Dark Eldar 1k lists for discussion

Right now I have a 500 pts DE force which I will be expanding soonish to 1k points. As I want to make the expansion relatively cheap (in GW terms that is) here are my thoughts:

I own 2 Raiders, 1 Ravager, 12 Kabalite Warriors, 13 Wyches and 1 Haemonculus.

I plan to add a Battleforce and another Ravager for the cheapest possible expansion to 1k.

Here is the army list I plan to run with these miniatures given:

HQ:

1 Haemonculus - Liquifier Gun, Shattershard @ 75 pts.

Troops:

2x 8 Wyches - Haywire Grenades, Shardnet & Impaler / Razorflails (can't decide really, suggestions?), Hekatrix with Agoniser
in 2x Raider - Grisly Trophies, Enhanced Aethersails @ 206 pts / squad

1x 10 Kabalite Warriors - Splinter Cannon, Blaster
in 1x Raider - Flicker Field @185 pts

Fast Attack:

1x 3 Reaver Jetbike - Heat Lance @ 78 pts

Heavy Support:

2x Ravager - Flicker Field, Night Shield @ 125 pts / model

Army Total:

1000pts

Thoughts on the List:

The Haemonculus travels with one of the Wych squads giving them their pain token and then stays in the transport for some flamer goodness. I really like the shattershard as it has the potential to rip through a lot of things. Once it is used up he can take the Liquifier Gun.
Wyches generally are very tough and pack some nice CC punch. With Haywire Grenades they're also extremely versatile. On a sidenote though the grenades were added later on as I had points spare.
The Kabalite squad is a bit of a jack of all trades. I tried to build them versatile because I only have 1 Squad of them
Reavers are a suicide tankhunting squad mainly because I think 3 reavers would not be very effective at anything else.
Heavy Support is selfexplanatory.

List 2:

HQ:
Haemonculus with Liquifier Gun @ 60pts

Troops:
5 Kabalite Warriors with Blaster in Venom with 2SC @125pts
5 Kabalite Warriors with Blaster in Venom with 2SC @125pts
8 Wyches with Shardnet & Impaler, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix Upgrade, Agoniser in Raider with Grisly Trophies & Enhanced Aethersails @206pts
8 Wyches with Shardnet & Impaler, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix Upgrade, Agoniser in Raider with Grisly Trophies & Enhanced Aethersails @206pts

HS:
Ravager with 3DL, Flicker Field, Night Shields @125pts
Ravager with 3DL, Flicker Field, Night Shields @125pts

Total: 972pts

This leaves me with 28 points to play around with. I need input on what to add. Currently I'm leaning towards some vehicle upgrades, but I'm not sure which ones.
In general I like this list better because of target saturation and redundancy. Also I did find out that getting warriors in rapid fire range is just as hard as it is to keep them stationary which makes them very vulnerable. Thus relying on Venoms for AI might be a good idea.
The big downside is that this list would cost me helluvalot more money, since I only own the aforementioned models yet.

Tell me what you think.

Cheers,

Dogmar

The second list looks really good to me, and quite fun to play i imagine.

The only thing i would change is swap out the S&I for Hydra Gauntlets on the Wyches for the extra attacks and put flickerfields on the Raiders using those extra points.

The second list is more "streamline"...

But you'd have to buy Venoms, do you have any?

I usually run my wytches with Net and Gauntlet... but I'm thinking of dropping the gauntlets and buy my haems liquis.

FF are usually a good option for most vehicles

There is a list of what I own at the moment at the top of my post.

No, I'd have to buy the Venoms separately along with a ravager and more wyches / warriors. That makes the second list cooler, but also a lot more expensive than the other option which would just be a battleforce and a ravager.

second list is better overall, but I would invest in FF instead of NS, as your long range doesnt outrange theirs, even with the extra NS inches.

The 2nd list is pretty solid, I'd go for that.
As said the N/s, I'd drop to get 20 points. I'd look at changing one of your 5 man warrior squads into a blasterborn unit with those and your leftover points.

the only extras you have to buy over the 1st list are the 2 venoms, but this means that you will still have the reavers, raider and warriors from the battleforce box to expand up to 1500 points if you want to (and you will).

Thanks for the advice so far, I'll definitely look into changing one of the kabalite units into blasterborn (i.e. opening the spreadsheet in a minute).

However I feel a bit uncomfortable leaving the Night Shields at home. They've not done a lot to me in my first few games but I think that's more due to me being not familiar enough with the game system rather than the equipment being useless. Tbh I think reducing an enemies range by 6" can add a lot of tactical flexibility, because with good positioning you could manage to not get shot back at all. Especially meltas and rapid fire weapons come to mind here.

On the topic of wych weapons: why exactly would you recommend Gauntlets or Flails or basically any weapon? I thought Shardnet was fine as it helps them survive vs. dedicated assault units. Let's face it, they'll eat dedicated ranged squads for breakfast either way. And even if I wanted to add offensive power, why gauntlets over flails? gauntlet averages one additionaly wych on the charge, but aren't rerolls more reliable? Don't have the math-hammer at hand, but iirc they favored flails agains MEQ.

Cheers

lol I actually jsut did the math over on my thread take a look for yourself Here and decide

Heres the thing with N/s on ravagers.

Your lances have a range of 36" so you don't need to be any closer than that.
Meltas, assault cannons etc have a range of 24" so reducing their range by 6" is not an issue, they can't reach you anyway.
Auto-cannons, missile launchers have a range of 48" so reducing it by 6" makes no difference, you are still in range if you are targeting them anyway.
That really leaves 36" weapons as the only range that you can have an effective influence on.
As you say careful positioning reduces the enemies ability to return effective fire at you. This and a FF really should be all you need on a ravager. Ofcourse on the table it's not always easy to achieve this, but thats what makes the game interesting, theory sometimes goes out the window.

Thanks for the input kenny. I've not been into 40k for long enough to be able to judge what armies do have weapons where the 6" make a difference. Your comment was very helpful as most of my opponents in the LGS are marine armies which rely on the same weaponry basically. Outranging Tau is impossible anyway and as I own a copy of the new necron dex I know that there are few things that are really dangerous to a ravager sitting 36" away.

With removing the night shields I can definitely afford to switch one of the 5 strong kabalite squads for a blasterborn squad in venom. 3 troops in 1k should be enough, shouldn't it?

I will repeat what others have said and say that the second list is more solid, yes. That said, the first list can work as well. So far, the weak point I see there is the small squad of Reavers. That's basically a free kill point for the enemy and rarely will give even a single penetrating hit. I'd suggest not using Reavers until you get three more, because while the models are amazing, I've found it out the hard way that three Reavers have barely any survivability. Six are much more reliable, more resilient and are a bigger threat.

Also, you need to decide whether you're making the Wyches more a tarpit or offensive unit. If tarpit, go for Shardnet/Impaler without even looking back. I haven't used them offensively that much, but Razorflails seem like a very good, safe option, while Hydra Gauntlets are more risky. From my experience, the Hekatrix almost always fails doing anything with that expensive Agonizer, so I've started to just not bother with it at all, going all tarpit with my Wyches.

Dogmar wrote:

3 troops in 1k should be enough, shouldn't it?

Thumb rule... 1 troop per 500 points.

That's thinking of non aggressive troops, that the rest of the list will take the grunt of killing and hence be exposed.

I'd say 3, with at least 1 being "backfield player" is probably enough

Interesting take on troops per points Tanhausen. Imo this might be true für marines in 3+ armor, but as DE I somehow feel that I need at least one more than average as everything is so fragile.

On the topic of wyches again: The benefit you get from the offensive weapons is roughly another wyche... which you could just buy if there is still room in the raider. If you want a super-killy unit though it might be a good idea.
I think my personal favorite is the shardnet. Doesn't give you too much against the normal marine, but if you're taking on something like assault marines or howling banshees taking away attacks is a huge benefit.
The agoniser though is mandatory in my squads as the hekatrix statistically kills a marine per CC phase with it, which is just awesome compared to the stats of a normal wych and to be honest she has yet to disappoint me so far.

I think I'll have to go for the venom list then... sooo much money

Dogmar wrote:

Interesting take on troops per points Tanhausen. Imo this might be true für marines in 3+ armor, but as DE I somehow feel that I need at least one more than average as everything is so fragile.

I concur with this.
Also, unlike Marines, our troops are actually good.

Please explain why, Thor. As I am very new to 40k in general I'll happily discuss about everyones opinion.

I was just musing about what might be true as you really can't deny that we are VERY fragile, thus making up for it by having more numbers seemed like a good idea.

@Dogmar - I was agreeing with you.

what thor means is most base marine troops are their for these reasons

BB- tact gets free ML/MM, and their razorback
BA- no one takes tact. 5 man assault gets a free razorback and double melta
SW- actually the better of all the SM squads. Grey Hunters are just awesome (and I dont even play marines ) plus their razorback (although you might want to take a rhino to get their pure awesomeness into combat)
GKs- PW toting marines... oh and their razorback
BT- preferred enemy marines
DA- they have tact squads??? I thought every single one of their marines was in terminator armor

So as you see... most marines take their troop choices because A: the rules makes them, and B: They get a razorback out of it. Ours on the other hand (baring warriors ofc) can actually handle themselves in combat, and do a decent job of it.

Thanks for summing up, Shadows Revenge.

And Thor: sorry, I misread your comment. I didn't think of concur as a word of agreement because there is a similar German word meaning basically the opposite - silly me

Thor665 wrote:

Dogmar wrote:

Interesting take on troops per points Tanhausen. Imo this might be true für marines in 3+ armor, but as DE I somehow feel that I need at least one more than average as everything is so fragile.

I concur with this.
Also, unlike Marines, our troops are actually good.

@both

Yes, I agree that our troops are not a resilient as SM (duh! ), that's why my "formula" was (points/500)+1

However, the theory remains sound.

If ALL of your army puts pressure in your opponent and your troops live "safely"... you can go tighter on that aspect.

For me... given the costs, I try to max out the troops ALWAYS. I mean, seriously.... for 150 points having 3 x 5 warriors than can camp miserably...

Ok, sorry for reviving the thread, but it has been suggested in my local store that I should take a razorwing over the second ravager, what do you think about this? I'm afraid I could run short on AT in that case, but as a valid argument the razorwing can reliably kill one squad you really really want dead with an alpha strike.

please discuss with the above list in mind, as I know the decision depends a lot on what else is in the list

Razorwings are an interesting choice. The problem with them like you said is they take a spot of a ravager, which is the basis of our AT. Its job as you said is to be AI and whipe out a squad T1, the problem being is guess what... we have a ton of venoms that can do the same thing. They cover an area that is already covered. IMHO I dont like them. Thats not to say they are bad. They do their job very well, but I just cant stand the loss of a ravager. If I were to run one, I have to fill AT elsewhere (like upping some venoms to raiders and whatnot) and keep the dark lances so after it drops its payload, it can try to get some side armor shots.

In your particular list I dont feel its needed. You have plenty of AI fire, and your AT will suffer greatly without that 2nd Ravager. The Razorwing has alot of fans just because of how "cool" it looks, and many people who dont play dark eldar dont understand why we dont use them.