What Troops are Tournament Players Taking Nowadays?

Specifically those who place top 25% regularly. I'm finding 8 Wyches in a raider don't have the punch I want in comparison to other armies troops equivalents. I love Wyches and will probably be taking 2x5 man squads in Venoms to go after Dreads/Barges/Preds Etc... But when it comes to anti-troop they don't hit hard enough. Unless I'm playing a Duke list and can choose the optimal drugs they always seem soft after the charge.

I know people enjoy taking Warriors but I've never found a huge use. When they gunboat from a Raider they feel too slow and unable to lash out hard when its needed. And Wracks I feel suffer from not having grenades or fleet but a 10 man squad with liquifiers can be devastating if they charge into a unit outside cover. Since anything between 5-10 is a loss of a Liquifier they become expensive at full strength. And the low armor/FNP nerf hurts.

I think I may just have to suck it up and put units in my army that cater to making up for our troops weaknesses. Something to deal with 10 man troop squads, blobs, and termies.

Preface: I am not pro and will never be. I'll just give you some of my thoughts, in case you or anyone else is interested.

My current uses for Troops are these: to unlock skimmers and survive long enough to nab objectives. The other use, as part of an alpha strike Raider Rush strategy, doesn't fit my playstyle. I have run into too many walls of fire and superior enemy CC troops too many times, so a methodical, shootier strategy is my current goal. To that end, I actually took 5 man Wych squads for all of my Troops, as they 1) Unlock skimmers cheaply and 2) Can get Feel No Pain to survive and 3) Can tie up enemy shooty units and Haywire. In practice, when my skimmers blow, the Wyches blow as well, even if my whole army is sitting back in my deployment zone. Or, when they go in to Haywire, they are exposed and also tend to blow up. Very few ladies survive to claim objectives, which is necessary as I won't be tabling anyone (see: Preface).

So, I suspect Warriors are a good choice to alleviate these woes. Additionally, leaving the unit out of its dedicated transport when appropriate preserves some fragile space elves from collateral damage. I just need to be pinging my opponent with a few more splinter shots or an extra Lance or two, and Warriors do both of these things while standing a respectable distance from the enemy, Only a 10-man squad will outdamage their attached skimmer, and only at Rapid Fire range, but the possibility is there. Wyches will probably stay in case of parking lot, where there inevtable deaths will save many more lives. And that's the main thing: having each unit contribute as much as they can.

As for Wracks, I don't have much experience. The necessity to get close, coupled with their inability to threaten AV11+, makes me skeptical. I have only used them to escort an IC. 3-man squads definitely win in both the Cheap Skimmer Unlock and Survive categories, as they can camp out on a home base while their Venom goes to work. Warriors get to shoot at anything that gets close to their house, though, starting at 24", which is a big difference from Template range.

Warriors are the mainstay of many tournament players as they are cheap enough to unlock skimmers, but also they can be equipped with ranged weaponry which allows them to keep their opponents at arm's length. With the random assault range and also the overwatch rule, warriors are even more important than ever before. Whether they are taken as a huge blob or a 5 man squad, they will always serve the army well in any capacity.

Wyches on the other hand have taken an entirely different role than their 5th edition era as the haywire grenades made them as one of the dark eldar's best vehicle assaulters. They can still serve in their original capacity, however they are more of a torrenting squad than anyhing else these days though the agoniser still does have its use. If you do take them take them in squads of 6-9 to allow them to have a real sting in close combat (that and surviving explosions) and a haemonculus with a fnp always helps them with the 5+ fnp.

Wracks can unlock vehicles cheaply hut they will not be able to do much in the anti-vehicle department. They are really good at bunkering down on an objective provided that their cover is good enough.

Hellions are often use as one big scary squad lead by the baron and is quite cumbersome to use. Also requires pain token tricks to pump it up to its full capacity before they go out to hunt and/or capture objectives. Their close combat skills and shooting abilities are quite alright as a result of their pseudo-deathstar playsyle but essentially they function as a harrassment/fire magnet unit.

In the end, the troop composition of any tournament dark eldar army depends on the focus of the list itself; skimmer-based (eg: raider rush, venomspam,etc), hellionstar, wwp ( the shooy kind),dark footdar or some combinationof any of these. Each troop unit offer an unique role within the construct of the type of army and thus the only limitation is the general gameplan.

warriors > wyches > hellions > wracks, but they all have their places.

Your mainstay troop choice is either

125- 5 warriors w/ blaster in dual cannon venom
120- 5 warriors w/ blaster in raider
125- 5 Wyches w/ Haywires in dual cannon venom
120- 5 wyches w/ Haywires in raider

Your choice, but those are mainly what you see

I use two warrior squads in a successful tournament list;

1) 5 warriors + blaster in a venom with 2 splinter cannons (125 pts)
2) 10 warriors + blaster and splinter cannon in a raider with splinter racks and night shields (195 pts)

I had four of the first one and two of the second one. The venom squad probably has the most utility, but the splinter rack squad came in handy when I ran into a list with 5 flying monsterous creatures and it has enough bodies to sit on an objective and take some hits at the end of the game.

If you use wyches, you can't win by being fair. You'll lose 1 on 1 combats. The only way I've had luck with troops vs troops matchups is dumping 2 big witch squads into one enemy squad, or dual charging something in that is squishy for combat resolution points.