Infantry-Heavy Dark Eldar?

Is anyone using infantry-heavy Dark Eldar armies at the moment?

If so, care to share your lists?

Isn't this technically every Grotesque list?

TeenageAngst wrote:

Isn't this technically every Grotesque list?

I was thinking more of the smaller infantry (Kabalites, Mandrakes etc.), but I suppose that's a fair point.

Kabals? Why would you? Kabals are 33% more costly and 1/2 the damage as guardsman.

amishprn86 wrote:

Kabals? Why would you? Kabals are 33% more costly and 1/2 the damage as guardsman.

Because I like using lots of infantry.

But you're right. Kabalites just don't do much, even as 6pt models.

I think Kabalites are much better than the apparent consensus on here, but even then an infantry heavy list runs into two chief problems; a relative lack of ways to ignore leadership, and a lack of detachment slots.

We've got a couple of ways around the leadership issue. We could go MSU, but that then exacerbates the detachment slot issues. At turn 4 we become immune to morale, which is good, but also very late in the game. Black Heart lets you bump that up to turn 3, and tricky usage of the Animus Vitae relic and Architects of Pain stratagem can push that even earlier - but this is still unreliable and leaves the first turns very risky. The Obsidian Rose's Failure Is Not An Option is also pretty unreliable. Wych Cults have an obvious solution, however, with Cult of the Cursed Blade allowing only a single unit to flee.

Detachment slots are a more serious issue, in my mind. Let's say you take a Kabal Battalion with two Archons and 120 Kabalites. Great! You've now only used up 864 points of your list and because of the rule of three you can't take another Kabal Battalion. Well, unless you really want to use Drazhar. Things get a bit spicier if you also take a Wych Cult Battalion - 2 Succubi and 120 Wyches will bump the list up to 1924, although you're probably going to want to give them some upgrades, and I'm not sure either Succubi or Wyches are good enough to justify taking that many.

I've batted this idea around in my head a lot during 8th edition, and on paper I don't think it's awful. The fundamental issue is that if I wanted to play a list like this I'd have picked up Orks or Nids, not Dark Eldar.

Burnage wrote:

I think Kabalites are much better than the apparent consensus on here, but even then an infantry heavy list runs into two chief problems; a relative lack of ways to ignore leadership, and a lack of detachment slots.

We've got a couple of ways around the leadership issue. We could go MSU, but that then exacerbates the detachment slot issues. At turn 4 we become immune to morale, which is good, but also very late in the game. Black Heart lets you bump that up to turn 3, and tricky usage of the Animus Vitae relic and Architects of Pain stratagem can push that even earlier - but this is still unreliable and leaves the first turns very risky. The Obsidian Rose's Failure Is Not An Option is also pretty unreliable. Wych Cults have an obvious solution, however, with Cult of the Cursed Blade allowing only a single unit to flee.

Detachment slots are a more serious issue, in my mind. Let's say you take a Kabal Battalion with two Archons and 120 Kabalites. Great! You've now only used up 864 points of your list and because of the rule of three you can't take another Kabal Battalion. Well, unless you really want to use Drazhar. Things get a bit spicier if you also take a Wych Cult Battalion - 2 Succubi and 120 Wyches will bump the list up to 1924, although you're probably going to want to give them some upgrades, and I'm not sure either Succubi or Wyches are good enough to justify taking that many.

I've batted this idea around in my head a lot during 8th edition, and on paper I don't think it's awful. The fundamental issue is that if I wanted to play a list like this I'd have picked up Orks or Nids, not Dark Eldar.

I think you're right, sadly.

The issue for me is that I just don't enjoy lists that are basically nothing but vehicles (which seems to be how Kabal is designed to work now). I just don't find them fun. But, at the same time, I don't want to cripple my Dark Eldar lists when my only crime is wanting to actually use our infantry.

I don't know, maybe I should just stick to my Imperial Guard lists.

Kabalites are superior to Guardsmen: Guardsmen stand around their single gun, immobile (more or less), and shooting a mediocre gun 12" while Kabalites have their single gun that whisks them around the board enabling them to shoot because it is open topped and that gun will soak up a ton of damage as well as having some minimal charge potential that the Guardians just don't have.
10 man Kab with a Splinter Cannon and a Blaster inside a Raider with a Disintegrator for ~170 points will do far more for me than TWO units of Guardians - 10 man each with a Bright Lance weapon platform (hell, pick your weapon of choice) for ~210 points.

But I get the OP topic of infantry, implying dudes on the ground. Which I think would be missing a significant motivating factor and true asset of playing DE. Dudes on the ground? I'd play a different faction first.

nerdelemental wrote:

Kabalites are superior to Guardsmen: Guardsmen stand around their single gun, immobile (more or less), and shooting a mediocre gun 12" while Kabalites have their single gun that whisks them around the board enabling them to shoot because it is open topped and that gun will soak up a ton of damage as well as having some minimal charge potential that the Guardians just don't have.

Er... Guardsmen are by no means obliged to stand around a single gun.

For example, my Tallarn Guardsmen just have a Plasmagun (no Heavy Weapons) and they can move 6+d6" and still fire all their weapons without penalty.

nerdelemental wrote:

But I get the OP topic of infantry, implying dudes on the ground. Which I think would be missing a significant motivating factor and true asset of playing DE. Dudes on the ground? I'd play a different faction first.

The dudes don't have to be on foot - Kabalites in transports are fine. What I'm looking for is a list that uses a lot of Kabalites (or other infantry), as opposed to using virtually nothing but vehicles.

lol.
*Guardsmen*
Right. The original Guardsmen. Real Guardsmen.
I play all Eldar. My brain went "Guardian Defenders" in all my examples above.
OMG. I'm so dumb. Just...you know...ignore everything I've said here.
>slinks away<

I guess if you made use of the webway portal strategem that would help some of your mobility issues with running an infantry heavy list. 2 squads of 20 kabalite warriors deepstrike in will make a mess of alot of things. Couple this with red grief wyches so you can advance and charge (helping you with mobility) or cursed blade wyches (only lose 1 model to failed morale tests) for some combat potential and your not looking too bad.
Plus there's an almost obligatory big block of 10 Grotesques that I think would really help you keep the other elements of your list alive. Mandrakes using their inherent deep strike deployment adds another layer of mobility and scourge squads for some much needed anti tank (haywire blasters).
Finally a beastmaster with 12 razorwing flocks to screen and tie up tanks and other units will also help.

As the others say it's not the most competitive list by any stretch but might be good fun to learn to master, with all the different elements playing off each other!

Wracks from PoF are good infantry for footslogging

Mandrakes are great, take lots

WW a group of 20 warriors into the center - use hunt from the shadows and cover

Big blob of cursed blade wyches

I think it’s totally viable if your build around it

Mandrakes are good, with Doom they're Nuts.

I like 20 blob Wyches from CursedBlade. I tried both 40 and 60, even against competitive lists. They're fun, and surprising. But they're hard to manage.

For Kabals, they are extremely good! But not in blobs sadly. In 5x both in Venom or Raiders (2 of them in this case) are amazing.

Wracks are pretty good. I'm fitting 10 of them from Prophets just for the stratagem and I must say that they works pretty well.



A fully infantry list is not good in my opinion. But mixing the choices up there with some veichles (Razorwing, Ravagers etc) works well.