New To Dark Eldar and full of questions

Hello All,
I am a new addition to the list of Dark Eldar Players and after reading the codex a few times and doing lots of online research and the like i have come to the following question.

Why is it that there are so few units used in our codex?

I understand that Dark Eldar are somewhat of a defined roll army in terms of units. And unlike say space marines we dont exactly have a whole lot in terms of jack of all trade style units, but one of the things that really perked my interest about the Dark Eldar was the whole evil mad scientist science experiment gone wrong theme and nobody seems to run anything like that.

Most lists contain, wyches, warriors, trueborn, transports and Ravagers in some combination.

Occasionally ill see scourges or reavers.

And while i understand that these units are very good at what they do is it so much so that there is little place for other units such as beastmasters or hellions? Or are the roles of these units so small and specific that a majority of players never find themselves in a position where using them would be beneficial?

Sorry for the question overload i would just like to hear some input on this subject

thanks for your time

There are those of us out there that use a mix. My last tournament list(1500pts, and I won!) included Wracks, Hellions, Wyches, Kabalite Warrior squads, Venoms, Raiders, a Ravager, a Razorwing Jet Fighter, The Baron, and a Haemonculus. I think that most people limit their choices to those that you listed because they are some of the most point efficient units to use. Because of this, many net lists tend to look like carbon copies: If all of the awesome lists that you see online have X, Y, and Z units, everyone on the site says that they are awesome combined with people not having the time or money to try out all combinations leads to internet lists looking like cookie-cutter copies of each other. Trust me, get out there and try what you want to try. You can make almost any unit effective if you have a role for it in mind that supports what the army is trying to acomplish.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

As a fellow new one to this forum, but not to Dark Eldar; welcome!

What you're seeing is the 'meta-game' i.e. it is what a lot of people say is good and competitive. What it fails to take into account is:
a) The coolness of the models (as far as you are concerned, after all it IS your army)
b) Your personal style of play (i.e. shooty vs combat)
c) the models you have in your collection
d) the opponents that you play
e) How competitive you want to be (i.e. will you be going to tournaments?)

The units that are used a lot (warriors, wyches, ravagers etc) are very utilitarian and will always have a use but they may not be that useful for you personally, taking into account your playing style and opponents.

If I were you I'd read all the information and try it out for yourself, theres nothing like experience on the battlefield.

I hope that helps!

Thanks for the replies!

And quite frankly I always find myself drawn to weird "underpowered" or "unusable" things. I just didn't know if there was some super secret or super obvious thing out there that i overlooked.

Thanks again for the comments.

All of us at some point have bee curious to try certain units or builds or combo's that you don't often see, and thats the fun part of the game, but from a competitive stand point you will soon see what works best, is more pts efficient etc etc

Warriors great
Wyches - great
Wracks - great
Grots - great <- so much more brutal this edition
Beasts - great <- were all over the internet surprised you missed them
Reavers - great
Hellion - average/poor
Hellions + Baron = great
Ravagers - great
Raiders - great
Incubi - great <- need an archon for a PGL
Venoms - great
Razorwing - great
Void raven - great
Trueborn - great
Scourges - average
Mandrakes - poor (depends on army)
Haemonculus - great
Succubus - great
archon - great
court - poor
Talos - average (depends on army)
Cronos - average (depends on army)
Blood brides - average (wyches are scoring)
Harlequins - great

I think that's all the units in the codex. So I think what your experiencing is the internet and like Evil Space Elves said the cookie cutter effect. Some units are less point and click that's for sure, others need the army to be built around them. But almost all the options in the codex are viable.

That being said you need to find the units that mesh with your play-style.

Hope that helps.

Also keep in mind that most list you've seen are probably geared towards 5th edition, it still remains to be seen what the metagame in 6th ed will converge to, and hopefully that will mean more units are viable

Well thats quite encouraging glad to hear.
Thanks for the help. Most of the things i see are "just shelve them they suck go necron etc etc"

i for ex. use almost the same list for 6th i used for 5th, only i have more points to spend, because i dropped the implosion bombers for standard rwjf w dizzies and ff. 155 vs 275/ mod, so i have 240 pts to spare And seriously, that is the biggest change to my list!

Depending on play style, meta, love for a unite in particular, list can differ, as does mine compared to most of the lists, as does Mushkilla's - hes great with reavers btw.

I agree with much of what Mushkilla says... save perhaps the scourges (which got a boost), court (again a boost) and hellions (took a nerfbat hit)

Massaen wrote:

I agree with much of what Mushkilla says... save perhaps the scourges (which got a boost), court (again a boost) and hellions (took a nerfbat hit)

I wrote that out pretty fast. The only reason I said scourges were average is because they compete with reavers and beasts. The court would be great if you didn't have to take one of each member (or if agonisers were poison weapons). I can still hope for a FAQ though.

Either way it was mostly to emphasis that almost all the entries are viable in some way or other.

Mushkilla wrote:

The court would be great if you didn't have to take one of each member (or if agonisers were poison weapons). I can still hope for a FAQ though

Court would be lovely if you could just take Sslyth

By the way, your list of DE units was interesting. Here's Stelek's list of DE units, except these are just the ones he considers "useless", and he's not even included HQ units.

Court
Bloodbrides
Mandrakes
Harlequins
Incubi
Grotesques
Warriors
Wyches
Hellions
Cronos
Talos
Voidraven
Venoms
Raider

Ever get the feeling that Stelek and co live in a different world to the rest of us?

incubi useless...well... *lets out an frustrated "hm" and turns head away*

Stelek should stop playing Dark Eldar and continue with Space Marines.

@Count Adhemar

well that would narrow it down to beast and friends, reavers, scourges,wracks and ravagers. Wracks without transports......well that would certainly be anti-meta.

I guess if years of competitive gaming has taught me anything, its that no matter what game your playing whatever you play is underpowered.

Also new to Dark Eldar so this thread is very useful to me. I've noticed that Ravagers seem to be a big thing. I've got 5 Raiders and no Ravagers. That's not going to effect me too bad is it?

Don't worry, you can do perfectly fine without Ravagers. It's just that they're a very cheap way of getting mobile heavy weapons into your army (at about 35 pts per weapon), while still being able to move 12" and shoot all weapons. Anti Tank may (or may not) be less important in 6th edition depending on how the meta game turns out, but if vehicles become a bit less frequent then the need for Ravagers will not be as prominent.

cool

I've looked at many lists and found that i like wwp lists the most

Same here! Unfortunately, they're not as good as they used to be because in 6th edition, units arriving from Reserves (and WWPs) cannot assault on the turn they arrive. For that reason, WWP lists may change quite a bit compared to those of 5th edition (and it's even slightly debated if they are playable at the moment).

Yea but I've been thinking that if you give your troops coming OUT of the WWP Haywire grenades and attack on coming tanks from that point, well even if you can't assault, you've taken out the heavy artillery

Setomidor wrote:

...Anti Tank may (or may not) be less important in 6th edition depending on how the meta game turns out, but if vehicles become a bit less frequent then the need for Ravagers will not be as prominent.

Dont forget the flexibility of the ravager; 3 dissie cannons is 9 ap2 STR5 shots per turn. One heckuva marine killer...and retrofiring or Duke deepstriking behind light transports can be just as devastating.

After watching a few vid-reps, i suddenly have the urge to fit grots in to my army...those of you who know my list composition, do you think 4 grots in raider w haem ancient would be good?

Enfernux wrote:

After watching a few vid-reps, i suddenly have the urge to fit grots in to my army...those of you who know my list composition, do you think 4 grots in raider w haem ancient would be good?

They should work in your list fine, be a good way of drawing fire,

I would go:

Haemonculus, Power Axe, Liquifier Gun
4 Grots, Liquifier Gun, Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet and Raider with Dark Lance

Or

Succubus, Power Axe, venom blade
4 Grots, Liquifier Gun, Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet and Raider with Dark Lance

Both have their advantages. Succubus being I8 for sweeping and more attacks, and can be a good tank for non ID wounds with her 4++ and FNP (effectively a 3+ invulnerable). The advantage of the haemi is the extra pain token and liquifier.

Hop that helps.

That should work fine. I've been running 5 with a blaster Archon over the last few games (obviously on foot), and they've survived quite well and been a real tough nut for most people to crack. I've been going with a Aberration with Scissorhands, plus the liquifier, but I may be dropping that.

After playing them, I can say that the Ancient over the normal Haemonculus will provide you absolutely nothing. The abberation with scissorhands gets 7 attacks on the charge, re-rolling to wound, he is almost always percieved as a bigger threat than your IC once you fight one round of close combat with anyone. My blaster Archon shows up with a venom blade and a shadowfield just to soak up challenges.

Moving forward I'm thinking of adding an allied Corsair Prince with a shimmershield to give the Grots an invuln with their FnP.

Mushkilla wrote:

Haemonculus, Power Axe, Liquifier Gun
4 Grots, Liquifier Gun, Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet and Raider with Dark Lance

Or

Succubus, Power Axe, venom blade
4 Grots, Liquifier Gun, Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet and Raider with Dark Lance

Totally agree on the Grots themselves. If running the Succubus, don't leave home without Haywire Grenades! I'm actually currently running both of the above characters (so 4 grots + Haemo + Succubus in raider). They complement each other very well, the high I and Grenades from the Succubi and the extra Pain token and Liquifier (or Shattershard!) from the Haemy.