First Dark Eldar Army List - 1500pts

Hi all,

I've recently acquired a DE army, and intend to use it in our next game.

This is what I'm thinking so far:

HQ:
Archon – 115
- Venom Blades, Blaster, Haywire Grenades, Shadow Field

Elites:
4 Trueborn – 183
- 4x Blaster
- Venom
- Splinter Cannon, Night Shields

3 Trueborn – 131
- 2x Splinter Cannon
- Venom
- Splinter Cannon, Night Shields, Grisly Trophies

Troops:
10 Warriors – 185
- Blaster
- Raider (DL)
- Night Shields, Splinter Racks

10 Warriors – 185
- Blaster
- Raider (DL)
- Night Shields, Splinter Racks

5 Warriors – 135
- Blaster
- Venom
- Splinter Cannon, Night Shields

5 Warriors – 135
- Blaster
- Venom
- Splinter Cannon, Night Shields

Fast Attack:
3 Reavers – 98
- Heat Lance, Cluster Caltrops

3 Reavers – 98
- Heat Lance, Cluster Caltrops

Heavy Support:
Ravager – 115
- 3x Dark Lance, Night Shield

Ravager – 115
- 3x Dark Lance, Night Shield

The Archon will go with the Blaster Trueborn.

A couple of notes:

1) Aside from a single Flyer, these are all the vehicles I possess, so I can't add an extra Ravager or whatever at the moment.

2) I was unsure what to do with the Reavers (assuming I should include them at all). Should they be in a unit of 6, instead of 2 units of 3?

3) I'm aware that 2 sets of Blaster Trueborn will sometimes be better, but I'm against quite a few armies that don't use too many vehicles, so I want to give one Splinter-cannon squad a try.


So, does this seem like a reasonable list?

The reavers probably should be in a single big group, and also im sure a lot of people would go against some of the vehicle upgrades. The venoms have flickerfield for free, do they need night shields too? If you have nothing else to put points at, keep them though.

As Mngwa said, the Reavers would serve better as a single unit. Also, you generally don't want to mix AT and AI weaponry on them - either drop lances and focus on bladevaning infantry, or drop the caltrops and focus on mech.

You can then use those points to give the 10-man warrior squads a splinter cannon each.

Mngwa wrote:

The reavers probably should be in a single big group, and also im sure a lot of people would go against some of the vehicle upgrades. The venoms have flickerfield for free, do they need night shields too? If you have nothing else to put points at, keep them though.

Ok, I'll merge the Reavers squads.

Out of interest, why is it bad to have Night Shields on Venoms, when they have flickerfields?

Erebus wrote:

As Mngwa said, the Reavers would serve better as a single unit. Also, you generally don't want to mix AT and AI weaponry on them - either drop lances and focus on bladevaning infantry, or drop the caltrops and focus on mech.

Fair enough.

I'd thought that bladevanes would be ok because they don't require the Reavers to shoot (so they can damage infantry incidentally, whilst still using their heat lances against vehicles.

Erebus wrote:

You can then use those points to give the 10-man warrior squads a splinter cannon each.

Very good point.

Since scrapping just one of the cluster caltrops will yield enough points to fund both splinter cannons, do you have any idea what to do with the remaining 20pts if I scrap both?

The Shredder wrote:

I'd thought that bladevanes would be ok because they don't require the Reavers to shoot (so they can damage infantry incidentally, whilst still using their heat lances against vehicles.

The problem is that caltrops are incredibly expensive, so you if you take them, you really want to focus on putting them to use. As they are used when Bladevaning, which can only be used when turbo-boosting, you forgo your shooting to use them, rendering one or other useless, and thus a waste of points.

The Shredder wrote:

Since scrapping just one of the cluster caltrops will yield enough points to fund both splinter cannons, do you have any idea what to do with the remaining 20pts if I scrap both?

With just 20 points, I would consider character upgrades to give the units more staying power when they inevitably take casualties - say a Sybarite for each of the warrior gunboats. Though you may prefer to take an Arena Champion with venom blade on the Reavers, and a Dracon on the Archon's Trueborn to take challenges for him.

What's the reason for giving the Archon HWG? He already has a Blaster for AT, and not only are the Trueborn not really suited for assault, they also lack HWG for themselves. I'd suggest dropping the HWG. Many would also recommend dropping the Grisly Trophies and (most of) the NS - they really eat the points.

Do you have any wyches? For the same price as the small warrior squads, you can take 5 Wyches with HWG, giving you a little more strategic versatility. You already have a fair amount of splinter fire with the gunboats and Venoms, the Wyches would give you better AT than the single Blaster, and are decent in assault, so can tie up infantry better.

Erebus wrote:

The problem is that caltrops are incredibly expensive, so you if you take them, you really want to focus on putting them to use. As they are used when Bladevaning, which can only be used when turbo-boosting, you forgo your shooting to use them, rendering one or other useless, and thus a waste of points.

Ah, for some reason I was thinking that caltrops activated whenever you passed over a unit. Forgot they only work when turbo-boosting.

Erebus wrote:

With just 20 points, I would consider character upgrades to give the units more staying power when they inevitably take casualties - say a Sybarite for each of the warrior gunboats. Though you may prefer to take an Arena Champion with venom blade on the Reavers, and a Dracon on the Archon's Trueborn to take challenges for him.

Fair enough. I'll mess around with a few champion builds then.

Erebus wrote:

What's the reason for giving the Archon HWG? He already has a Blaster for AT, and not only are the Trueborn not really suited for assault, they also lack HWG for themselves. I'd suggest dropping the HWG. Many would also recommend dropping the Grisly Trophies and (most of) the NS - they really eat the points.

I guess I included the HWG on the offchance really.

I wasn't planning for the Archon or his unit to jump into an assault - they just seemed like they might come in handy.

Why drop the Night Shields though? They seem quite useful - especially in light of the new Tau codex.

Erebus wrote:

Do you have any wyches? For the same price as the small warrior squads, you can take 5 Wyches with HWG, giving you a little more strategic versatility. You already have a fair amount of splinter fire with the gunboats and Venoms, the Wyches would give you better AT than the single Blaster, and are decent in assault, so can tie up infantry better.

I do have some wyches, but I'd rather keep my army entirely shooty at the moment. Partially because one of my opponents will be Tau, and any assault units just seem like dead-weight against them.

In regard to Tau, may I direct you to this thread. And this quote in particular seems worth pointing out:

Mushkilla wrote:

RabbitMaster wrote:

That's why night shield are so beautyful

And he's shooting his pulse rifles at your transports when he has 60" range heavy rail rifles why? Not to mention the, mass S7 spam that the tau codex can put out!

Either way trying to outshoot Tau is unwise.

Against Tau, Flickerfields are going to be of more use than Nightshields. I'd recommend seeing what else you can do with those points, and if there really is no better way to improve the list, then keep them.

Erebus wrote:

In regard to Tau, may I direct you to this thread. And this quote in particular seems worth pointing out:

Mushkilla wrote:

RabbitMaster wrote:

That's why night shield are so beautyful

And he's shooting his pulse rifles at your transports when he has 60" range heavy rail rifles why? Not to mention the, mass S7 spam that the tau codex can put out!

Either way trying to outshoot Tau is unwise.

Against Tau, Flickerfields are going to be of more use than Nightshields. I'd recommend seeing what else you can do with those points, and if there really is no better way to improve the list, then keep them.

Fair point, although I'm confused about how you beat tau if you can't out-shoot them? Surely mass-overwatch will prevent you from doing any meaningful damage in assault?

Nightshields are of great use against ANY army. You can stay out of T'au range with them, coz missile pods are 36", burst cannons, fursion blasters have only 18", and plasma rifles are 24". do you fear railguns, when your vehicles can die to bolters?

The Shredder wrote:

Surely mass-overwatch will prevent you from doing any meaningful damage in assault?

In theory, multiple assaults.
A unit still only gets one overwatch per turn, so if they use multiple overwatches all on the same unit, that leave the secondary units open to being assaulted without fear of overwatch. If they don't, then it's no different to any other assault.