloi HWB.

Faitherun wrote:

In my honest opinion, our Razorwings are one of the best models in the codex. I almost always take 2.

Voidraven is fun but not as good... and more expensive to boot.

Is it really all that bad? Sure it’s 20 points more, but it has 2 extra wounds and the void lances are way better against heavy vehicles than dark lances due to that extra point of strength. Then it trades the anti infantry tricks of the razorwing for a pretty solid mortal wound generation mechanic. Shame it’s only once per battle because otherwise I’d call it OP.

I'm liking the grotesques. I took a squad of 10 plus Urien and put them in the webway. Turn one I used architects of pain, charged cultists, and did 28 wounds. They had delightful agonies so I only got 17 of them but morale took another 15. They then punched a predator to death. Took 3 wounds total.

WWP in grots seems risky, if the charge in and Urien doesn't make it in with them they may be carried out of range of his aura in their charge move depending on how far the target is.

withershadow wrote:

Faitherun wrote:

In my honest opinion, our Razorwings are one of the best models in the codex. I almost always take 2.

Voidraven is fun but not as good... and more expensive to boot.

Is it really all that bad? Sure it’s 20 points more, but it has 2 extra wounds and the void lances are way better against heavy vehicles than dark lances due to that extra point of strength. Then it trades the anti infantry tricks of the razorwing for a pretty solid mortal wound generation mechanic. Shame it’s only once per battle because otherwise I’d call it OP.

I agree, the voidraven isn't bad, it's just that the razorwing is more cost effective. Sure its bomb only works but it's solid when you get it to work right, and it does have pretty good heavy weapons.

Actually Urien didn't make it in. I had to daisy chain a bit but with 40mm bases that only left one out of combat. 9 grots is still pretty good.

Sent from Topic'it App

Thanks so much for all the help!

Here's the adjustments:

Prophets of flesh battalion:

Urien - warlord (for the extra CP)
Homonculous - whip, splinter pistol, nightmare doll

10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle
10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle
10 wracks, 2 ossefactor, champ has hexrifle

6 Grotesques
6 Grotesques

Prophets of flesh Spearhead

Haemonculus - whip, splinter pistol

Chronos - spirit probe
Talos - 2 scalpel, haywire blasters
2 Talos - double scalpel, haywire blasters
2 talons - flail/scalpel, stinger pods

Air Wing Detachment - Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Razorwing jetfighter - 2 dark lances, twin splinter rifle
Razorwing jetfighter - 2 dark lances, twin splinter rifle
Voidraven - 2 void lances, voidraven missiles

2,000 points, 8+D3 command points

hope this is getting closer to viable? basically traded out the heat lances for haywire on the one talos, and the two pistols on the characters and drop the scissorhands to whip - to upgrade to dark lances on the razorwings. wanted to keep some stinger pods in there for some chaff control, and don't actually trust 6 shots at BS 4+ to do a whole heck of a lot of anti-tank work anyways

So does the chronos have a place in the list? He seems like a fairly easy thing to take out if someone is actually worried about the +1 to wound buff, and I can't see how often that healing affect would work. I mean cool model though, and other than some upgrades I can't really see what else I could get to make a difference at that cheap point level.

If they focus on the cronos, they are wasting shots on a relatively cheap model.

Since you're going Prophets of Flesh, I recommend making at least one Wrack unit the full 20 strong. You can drop them out of the webway turn 1 to start immediately engaging and tying down the enemy, and if they don't all die you can refresh them with the Prophet's stratagem and do it all over again. And if the enemy does pour everything into killing them you just shrug, save the CP for something else, and be happy that firepower wasn't going into your Grotesques/Talos.

Wracks got a unit maximum of ten sadly.

I'd personally drop the hexrifles and spend the point elsewhere, they're heavy weapons and your wracks want to move around.

Voidhawk wrote:

Since you're going Prophets of Flesh, I recommend making at least one Wrack unit the full 20 strong. You can drop them out of the webway turn 1 to start immediately engaging and tying down the enemy, and if they don't all die you can refresh them with the Prophet's stratagem and do it all over again. And if the enemy does pour everything into killing them you just shrug, save the CP for something else, and be happy that firepower wasn't going into your Grotesques/Talos.

I thought wracks can only be 10 max? did I get that wrong?

I think one of the interesting details is that the Acothyst can now carry 2 special weapons: A Tool of Torment and a Weapon of Torture.

The Hexrifle is a bad choice all around, but I think the Ossefactor is a very reasonable weapon. Funnily enough, the Ossefactor also has a higher chance of dealing a mortal Wound than a Hexrifle and is Assault.

But personally, the build I am interested in is multiple 5 man units with 2 Liquifier Guns and potentially, an Electrocorrosive Whip. Not sure whether it's worth the points investment, but I'd prefer my Wracks doing damage when they arrive.

Ossefactor is not an option unfortunately. Liquifiers also seem really bad. S3 random AP, 11 points.