1750 Dark (Lance) Eldar Kabal

Hello, I am new here to The Dark City, but wanted to seek the aid of more experienced Dark Eldar players in crafting my army list. If you have any thoughts and/or suggestions at all please let me know.


++ Battalion Detachment ++

Detachment Type: Kabal of the Obsidian Rose

+ HQ +

2 x Archon: Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Splinter pistol, Venom Blade

+ Troops +

6 x 10 Kabalite Warriors: Kabalite warrior with Heavy Weapon: Dark Lance, Sybarite: Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Splinter Rifle


++ Spearhead Detachment ++

Detachment Type: Kabal of the Black Heart

+ HQ +

Archon: Blast Pistol, Labyrinthine Cunning, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Venom Blade, Warlord, Writ of the Living Muse

+ Troops +

Kabalite Warriors x 10: Kabalite warrior with Heavy Weapon: Dark Lance, Sybarite: Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Splinter Rifle

+ Elites +

Sslyth

+ Heavy Support +

3 x Ravager: Dark Lance x 3, Phantasm Grenade Launcher

+ Dedicated Transport +

6 x Raider: Disintegrator cannon, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Splinter Racks



This is my first time to the rodeo with Dark Eldar, but I really like the design of Dark Lances and wanted to make a list which emphasized them and my general playstyle of "gunline". While I know Disintegrator Cannons are mathematically better than Dark Lances against most enemies I still wanted to make a list that utilized Dark Lances while having a splash of Disintegrator Cannons on the Raiders to maybe be a slight bit more competitive.

I tried to form the gunline in a way that would have anti-infantry and anti-vehicles so it could hurt stuff like Iron Hands which I hear are meta while also not being absolutely slaughtered by mass infantry like Imperial Guard. Pretty certain my list would fall to tattered pieces if forced into melee combat, but with the mobility of the Dark Eldar and the long range afforded to by most the weapons (+6 inches thanks to Kabal of the Obsidian Rose) my hope is to just not be in melee combat. Normally the gunlines I have played with other factions are fairly static, but with Dark Eldar I feel I could have a mobile firing base.

This list has 9 CP to utilize, but I am not certain what would be the best investments of those CP. If you know which stratagems to utilize I am all ears!

Thank you in advance, and it is nice to meet you.

I may not be a seasoned player, but I do have a few thoughts about your list:

1) While I realise that you are taking the Lances mainly because you like the sculpt, they are inferior to blaster when given to infantry. Combined with the movement of the Raiders and Venoms, a blaster's range is nothing to scoff at. It also has the advantage of not being a heavy weapon, meaning you don't suffer a penalty for moving and can even shoot it after advancing.

2)The Ravagers are probably the most sensible platform when it comes to using DLs. However, als you said yourself, against most enemies, the dissies are the better option. However, 3 DL Ravagers can cause some serious damage.

3) Even if you insisted on giving the Kabalites DLs, maybe don't give them to all your squads. Maybe reduce a few of them to half their current size, give them a blaster, take out the PGL (at least out of the squads with lances) and if you have points to spare, give the DL squads blasters as well. Thus, your squads pack more of a punch at medium range, your heavy weapons are not the only thing your squads rely on and you have another incentive to get a bit closer, allowing your splinter weapons to do some work as well. Never underestimate splinter weapons. Volume of fire is your friend.

When it comes to Stratagems, your Black Heart Archon allows you to use Vect in dire situations (btw: as long as your Archon is standing amidst Ravagers, the Sslyth is most likely never going to see any use), which is powerful, albeit expensive.
Additionally, "Lightning-fast reactions" and "Fire and Fade" are generally very useful, especially when it comes to increasing the survivability of your Ravagers.
"Failure is not an option" seems rather worthless to me, situational at best.
With the high number of PGLs in your list, "Torment Grenade" might be a nice way for your Archons to cause some cheap mortal wounds here and there, if the situation is right and you have some CP to spare.

I hope this helped at least a bit. Welcome to the Dark City. It might not be as lively as it used to be, but there's still a bit of life left in here.

I see where you are going with this, and if I have any advice it would be this:
Base your list on the playstyle of the tournament/game you will be attending.
In other words, if this is an ITC event, using the ITC ruleset, Your idea here would work, but you are investing too many points in the same units over and again.
So lets look at it this way...
ITC has multiple objectives, and many of the games it would not be amiss to sit on an objective without moving. HERE is where your 10 man in a raider with a dark lance is applicable.
I would keep it to 2-3 units like this at most. For 155 points (15 more than a triple dark lance ravager) you get a PERFECT objective holding unit. The raider is parked, not moving on an objective. It has 2 dark lances that can fire wherever they want, and 9 splinter rifle warriors inside.
It is perfect to hold objectives because even if they destroy the raider, the OBSEC troops just drop on the objective. and you can have 3 of these units for 465 points. Well worth the investment.

The other objectives will be far away, so venoms with warriors/blasters are much better for this type of objective grabber. 112 points gets you this, and i would take 4-6 of these.
so 6 venoms with blasters and 3 raiders with dark lances is 1137 points. This would be two battalions minus the HQ choices.
I see you picked Obsidian rose, and I understand that the raiders with Dark Lances may be good for this, but the venoms NEED Flayed skull.
Never take venoms without flayed skull. there. i said it. "But what about vect?"
Flayed Skull
"But what about..."
FLAYED SKULL.

As for the ravagers, I really dont take them that much anymore. I found that incubi with drazahar nearby can pretty much wipe anything off the board, especially if you spend 1 cp for exploding sixes to hit.
Hope that helps, and remember- arcons suck. take the least amount you can. Drazahar is amazing, and that stupid cat lady is good for some psychic defense/offense.

All good advise here.

My $0.02 would be to drop most of those phantasm grenade launchers, and maybe invest in a few 5 man squads of kabalites instead of 10 man. This would allow you to split up your forces to better control objectives and screen your army (but you would need to drop the Lances, and would not have enough points for two squads with a blaster in each).

I see that you are really against the Dissies, so you do you. Please do some practice rolling before you actually place them on the table though. Dont expect too much from 9 lances, murphys law will be that 5 hit, 2 wound, then bounce off an invulnerable save. 27 shots are significantly more consistent.

Going full Raider is an interesting design, one that I think will work. Please let us know how the 0 Venom list works!

I like that your Spearhead is Black Heart, which will allow you to Vect when necessary.

People are loving Drazahar these days, but I have yet to play with him. Do with that what you will

Rip after a few days of no response I thought there wasn't going to be one so I stopped checking. My bad, but thanks to those who have commented. Local wargaming is completely shut down due to Corona-chan so gotta wait for Nurgle's newest specimen to pass before I can actually test anything.

fisheyes wrote:

All good advise here.

My $0.02 would be to drop most of those phantasm grenade launchers, and maybe invest in a few 5 man squads of kabalites instead of 10 man. This would allow you to split up your forces to better control objectives and screen your army (but you would need to drop the Lances, and would not have enough points for two squads with a blaster in each).

I see that you are really against the Dissies, so you do you. Please do some practice rolling before you actually place them on the table though. Dont expect too much from 9 lances, murphys law will be that 5 hit, 2 wound, then bounce off an invulnerable save. 27 shots are significantly more consistent.

Going full Raider is an interesting design, one that I think will work. Please let us know how the 0 Venom list works!

I like that your Spearhead is Black Heart, which will allow you to Vect when necessary.

People are loving Drazahar these days, but I have yet to play with him.  Do with that what you will

I don't particularly like Venoms so hopefully a list without them will work out. As for the Incubi/Drazhar I want to test out how a pure gunline goes before I start sacrificing parts of it to more specialized tasks: not a bad idea to do so, just want to see where it lands me in the meantime.

If only I could playtest it right now.

Welcome aboard!

Thunderscourge wrote:

This is my first time to the rodeo with Dark Eldar, but I really like the design of Dark Lances and wanted to make a list which emphasized them and my general playstyle of "gunline".

An interesting idea.

I would caution that while our faction is many things, a gunline it is not. We just don't have access to the force multipliers needed (think Chapter Master rerolls, Psychic Powers, markerlights and other such buffs) to pull that off.

As far as Dark Lances go, people on these forums often lament putting Dark Lances on infantry as they're Heavy weapons - insisting that you should take Blasters instead. However, these options aren't mutually exclusive; you can always just take both weapons in a unit together if you're 10-strong, and getting -1 to hit when moving is not the end of the world. In my view, if you want to take 10 Kabalites with a Dark Lance you may as well also take 2 Blasters to give the unit as much punch as possible. The range discrepancy is mitigated since you're going Obsidian Rose.

If possible, I'd try to pair this lot with a coven detachment for your Raiders to give them more damage or durability. Artists of the Flesh (-1 to all incoming Damage) makes your Raiders substantially tougher to kill, while Dark Technomancers (+1 to wound and +1 Damage) transforms their Disintegrators into very credible threat. It also makes their Grenade Launchers somewhat dangerous in their own right.

To unlock these detachments, I'd bring a Spearhead of Talos or Cronos. Dark Technomancer Cronos are a bargain at 70pts and punch way above their weight, while Artists of the Flesh Talos are the toughest unit available in the entire codex, and are amongst our hardest hitting in melee.

I know that you've said your plan to just not "be" in melee, but that means you surrender board control to the opponent every game, which means you probably just lose regardless of if you can kill more than you lose. Plus, some armies are so insanely fast that you will never be able to escape from them anyway. You have to include something in your list that can push to take objectives, to take enemies off of objectives, or to counter attack enemies. Talos fill all these roles.

Thunderscourge wrote:

This list has 9 CP to utilize, but I am not certain what would be the best investments of those CP. If you know which stratagems to utilize I am all ears!

Torment Grenade offers some on-demand mortal wound potential, which is in very short supply in our Codex. If you choose to go Coven, Torturer's Craft on 2 or 3 Talos can be amazing on their Macro Scalpels.

The Obsidian Rose-specific strat can be really nice if you lose 3 or more models from the unit of Kabalites. You basically pay 1cp to shoot your special weapons for free, and if you kill anything, no models flee. Just be mindful that if nothing dies you lose all models that elected to shoot, so consider pointing at least one of the special weapons at something that will definitely die. Some lists even bring blobs of 20 Kabalites on foot with 4 Blasters and 2 Dark Lances that deep strike in to delete something important and can then take advantage of this strat to double-tap with the Darklight weapons if they aren't killed to an elf or wrapped in melee.