2000k point DE/Eldar allies list, my strategy with this to great success

Hey all,

I've been having sickening success with this list in 6ed and wanted to share. This list is absolutely nasty against anyone I play, which in my local meta is a lot of Grey Knights, Necrons, Tyranids and Imperial Guard.

HQ

Baron Sathonyx 105 pts

Troops

Kabalite Warriors x5, Venom x2 Splinter Cannon 110 points

Kabalite Warriors x5, Venom x2 Splinter Cannon 110 points

Kabalite Warriors x5, Venom x2 Splinter Cannon 110 points

Elite

Trueborn x3, x2 Splinter Cannon, Venom x2 splinter Cannon 121 points

Trueborn x3, x2 Splinter Cannon, Venom x2 splinter Cannon 121 points

Trueborn x3, x2 Splinter Cannon, Venom x2 splinter Cannon 121 points

Fast Attack

Reaver Jetbike x9, x3 Heat Lance, Arena Champion 244 points (shout out to Mushkilla thanks for turning me onto them!)

Beastmasters x4, Razorwing Flock x7 153 points

Heavy

Ravager, x3 Dark Lance 105 points

Ravager, x3 Dark Lance 105 points

Ravager, x3 Dark Lance 105 points

Fortification

Aegis Defense Line with Quad Gun, 100 points

Eldar Allies

HQ

Eldrad Ulthran 210 points

Troops

x3 Guardian Jet Bike 66 points

Elite

Fire Dragons x5, Exarch, Tank Hunters and Crack shot 112 points


Basic strategy:

This army can out-shoot ANY army I come across on the table by a long shot. For anti-infantry, it has 6 venoms and 18 splinter cannons (thanks to the trueborn units having 2 each), thats 96 - 108 poison shots per turn (plus the 15-30 from the 3 guardian squads).

What makes these shots even MORE nasty then they already are is Eldrad casting doom on 2 UNITS PER TURN! That means if I doom 2 targets and fire on them with the 18 splinter cannons, it is 3's to hit and 4's to wound with re-rolls to wound on the 4's. This is really destructive, even against MEQ and TEQ.

The Reavers can bladevane infantry targets (it is fun to bladevane units that have been DOOM'd by Eldrad also). Finally, the beasts rolling with Baron are awesome, if you haven't tried this combo you are seriously missing out. Baron gives the beasts stealth and hit and run, they all have move through cover and 12" movement, and the 7 razorwings have 42 attacks on the charge, with rending (bye bye terminators). As well, if you doom the unit they are charging they will get a lot more rending hits because at S3, most of the razorwing attacks will fail to wound (needing 5's or rending 6's in most cases). That means lots of re-rolls to wound to get more rending 6's if the target is doomed by Eldrad.

Anti Tank: 3 ravagers = 9 dark lances, the reavers have 3 heat lances and the beasts can take down light armour with rending hits to rear armor as well (although this is not their intended use). But the real trick is the fire dragon exarch manning the quad gun. This is 48" range, 4 shots at Strength 7, 2+ to hit with re-rolls (gun is twin linked) and re-rolls to armor penetration thanks to the tank hunters ability. As well, the crack shot ability gives ignore cover so no flyer/skimmer jink save or cover save from being 25% behind a hill. This thing is absolute death to armour 12 and under, armor 13 or 14 you can use the dark lances/heat lances on. If anything does get close to your lines (like enemy flyers for example that have survived your shooting) you have 5 fire dragons by the quad gun that can move up and shoot (of course they have been cast GUIDE by Eldrad so they have a good shot of wrecking the flyer).

Anti-air: In addition to the nasty quadgun/fire dragon exarch combo which has the interceptor and skyfire rules as well, if you know you are facing an army that has more than 1 flyer you can always trade Eldrad's psychic powers in for rolls on the Divination table. This gives you a 4/6 chance of getting the power which forces opponents to re-roll successful savings throws (you can cast this twice a turn to replace casting doom since you've traded it in) but gives Eldrad the important power of prescience, which is re-roll to hit. So if you are facing flyers giving eldrad this power will allow him to cast prescience on 2 ravagers each turn, so they can shoot at flyers and get re-rolls on their dark lance shots against flyers.

Psychic defense: Eldrad has runes of warding, watch your Grey Knight and Tyranid opponents weep.

Close Combat: With this army you definitely need to sit back and rain hellfire on your opponents, this is not a CC army. However the Beast pack, with 7 razorwings, can take on almost anything that somehow makes it through the fire to your half of the table (or outflanking/deepstriking untis). I hold them back as a counter strike unit on my half, 42 rending attacks will wreck those 5 terminators who deepstruck onto your back line.

Claiming objectives: This is the one weakness of the army list, you only have 3x 5 man warrior squads and a 3x guardian jet bike squad that are scoring (unless the 2 missions come up that allow fast attack or heavies to be scoring). This list is designed to table the opponent, you will want to hide the guardian jet bikes for a last turn objective-grab and protect your 5 man squads or hide them also so they can grab objectives towards the end of the game. A clever opponent will try and focus on killing your scoring troops, although with so much death raining on him as outlined above he will be hard pressed to ignore those immediate threats to focus on your troops.

BONUS: Baron gives +1 to roll for first turn and Eldrad allows you to redeploy d3+1 units. So when you win the roll to go first and deploy, you can redeploy your 3 ravagers to get excellent line of sight on your opponents armor on turn 1.

Overall this army has done unbelievably well in 6th against all comers, those of you who still don't realize 6th edition was amazing for the Dark Eldar may be missing something? It was outstanding for us!!!!

This looks like a fun list to play. It seems you give your opponent much to think about that he can't ignore your hammers even if he really "just" have to get a couple of troop-venoms killed. Have you made any BR's with this list? Would be fun to see how you orchestrate this.

Not bad, looks like old refined venom spam with Hellions, instead having beasts to serve the same role.

Where do you put Eldrad?

I imagine he would probably go with the Fire Dragons. They're the only foot unit he has that he wouldn't slow down.

Murkglow wrote:

I imagine he would probably go with the Fire Dragons. They're the only foot unit he has that he wouldn't slow down.

He could go with the Beasts as units with different movements now move at their maximum speed, but must stay in coherency which is easily attainable with 7 Termi base Razowing Flocks.

Crion - I need to do a Battle Report actually, I will next week. I played a game yesterday against Blood Angels with Space Wolves allies. Tabled him on Turn 4, only thing I lost was a venom, a beast master, a razorwing flock and a wound on the Baron (failed his 2+!). Highlights were wiping out a 12 man BA assault marine squad with rune priest on turn 1 with splinter fire, wiped out his 10 man grey hunters with Librarian on turn 2, the quad gun with fire dragon exarch intercepted his flyer when it came in turn 2 and destroyed it (of 4 hits, rolled only one 5 for a glance but since I get to re-roll armor penetration thanks to tank hunters ability got two 5's and a 6 on the re-roll!). Finally counter-attacked his Thunder Calvary Wolf lord guy (after he missed his charge roll by 1") with some type of nasty blood angle sanguinary guard or something attached with the razorwing flock on turn 3! I got the counter-charge in, had doomed him at the beginning of the turn with Eldrad. 42 attacks on the charge, got 4 rending 6's to wound but thanks to doom got to roll a ton of missed wound rolls again and got 4 more rending hits! Wiped out his last 10 man assualt squad with rune priest (and the assault bike) on turn 4 with splinter fire again.

Edit: You guys are spot on - I run Eldard with the fire dragons and Quad gun. Basically I like to deploy the aegis defense line at the very front center of my deployment zone to get max range into my opponent's board edge. This also gives Eldrad the furthest possible arc out to cast his 24" doom spells on. Since he will always cast fortune on his unit, he has a 3+ re-rollable invun save at the front to take wounds and anything S8 or over that might be directed at him i'll LOS to the fire dragons, who will have a re-rollable 4+ cover save from the aegis defense line. So they're pretty tough, certainly not invincible but with 6 venoms (with 18 splinter cannons), 3 ravagers, 9 reavers and a beast flock to deal with opponents are hard pressed to dedicate enough firepower to get through the re-rollable saves.

Next time you want to add something, please just use the edit button on the top right -Your Friendly Neighborhood Mod SR-

Can Eldrad Doom more then on squad?I mean like in the same turn? Squad A and B are both in range he can cast them both on same turn right? Reason I am asking is I plan on running your list.Going against the new Chaos book.

Yep, that is why he is so badass and worth the points. His staff allows him to cast a 3rd psychic power each turn, which can be a repeat of a power you have already cast. So you could doom two different units, also could prescience two friends units each turn against flyers...

With such a shooty army that I imagine you keep at a distance from your enemy. Do you find your Reavers getting a bit swamped as they need to get up close and personal but other than the Beastmaster unit you have nothing else in the enemy's face for target saturation?

@mug7703: Sometimes they get swamped (if you mean draw a lot of fire) but this is a good thing. The reason being they move 48", so given that this list is shooty they perform an absolutely vital function. Typically I will bladevane the enemy on the turn 1 or 2, with the end of their bladevane putting them (ideally) in range of heatlancing enemy armor on the next turn, this is best done turn 1 if possible. This gives the opponent a tough choice, to go after the reavers with 3+ cover save or go after the super-Quad Gun, 6 venoms/18 splinter cannons or 3 ravagers. The reavers are excellent at harassing the enemy infantry as well, and for grabbing line breaker.

Obviously your opponent, the board deployment and other factors will come into play. But it seems like I usually end up bladevaning with them and then shooting at enemy armor or a Bastion if they brought one. On average they end up being one of the most devastating units in the army, they always pull their weight. 2 games ago they destroyed 2 rifleman dreads and bladevaned some greyknights before dying (and absorbing a LOT of psybolt fire before dying). Last game against the BA/SW they bladevaned the assault squad and shot an assault bike on the way to getting line breaker VP, didn't lose any of them but they didn't do as much damage either (mainly because my opponent's army was wiped out so early).

This seems like a great tactic. Thanks for the info. Another question is, do you find that Eldrad is out of range with his doom if the enemy choose not to come near him? He is set up as an immobile character based on the fact he has no mobile retinue to run around with.

I've been toying with the idea of running Eldrad with either a Harlie bomb or wraithstar death unit. Not only are these both great units in themselves but they mean his 24" circle of doom is now mobile rather than being limited to an ADL.

You can always run him with Divination powers instead and then range won't be a problem most of the time (since they're mostly buff powers). Double Prescience, Forewarning, Perfect Timing can all be great.

@mug: 24" in general works out very well. Reason being: this army can severely out-shoot any army, the entire army shoots 36". Grey knights for example are all 24" except for riflemen dreads, almost entire next necron army is 24" firepower. So your opponents 99% of the time will advance within his 24" range, if they don't you will outshoot them.

Prescience on Ravagers is ok according to faq? I know they only mentioned guide, fortune. I think it's a fun list with fun risks, hoping to include a farseer in a 1250 list soon.

@crion: prescience is ok on any dark eldar because it is a basic rulebook power, not an eldar power. The restrictions on casting powers are only if you are using the eldar powers,since eldar and dark eldar are battle brothers you can cast on DE all basic rule book powers.

To get prescience eldrad has to trade in his eldar powers for 4 powers from basic psychic tables. That is how you get him prescience, although you are giving up guide, doom and fortune to do so which isn't worth it in most cases unless you are going up against multiple flyers/flying demon circus.

There is another divination power that you can get that forces the target unit to re-roll all successful saves, this is an ok substitute for doom if you go the prescience route although you need to get a little lucky to roll for it (you have a 4/6 chance of getting it).

I really really like the list. I think Im going to build my first DE army around it. Can you try to get a detailed video batrep up!? Its be really helpful just to see your playstyle even dice rolls and such. My local meta has 0 DE players so its hard to pick up a lot of the little things without playing against other good generals of the army.

Ok i'll get a battle report up by end of next week : )

Edit: I should've noted in my list details, the baron has a phantasm grenade launcher which is Killer with the beasts as it gives them assault grenades (normally they would be initiative 1 charging into cover).

Please dont double post. Use the edit button in the top right corner -Your Friendly Neighborhood Mod SR-

Have you tried this list against updated demons flamer/screamer spam?

@sadpanda - not yet, there is someone in our league who runs a flying demon circus with 2 units of flamers, hoping to play him soon so i can try. Definitely a tough match up for any DE list as we rely so much on cover saves. Against them with this list I would trade eldrad's powers in for BRB powers to get prescience. This would allow me to have 2 units a turn with re rolls to hit against the flying demons. This kind of list is why the quad gun with fire dragon exarch is key, when the Flamers deep strike at least I will get interceptor fire with 4 twin linked S7 shots which ignore cover and re-roll to wound. So I can do some damage to them before they get their flames off and lessen the damage.

I played a friend with CD, 2xflamers, 2xscreamers but no flying prince @1k.

I was very arrogant as I had venom spam and tantalus and jetfighter with DC's.

Now I actually stood there and let him come and traded shots, while he was shot severely, we did one mistake with his lookout sirs and he could allocate to every member in unit as long as they were 6" from sergeant. This affected the outcome somewhat. But I think that I would today just reset the fight and turboboost away and start over. And he can have fun coming towards me.

Those flamers hurts our hulls and the one thing I can think of now is that we need to get out of CC and back to long range... What do you guys think who have played the new 3xflamer/3xscreamers CD armys?

I've played the super spammy version with full flamers and full screamers, and the HQs that move you around to position you the way they want.

IMO it's nasty, and really unbalanced almost to the point of being broken. Those screamers and flamers are jump aand jet bikes, and any good demon player is going to do everything they can to DS several of them right on top of you regardless of mishap. They actually know that the list is strong enough to decimate you even if they totally lose one or two units to mishap.

I actually tried a similar list to yours (OP), thinking it would do well, because it is a very solid list. I just think that against the new demons there isn't much we, or anyone else, can do. The eternal warrior makes them just too good, and they are even cheaper than before points-wise.

But trying to soft reset the fight by turboboosting as soon as you can won't work or improve outcome in your opinion?

This is a nice idea for a list and I plan to try a modified version in my 1850 games. However, my question is how do you deal with the fire dragons getting shot off the board? Theres only 5 of them.

IOk.So I used this list. I played a 1750 game.Dropped the defence line.The Fire Dragon and Eldar Jetbikes.Also one Ravenger.The beast since I dont own the bird models I used my warp beast.For the Eldar troop slot I used a squad of 5 Pathfinders.
I went against Chaos.I all but tabled him by turn 3. Ok I dont know about you guys but I felt like I cheated or something.H e was very pissed off at me.Said I brought a Tourny List to a for fun game.I cant help to agree with him.With that being said I think he was mad cause he had a CC list and there wasnt much he could do against all the fire power,but what else could I have done.If I would have used Wychs like I always used to I would have gotten killed.
Can someone out there out there make me feel better about this.I dont want to dumb down my list.

Advice please............Wait I am a Dark Eldar player when did I start to develop fellings?????