Help for a fellow Archon

Greetings fellow archons.

I am a newly ascended archon, having only started recruiting for my kabal now.

Moving on from the role-play.

Hi, I'm new to Dark Eldar, having played Tyranids for a few years. I ask for some advice on what to collect and play.

I currently have plans for, of course, an archon and multiple squads of kabalites. In addition, I am wanting for a haemonculus, talos, grotesques, and a ravager.

Any advise on those choices, and what else I should get?

Cheers
~Archon of the Kabal of the Black Dawn

Unfortunately the answer to what you should pick up depends on how you want to play.

Based on what you've mentioned I can make these comments:

If you want to do agents of vect then you need to have a black heart obsession kabal, but this doesn't mean you have to have your main kabal battalion be black heart. The other obsessions are better for your main force of kabalites so I'd suggest taking a smaller detachment for the black heart. I take a spearhead with my 3 ravagers, transports, and mercenary choices as black heart leaving my battalion to be obsidian rose or poisoned tongue.

For mercenaries I like Scourge. I play a ranged focused army and Scourge gives me some versatility in special weapons choices. If I have tanks to deal with Haywires are great with mortal wounds on 4s and d3 mortal wounds on 6s. Aptly named Shredders shred infantry. I run 2 squads of 5 Scourges and adjust the special weapons as needed. I've had my eye on mandrakes too but I haven't had a chance to incorporate them yet. -1 to hit, 5+ invulnerable save, and mortal wounds on 6s.

The stand out coven to me is prophets of flesh. I don't play coven so this is just my impressions from battle reports I've seen and such. 4+ invulnerable save and the respawning wrack stratagem leaves the other covens in the dust. I don't know if Rakarth is a must or if a generic haemonculus is better. Vexator Mask looks really good to me and Rakarth can't take any more artifacts so you'd need another haemonculus to take that anyway. Talos and Groteques are very strong but the whispers say they will be hit with point cost increases in the chapter approved soon.

The flyers are good too. Also not in my army yet but I've seen the razor wings perform very well.


Happy hunting.

Starting from one Archon and, say, 4 units of 5 Kabalite Warriors I would buy :

- first off, another Archon so you could field a Battalion

- then a Raider and some Venoms to transport your units

- after that, Up to 3 Ravagers to strike from afar

- a couple of Razorwing Jetfighers

- one or two units of 5 Scrouges deepstriking haywire blasters or shredders

If you want to play Covens too, then:

- 2 Haemonculus (or one and Urien if you like the Prophets of Flesh)

- some Whraks

and the Grots/Taloi you are already planning to get

It sounds to me like you plan (intentionally or not) to run a Coven at an enemy whilst using Kabalites as fire support.

If your Grotesques and Talos are running headlong towards an opponent, Ravagers are a good clal to support them. Warriors also good, but you definitely want them either in Venoms or Raiders (with Splinter Racks). This gives them the mobility they need and extra firepower.

Start with 2 flayed skulls archons and 3+ kabalites in raider, a bunch of ravagers and razorwings in any combination, add either a prophet of flesh vangard or spearhead with an haemonculus or Urien himself for strength buff, 3 units of grotesque and/or 3 talos to have a stable presence on the table. Pepper with haywire scourges as needed.
A nice combination of fast firepower and resilient hard hitting close combat.

poison tongue works good for raider or venom gun boats either for the poison venom guns or the splinter racks.