New Dark Eldar Player 1000-1500pts

Hey all

As the title states I am new to the Dark Eldar, but I know my way around a game of 40K
I decided to start a Dark Eldar force to coincide with the release of 6th ed. New Edition, New Army, that sort of thing.

Looking at a good starting point model wise i picked up the Battle Force, I may even grab a second one.
So I currently am looking at the following starting army:


The Duke

9 Warriors
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades (possibly Splinter racks)

Haemonculus with Liqufier Gun and Mind-phase Gauntlet

8 Wyches with Hydra Gauntlet and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades

9 Wyches with 2 Chain-flails and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades

6 Reavers with 2 Heat Lances

5 Trueborn with 4 Blasters
Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

Ravager with 3 Disintegration Cannons

Razorwing Jet Fighter (Stock Standard)

Im not sure how many points this comes to (I left my Codex at Work) but I think it is around 1000-1500

So that is the general idea at the moment, quite Cult heavy with a small Kabal on hand to help out. I am also looking at the Coven units too (just too many nasty things to play with really)
The 2nd Battle Force is next on my purchase list, that is unless there is a major fault that I have missed that you find.

Please feel free to pull the list apart and put it back together if it needs it, I am open to all suggestions.

Hi, good list just needs a few tweaks to give it an edge, hope this helps:


The Duke [Solid special charecter, useful for combat drugs and for deep strike so he is best accompanied with a vehicle heavy army and wyches I would say}

9 Warriors [Give a splinter cannon and a blaster just for versitility]

Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades (possibly Splinter racks) [If your going gunboat take splinter racks they are much better in 6th now, drop the other bits and give it a flickerfield and Nightshield, you will want them on all vehicles you can give them to]

Haemonculus with Liqufier Gun and Mind-phase Gauntlet

8 Wyches with Hydra Gauntlet and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades [again drop chain snares, launchers and stick in Flickerfields (Nightshields less important as you will want to get wyches in close]

9 Wyches with 2 Chain-flails and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades [same again]

6 Reavers with 2 Heat Lances [good good, shame they done get a twin linked rifle like every other bike in the world! make sure to use the bladevanes, they are safest when turbo boosting to get the 3++ and now they can be usefull in close combat as long as they are mopping up small units]

5 Trueborn with 4 Blasters [Either go 3 blasterborn or 4 blasterborn, no point having an extra man there who wont be doing anything, personally I play with 4 in each venom (and 3 venoms so 12 blaster born and I find that very successful)]Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons ]good choice]

Ravager with 3 Disintegration Cannons ]disintergrators are great, so long as your opponant is happy to leave terminators out in the open. That don't happen much and you will want all the Dark Glance weapons you can get. 10/10 times you wont penetrate with Dark Lances but now hull points are in, they are better and being able to have 3 shoot at one target = nearly dead land raider, perhaps, also you will want flickerfields and nightshields are a must]

Razorwing Jet Fighter (Stock Standard)

What you want to expand on this? I would suggest more wyches- they suffer a bit more now in my opinion but are still among the best cc troops, another ravager would be helpful, venoms and blasterborn are always good. Talos are fun if you fancy going down that path. maybe another warrior squad for holding objectives (Until a stiff breeze comes along and kills them all)
Hope this helps and good luck

I agree with Grub's very thorough analysis. However flikerfields though still useful are not mandatory any more thanks to 5+ jink saves. Though they do help when you get assaulted. So if you find yourself short on points you can always shave them off.

Yes quite right, forgot about that new jink save. Also it can be used now against dangerous terrain tests which could be a god send if you wanted to play deep strike!

Jink is nice, remember that for night fighting...it grants stealt & shrouded giving +1 and +2 modifiers to cover saves...and Jink is a cover save (where flickerfield is not)

Thanks for the advice guys

I am glad the list did not suck too much, just a few wargear changes and it will be good to go.
Is just 1 unit of Blasterborn going to be enough? I feel like it will be target number 1 with all those dark light weapons in an origami boat. Would it be a good idea to get another unit of them, or swap them out for a second Ravager?
Also i was thinking about the Dis-cannons as a great way to glance a transport to death, but i see the benefit of stacking as many dark light weapons as possible.

I am going into work tomorrow to grab my codex so i will post a full list up sometime tomorrow night.

Depends what and who you are playing and points I would say.
As said I run 3 units of 4 in most of my larger point games however I play most frequently against marines, grey knights, space wolves, Tau, necrons and Imperial Guard so blasterborn become very useful. Against IG mech lists (before 6th) they were great at wrecking vehicles rapidly and then moving to safety and I imagine they will be better now in 6th for this. Against marines, well 2 squads of 4 in venoms can easily wipe a tactical squad/terminator squad off the board, backed up by splinter fire from the venoms!
I would say Blasterborn are better then ravagers when up against shooty armies as it allows you to get in close. For example against IG and Tau your ravager will be outranged and out gunned so won't last two seconds. A blasterborn squad however is smaller so better concealed from LoS, deepstrike potential and an extra dark glance. Also if the vehicle takes hits you can get them out! Against tyranids, you don't want to be in close so swap out for a ravager or two, but I would still advise venoms just for splinter-spam.

Overall I think you want variety so you can change your lists for organised games. If you don't know what you will be up against I would still advise taking at least 2 Blasterborn squads in venoms because they are versatile (and great against marines and equivilents) But you may also want to take a ravager just in case. If your still very worried about them being targeted you need to utalise the age of old tactic of "I have a Talos Pain Engine and its coming for your tanks". Put an archon or Haemocules with a web way portal, scoot accross the board and drop it in there armour line. They go: "What's he doing? What's going on?" Then next turn (hopefully) you walk your Talos out and unleash some heat lance/ haywires all over the place. Your opponant WILL panic and unleash everything at it allowing you to reposition your venoms and ravager etc without fear of getting to shot up. The Talos might die, if it does it will take some serious punishment and if it lives you can tear up the nearest thing!

If your interested here is my standard 1500 "One list does plenty" list:
HQ:
2 Haemocules w/liquifiers
Troops:
9x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix w/agoniser
9x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix w/agoniser
10x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix w/agoniser
10x Warriors w/cannon
Elites:
4x Blasterborn
4x Blasterborn
4x Blasterborn
Heavy:
Ravager w/Flickerfields + Nightshields
Transports:
3x Raider w/Flickerfields
3x Venom w/extra cannon

And my equivalent 2500 list:

HQ:
Baron Sathypants (to get first turn)
3x Haemocules w/ various utensils
Troops:
9x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix + Agoniser
9x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix + Agoniser
9x Wyches w/haywire, hekatrix + Agoniser
10x warriors w/ splinter cannon + blaster +sybarite
10x warriors w/ splinter cannon + blaster +sybarite
Elites:
4x Blasterborn
4x Blasterborn
4x Blasterborn
Heavy:
2x Ravagers w/FF + NS
Talos w/ heat lance + Chain flails
Fast attack:
5x Reavers w/blaster + clustercaltrop
5x Reavers w/blaster + clustercaltrop
5x Scourges w/haywire launchers
Transports:
3x Raiders w/FF
3x Venoms w/extra cannon + Grisly trophies

Both these lists are quite similar to the one you have gone on and have proved very successful for me, I think using these exact lists: 13/18 victories 3 Draws 4 Defeats, hope this can help you sculpt your army

Grub wrote:

9 Warriors [Give a splinter cannon and a blaster just for versitility]

illegal.

Grub wrote:

Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades (possibly Splinter racks) [If your going gunboat take splinter racks they are much better in 6th now, drop the other bits and give it a flickerfield and Nightshield, you will want them on all vehicles you can give them to]

i would only use racks and either NS or FF, not both.

Grub wrote:

8 Wyches with Hydra Gauntlet and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades [again drop chain snares, launchers and stick in Flickerfields (Nightshields less important as you will want to get wyches in close]

9 Wyches with 2 Chain-flails and Haywire
Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Power Axe
Raider with Dark Lance, Chain Snares and Torment Grenades [same again]

remove p.axe, put in venom blade, or the agoniser. Chain flails??
rest said above

Grub wrote:

Ravager with 3 Disintegration Cannons ]disintergrators are great, so long as your opponant is happy to leave terminators out in the open. That don't happen much and you will want all the Dark Glance weapons you can get. 10/10 times you wont penetrate with Dark Lances but now hull points are in, they are better and being able to have 3 shoot at one target = nearly dead land raider, perhaps, also you will want flickerfields and nightshields are a must]

you dont shoot DLs at termies. You shoot disints at termies.
you want to take down hull points? Wyches with haywire.
nightshields.

Thinking I meant 10 warriors for the first one last point Dissies are great for termies, not advising using DLs against them, concentrrated splinter fire will down termies eventually, dont waste your DL shots!

New List Idea

Dropped a unit of Wyches for some Coven Troops

Archon 95pts
with Venom Blade, Shadow Field

4 Grotesques 220pts
1 Liqufier Gun
Raider with Dark Lance

10 Warriors 170pts
Raider with Dark Lance, Splinter Racks, Night Shields

Haemonculus 70pts
with Liqufier Gun and Power Axe

9 Wyches 203pts
with 1 Chain-Flail and Haywire Grenades
1 upgraded to Hekatrix with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Venom Blade
Raider with Dark Lance

Haemonculus 70pts
with Liqufier Gun and Power Axe

9 Wracks 170pts
1 Liqufier Gun
1 upgraded to Acothyst
Raider with Dark Lance

6 Reavers 156pts
with 2 Heat Lances

Ravager 115pts
with 3 Dark Lances and Night Shields

Razorwing Jet Fighter 145pts

Total 1414

What to spend those last points on? Im thinking of cutting a few units back to make room for another Ravager.

Hey love the list idea and I would get another ravager You could cut the haemonculus that goes with the Wyches and then split the Wyches up to 5 basic with Haywire Grenades on a vennom for some more AT? but up to you in the end

Hmm I see where you are going Xandruh, I am just worried that 5 man units will be easy to destroy. But the 2 Venoms are really quite tempting.
If I do go for the 2 small Wyche squads, is it worth taking a Wych Weapon for them?


I may keep the Haemo in the list. Joining him to the Grotes would give me a very solid assault choice.