Dark Eldar - Battlefleet Gothic

Anyone play Dark Eldar or another race? I just want to gloat over the rules and how much better they are than our imperial enemies…



Moved to proper section - Baron T

I dont find our rules to be any better than our craft world cousins and they die pretty easily to WB spam. Coupled with that fact that we only have "2" models makes it hard to really get into a DE fleet.

I've converted up a fleet and played it once and got smacked by SM. BFG while my fav GW is in no way balanced between the factions.

Crons are uber

Xenos suck

its either play IN, CSM, or SM if you want to win.

Probably the best thing going for us is the 2+ save versus everything except WB, even then you get to shift to the right. Hitting stuff is pretty easy for our weapon batteries which is really nice. I find it really easy to get the alpha strike and stay on enemies tail the entire game. Everyone else's ships are slow and chunky…

Never fought necrons in space.

Any one have any pics of what DE space craft look like?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat490022a&rootCatGameStyle=

I'm a BFG nut. I recently finished a converted Dark Eldar fleet from Reaver jetbikes and Hellion skyboards. I have pictures on my blog listed below. I will probably be doing a Dark Eldar battle report on my blog soon. If you are interested, go here:

afterimagedan.blogspot.com (I can't make it a link because I just joined the forum)

I would actually disagree with Baron. I think the factions are relatively balanced. I would even go so far as to say that Necrons aren't nearly as imbalanced as most say. Either way, I recommend that BFG:R rules instead of the original. Also, I love the BFG:R Dark Eldar rules. More ships, more options.

I have never played BFG but it looks quite interesting, however that lack of ships over the size of cruiser is distressing to me. I find it very hard to believe that a race as advanced as the Dark Eldar cant come up with anything bigger than a cruiser?

personally I dont find it discouraging at all. Considering DE are raiders by heart, they try to keep their fleets small, yet bristling with guns. Crusiers fit the bill well, they can have the punch of other capital ships, yet are small and manuveurable. Think of them as modern pirates. Pirates rarely ever had a ship bigger than a clipper, as they were fast yet able to carry alot of weight. Its not like Blackbeard sailed around in a Galleon or anything, their mass would make them too slow to out run people. Same thing with DE having Capital ships. It just wouldnt happen

I agree with you on that point, however you would like to think that, just as the pirates and corsairs of old did, they used the ships they captured. I think the DE should be able to use some of their captured enemies ships against them. Fluff being fluff however prevents that, which I do understand. It would be nice to turn the tables against the IN by using a Grand Cruiser against their own fleet!

I dont think DE would use other races ships, if you think about the scorn that they look on lesser races languages with i couldnt imagine it happening. They might use a defiled eldar ship with the souls of the infinity circuit twisted and tortured by haemonculi and they might even use he ruins of a VERY small craftworld, bear in mind this would only be a small part of one a fraction of the size of the origional ship with the remains of the infinity circuit like before, tortured and defiled. They would probably then stick more guns to it than an ork space hulk (think thats its name) an use it as a weapons platform as not to risk the ship in boarding and ramming.

I think they would, as some sort of deliciously evil trap for the cattle to come to the rescue of a stricken ship, just to be ambushed by more Dark Eldar. I think they fully would take an Eldar ship and refit it. They might potenitally be able to refit it to there own purposes within Commorragh. The Ork's have Kroozer's, not sure what their biggest ships are, but who knows with Orks.

orks biggest ship is a Rokk, which is just what it sounds like (a space hulk that they retro-fit for battle)

The problem with DE controlling a craftworld though would be the psychic link. Even if you argue that DE still retain their innate psychic abilities without any degradement to them, An Eldar ship is alive in its own right, and would fight against the false link to a Dark Eldar. Im sure they could come up with a way to keep it running, but it would fight them all the way to and from. It just wouldnt make that good of a battleship.

Maybe some sort of xenos virus/pychic attack on the infinity circuit to bring it under their command. Im pretty sure in Space Marine the game the Rokk was fairly small as it crashed into the Hab blocks while Titus is talking to Inquisitor Drogan. I will replay the level to find out!

Also after the ship had been so badly damaged by the dark eldar attack on it, you have got to wonder how much of the origional influence over the ship by the infinity circuit would remain. Making the ship much easier to control.

I am a long time BFG player, and I have to say, I disagree with just about everything you have to say Baron Tordeck! (Respectfully, though)

The "two models", are no less than the Imperial or Choas Fleet has. The DE Cruiser model, can be made using the extra bits pack to build 3 or 4 different types of cruiser. This is no different than Imperial or Chaos, that has one Cruiser hull, that you just add different weapon bits to build the different Cruisers. And, unlike the other fleets, I belive the escort can be modified as well.

I personally don't like the "official" pictures that you find at the GW Websites, or in old White Dwarf magazines. If you want to see how cool they can be, look around the interwebs for pictures of DE fleets. The best I've seen used spare bits from the Raider/Ravager kits (old style - this was some time ago)


As for game balance, I think BFG is on of the most balanced game GW has ever made. I've seen the DE Fleet destroy Space Marines, and I've seen them lose to Space Marines. BFG is a game that relies much more on strategy than dice rolling.


I've played against Necrons more than any other fleet. They are actually well balanced, and have some large weakness to exploit. They also have a modified Victory Points Table, meaning that even if you lost more ships, you still may be the winner.


Xenos don't suck. Some of my biggest losses have been to the Dark Eldar fleet. The closest match I have ever played, has been against an Eldar Fleet. Orks are one of the most popular fleets. And, technically, the Necrons would also be considered a Xenos Fleet.


I have seen all of the Fleets perform well on the table top, from Tau to Tyranids, and the Imperial Fleet is considered to be one of the most underpowered fleets.

Sorry for the previous long post. I would like to comment on one more thing specific to the Dark Eldar Fleet.

The BFG Main Rulebook, has a note in it about "breaking the rules" when it comes to building your fleet. It encourages mixing the fleet lists, such as taking Chaos ships in the Imperial Fleet. All the Chaos ships were Imperial at one time, so why not include them, too?

The current Dark Eldar Codex, has many references to Archons have Voidstalker Class ships. For those that may not be aware, the Voidstalker is the largest ship in an Eldar Fleet. I would allow any opponent of mine to include any ship from the Eldar Codex in their Dark Eldar Fleet.

I am also an avid BFG player, started out with Imperial Navy but quickly moved to AdMech. I love the Mechanicum(really do not care about the Imperium) and was kind of let down by the lack of DE models. I might convert them out of Reavers now though, got plenty lying around I never use anyway.

Completely agree with Archon that the BFG system is well balanced and fun to play. It is also really easy to learn and, compared to other GW games, can be cheap to start(plastic IN and Chaos cruisers hooray). Not to mention the ease of painting.

I mostly play against Eldar, Orks and Chaos the latter giving me the most headaches but AdMech is a pretty strange fleet and takes a little time to get the hang of. A DE fleet might be great for a change, always wanted a second fleet but something completely different. Now I have seen those conversions I am much more inclined to go for them.

Archon wrote:

The current Dark Eldar Codex, has many references to Archons have Voidstalker Class ships.

I'm admittedly new to the Codex (just picked it up a couple days ago after being out of the hobby for a few years) but I couldn't find any of those references. Could you point me in the right direction? The Void Stalker's always been one of my favourite BFG models, and I think putting some work into one for a DE fleet would be great!

I will check that and get back to you as soon as I have my Codex available.

Thank you very much.

My apologies, I seem to have my information confused. I gave the Codex a skim last night and could not find any references to the Void Stalker Battleship. For some reason, I thought there was a reference to the three flagships that the Duke stole were Void Stalkers, as well as some other mentions of them throughout the book.

Do not give up hope though, just as all Chaos ships (except the plantet killer) were once Imperial Ships, I would think that all the ships from the Eldar Fleet List in the Blue Rule Book, were at one time using Commoragh as a port of call. And as the Blue Rule Book specifically mentions building fleets that "Break the Rules, " I would have no problem includeing them in a Dark Eldar Fleet.

No worries. And thanks for checking.

You make a good point about the Chaos/Imperial ships. The Kabals may have gone towards smaller, leaner ships for access to tighter parts of the webway, but I can absolutely see someone like the Duke, well, doing exactly what he did and having ships with some flash. And the Void Stalker would look great converted.

Also, don't forget to check out "Warp Rift - The Battlefleet Gothic E-Zine" I remember they had some Grand Cruiser / Battleship additions to the Dark Eldar Fleet in one of their past issues. (Sorry, I don't remember which one.) They are all available for free download at:

www.epic40k.co.uk

If that doesn't get work, then go to the Battlefleet Gothic section of the Warseer Forum, and you will find people with links to it in their signatures - Horizon used to be the editor, but now I think Viaash has taken over.

Thanks.

I also found Battlefleet Gothic: Revised, and it has quite a few extra DE ships, even a pretty nice grand cruiser in the Mortalis class.

Hey i know this post has been quiet for a while but im new to battlefleet and i was wondering whether anyone could answer a question i have. in the rulebook it states that you can be on only one special order at a time. however in the dark eldar fleet book it states that dark eldar automatically pass any come to a new heading command check. so does that mean that you could take a command check for a different order in the same turn you do come to a new heading?

You have already asked this questions in a thread you have created and a post you have made in another thread. There is no need to ask it again here. Also, please refrain from posting in threads that have been dormant for over a month, especially those inactive for almost a year. Thank you.
-Kinnay