Obligatory close combat unit for competitive lists?

I've been seeing a fair few competitive/all-comers/tournament lists around that have a single CC unit amongst the standard Venoms, blaster born and Ravagers etc.

I suppose this is so that the army is not left without any means of defending itself against a strong CC unit that gets amongst our ranks. It's often in the form of the Baron with Hellions or more commonly at the moment beasts. What are people's thoughts on list building with this in mind? What units serve this purpose and is it necessary to fill this role in say a 1,500 point game?

I usually run a shooty kabalite list with a combat archon and incubi retinue as a sole assault unit, and it works pretty well. They usually have a juicy target to rip apart, and if they don't, they happen to be wonderful at drawing fire from people who have seen them in action.

I think it's good to have some cc units, as there are plenty of models that are hard to remove via shooting (Eldar Pathfinders, for example will be in 2+ cover most of the time, but in close combat they only have a 5+ armour save), or units that are much more dangerous in shooting than in assault and should be tied up if possible. They can also protect your own vulnerable units from enemy assault units (I've found Beastmasters should only be used agressively against armies with little assault units; a single unit will get its ass kicked by multiple units of Assault Marines or Genestealers charging them).

I played a game where a GK dreadknight got into my ranks and was butchering stuff in assault. I have a shooting based army with the only real assault squad being a unit of 9 Reavers with champion. Problem is they were the first unit to be assaulted! It made me realise it would be good to have a counter unit to respond to threats. Otherwise keeping everything at range and out shooting them is working well so far.

If we are talking about Dark Eldar close combat units, wouldn't wyches obviously be the best choice with their invulnerable saves and good initiative?

Mngwa wrote:

If we are talking about Dark Eldar close combat units, wouldn't wyches obviously be the best choice with their invulnerable saves and good initiative?

They would be if there was a decent way of getting them into combat in the first place without being destroyed by an exploding transport and/or overwatch.

Thats always a risk, of course. But with 2 full wych squads in 2 raiders, they could be very efficient only by drawing fire, right? And theres some odds that a few survives and gets to charge a shooty unit, what could then cause opponent to send backup, keeping even more units held up.

I use a mixed army, about half and half for combat and shooting. I like having to full squads of Wyches flying around in Raiders, along with 4 Incubi and an Archon in a Venom. Everything else is shooting, I recently found a love for poison weapons (before they never worked for me...).

But yeah, all shooting armies just don't seem to work for me, so I use quite a bit of combat. I like it, never really had a problem, especially after you count in the Combat Drugs boost and eventually Pain Tokens,

I do not think there are any compulsory CC unit.

What you need to be asking is what is good close combat units and what are their role?

Wytches, Wracks, Grotesques, Incubi, Beast Packs, talos and Helions are melle units, this is quite a lott more then the other codexes get. Other units that can also work are the cronos, ravagers and scourges.

Now what do you use melle units for? Unlike a ranged firefight witch is more like group bulleing because of the long range of the weapons, close combat is more like betting your close combat units against your oponents not so good close combat. A bit you usually win. Also, if you remain locked in CC during his turn as well that is an added bonus as you can not get shot on.

What makes blaster borns and ravagers good is the bottle ended way the codex is designed. It is one of the few ways to get axes to long ranged fire power. If you look at the original design of the dark eldar codexes perviusly you will see that the darklance and blaster was the bread and butter of the dark eldar codex. The only problem is that in those days almost any unit could grab it, wherewas now blaster born and ravagers are the most cost efficient ways to get it. In the old codexes you could easaly grab a lot of S8 lance with other units as well.

Why are long ranged lance that important? It fits together with the other design consept of dark eldar, we pay very little for what we get in order to die very eassaly: We use long range weapons in a staring contest to take out ouer oponent's long range weapons. This forces the oponent to stare back at ouer long ranged weapons, or get down stared as time goes on. Send in a close combat squads to mop up the rest.

Why not take a lot of close combat squads? There are some rules that hurt us during the transittion to 6th edition. It is not that CC armies can not work in 6th edition (look to daemons of chaos) it is just that it has gotten harder to get into CC. In 5th edition you could pivot on the spot (2"), move (12"), disembark (2"), charge (1d6). Perhaps even move, I do not remember. During this edition you can pivot, move 6, disembark 6 and charge. While it is still a big threat it is not the same. Also, when your transports get's blown up, witch will happen with an AV10 open topped you take a S4 attack, witch used to be a S3. Now your wytch squad is weakened, and get's further weakened by overwatch. In the old days you often had 9 wytches and a hammy to give them a pain token, but now that token only gives 5+ save. Also, cover saves are harder to come by.

Beast packs are one of the few units that got better and bypass the need of the deadly S4 on all your units transport. Reavers, while not having assault grenades, do have hammer of wrath and can take your lansces.

As for a strong assault army can be build in these ways:

2 incubi units with 2 archons to give them greandes. (You need assault granades)
A haemonculy foot army with the master haemoncoly for high S grotesques and wracks as scooring troops.
2 strong units of reavers in a list.
A lot of wytches in raiders. Grab some cheap suckubusses, or some haemmey babysitters.
Some strong beast packs. One with barron and another one with some clawed fiends?
Web way portals with talos comming out of portals.

There are probably other ways to do it as well. Good luck.

Edit: Grab the previus version of the old codex and see how easy it is to get long ranged lances there. While helathy for the game to make dark eldar more then "lance spam" this new codex was in fact a nerf, although a helathty one.

the purpose of a close combat unit in a balanced list is there are just some units that its hard to pull off of objectives with shooting (pathfinders, the new plaguebearers, large units of orks, plague zombies) The point is these close combat units can get in, beat them in combat where their saves are far inferior, and make them run.

Another good use is to make the unit a far bigger threat than they are. You esscentially get into the opponent's head that he has to kill the unit for some reason or another. These units then soak down fire that should be pointed at your more fragile units (raiders, venoms, reavers).

Now while I dont think every list should have a counter assault unit, I feel that without one your missing on a ton of strategic oppotunities that come with the unit. The tactical flexability is too good not to have. Now at 1.5k though I dont think you need it, as you still havent reached critical mass with shooting yet. So as long as you play under 1.5k I think your fine without one

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Now while I dont think every list should have a counter assault unit, I feel that without one your missing on a ton of strategic oppotunities that come with the unit. The tactical flexability is too good not to have. Now at 1.5k though I dont think you need it, as you still havent reached critical mass with shooting yet. So as long as you play under 1.5k I think your fine without one

True, but like you said its gives you options. At 1500 points you still want some combat ability for pushing units off objectives even though it might not come in the form of a dedicated combat/counter assault unit (incubi, beasts) but a unit that can still overwhelm basic troop choices (reavers, wyches with archon).

Mushkilla wrote:

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Now while I dont think every list should have a counter assault unit, I feel that without one your missing on a ton of strategic oppotunities that come with the unit. The tactical flexability is too good not to have. Now at 1.5k though I dont think you need it, as you still havent reached critical mass with shooting yet. So as long as you play under 1.5k I think your fine without one

True, but like you said its gives you options. At 1500 points you still want some combat ability for pushing units off objectives even though it might not come in the form of a dedicated combat/counter assault unit (incubi, beasts) but a unit that can still overwhelm basic troop choices (reavers, wyches with archon).

Hasnt seem to bother you Mr. I No Longer Run Wyches

It's always nice to get that late game assault off and steal an objective from someone.

As Shadows Revenge said, it gives ya more options.

To add to that point, CC units do their work a bit faster than most shooty units so we can gain a bit of a tempo advantage.

Wyches with an Archon or Succubus have been doing pretty well for me lately. Being able to handle vehicles and infantry alike is pretty great. I think our only other unit that comes close are Grotesques and they tend to fold against walkers.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Hasnt seem to bother you Mr. I No Longer Run Wyches

No, but reavers seem to work well enough if I need to clear something out of cover in assault or tie some units up in a pinch.

mug7703 wrote:

I played a game where a GK dreadknight got into my ranks and was butchering stuff in assault. I have a shooting based army with the only real assault squad being a unit of 9 Reavers with champion. Problem is they were the first unit to be assaulted! It made me realise it would be good to have a counter unit to respond to threats. Otherwise keeping everything at range and out shooting them is working well so far.

why in gods name would you assault that? come on we are dark eldar and that is a monstrous creature, load it with poison and watch it fall over.

Meh, unlike most folks, I don't ever leave home without at least 2 squads of Wyches with Haywires

They're just wayyy too multi-purposed for me to ignore. Kite them out with a Hekatrix, VB/BP in every squad, shoot the pistol and throw a grenade before charging often means great results.

I keep my HQ cheap so I can take more troops. At 1750, I only have 1 Blasterborn Venom to most people's surprise!

My 1500 point list that I'm in the process of building has two: a unit of 4 incubi in a dual cannon venom, and 9 wyches with haywire grenades and hekatrix with venom blade in a raider. The idea behind the squad sizes is that ideally the archon goes with the incubi, but I like having the option to put him with the wyches if I think he'll do more damage. Or so I can lob the incubi at something without having to risk Archon Stabby McHuskblade's life/feel the wyches just need that little bit more punch. Incubi are generally for 'hard targets' (terminators etc), wyches are for the softer options (anything up to your basic tactical squad) or if you need a tarpit